Government—The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

In my recent article On Government, I focused on the thoughts of various historic men and women who had something interesting to say about government. In this article, my intent is to add context as I view the reality of modern government. I use the term “modern government” only because in 2025 technology gives tools previously unseen by governments of the past. The basics are the same from the very first government to modern government, but over time the impact on people has changed because of the change in the tools available to government.

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson eloquently stated the idealistic dream those 56 old White men had when they signed the Declaration of Independence. That dream lasted through the Revolutionary War and then the dream fell apart with the ratification of the United States Constitution, the founding of the United States government. WHAT? The original Constitution expressed care and happiness for only a portion of the humans who lived and worked in the United States of America. Even with the ratification of the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments), the care and happiness of Black people in America was ignored. In those times and for the next 200 years, all men were not treated as if they were “created equal.”

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” ~ Preamble to the United States Constitution

Please don’t misunderstand me. Although not perfect, the United States Constitution and the United States government are the best attempts in human history at governing to maximizing human liberty and did, in fact, “form a more perfect Union” than has ever existed on the planet. Sadly, the fly in the ointment of human liberty and “good government” is the weakness and foibles of human beings.

Too often government is viewed as a thing, but government is not a thing. Government is collection of people, some crowned, some elected, some appointed, some hired, and some who simply seized a government position. How the people in government behave is largely dependent on how they ended up where they were. Currently, the United States government has 537 elected officials and 2.9 million people employed who were appointed or hired. In addition to that, there are over 500,000 state and local elected officials and nearly 20 million state and local government employees in America.

“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” ~ Ronald Reagan

I served the federal government for 32 years, eight of which was in the military. During my civil service time, I watched my agency grow by 25%. Although I intended not to turn into a bureaucrat, I ultimately participated in the expansion of my agency to serve getting a bigger paycheck for myself. In spite of that, I did recognize that as my agency grew, efficiency declined. I now recognize that my agency was probably already too big when I first hired on.

"In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another." ~ Voltaire

“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” ~ George Washington

The bottom line is that the purpose of government is to maintain a certain amount of control over the population. As bad as that might first sound, only in a perfect world would that not be necessary. Human beings being human beings, as a society we do not behave as God intended. As the Founding Fathers noted 250 years ago, for our republic to work as designed it depends on “a moral and religious people.” For 200 years, the system worked reasonably well, generally because America had morals and religion as a foundation for interpersonal relationships and government “control” was minimal. In the last 50 years, not so much. As religion has declined, morals have also declined, and now self-control has declined.

America has entered a cultural climate of every-man for himself, and Devil take the hind-most. That is not a good formula for a free people to remain free. Selfish Americans need to step back and take a more global view of our country. If we as a liberty-loving society wish to remain so, we must change the trajectory we have been on for the last 25 years.

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage” ~ Tytler’s Cycle of Civilizations

"Dependence leads to subservience." ~ Thomas Jefferson

"In the general course of human nature, a power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will." ~ Alexander Hamilton

Many feel that America has been following the Tytler pattern since America’s 200^th birthday. Since President Johnson and Congress inflicted “The Great Society” on America, the Democrat Party, with a complicit and feckless Republican Party, has been trying to increase people’s dependence on the federal government. Jefferson and Hamilton nailed it, and America is sleepwalking into what I call modern slavery.

In 2025, I believe America is firmly established in the apathy stage of Tytler’s cycle, proven by the election of communist mayors in New York and Seattle. If the communistic Democrats ever regain control of Congress and the White House, America will return to the bondage our Founding Fathers broke us out of 250 years ago. The last two Democrat administrations graphically demonstrated that they have no regard for the United States Constitution and the limitations therein.