by Single Farmer, Survival Blog:
(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.)
Some of the erroneous assumptions and operating principles that Western governments of today have been utilizing in their social planning schemes are these six stupid ideas:
1. The stupid idea that people and institutions can become perfect. The perfectibility of institutions and people is contrary to all natural law and historical precedent. People are imperfect by their nature and institutions which are composed of people are imperfect.
2. The stupid idea that economic output is everything which can be expressed as a regularly reported number which can be measured, and the number should always be going up. In 1968 at a speech at the University of Kansas, Senator Robert F. Kennedy said:
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“The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not
Back in 1968, this number was 800 billion and now it is 32 trillion. Are we 40 times better off or was that time better even though we were poorer on paper as a nation? I was not around then, but in interviewing people who were, it was a much better time to grow up if you were young except for “Vietnam” casting a shadow over your youth.
Because families are impacted through governmental interventions in the economy, this will be covered in a future article discussing how families can increase their individual self-reliance. RFK was absolutely correct in that increased economic output does not mean that your life or the nation’s life is getting better. If you bake bread at home, you will not increase the GDP, but it will be likely healthier, better tasting, and less expensive. A self-sufficient American does not lead to an increase in the GDP, but an utterly dependent American does.
3. The stupid idea that voting should be opened to every living breathing adult preferably by mail to avoid the inconvenience of voting in person.
Historically voting in the United States was seen as an example where free men decided the future course of the country. In 1845, voting in the United States for federal elections was declared from that point forward to be on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November as Election Day. We did not have an election week or election season, but it was one single day where people would travel especially in rural areas to their county seat and make their choices known through their votes. One of the biggest failures of today is many people are no longer part of any type of communities in most parts of the country. Out in rural areas including in Kansas, we still have community. Voting is something people do and is a social occasion. You can recognize the vehicles (trucks) of people when they are voting at our local polling place.
Voting is historically an in-person event with very few exceptions. If the Founding Fathers would have intended for people in most circumstances to vote by mail, they could have easily written it into the section on elections in the Constitution because Benjamin Franklin had been working with mail delivery since 1737 until being appointed the first Postmaster General for the American colonies in 1775. Massachusetts allowed mail in voting in the 1600s if your home was vulnerable to Indian attack or in the 1770s if you were serving in the Continental Army, but very few votes should ultimately be delivered through the mail. By transitioning the country to having mail in votes, civic duty has collapsed and the regard for the process is dropping precipitously with growing numbers of people doubting the process as one side often seems to pull ahead in the days and weeks of counting. For most of the history of the United States, votes were counted on election night and quickly reported. Mail in ballots just make it easier for potential shenanigans to occur with many countries banning the practice.
