Corrosive centralization (March 6, 2016)
Whenever a government provides a service for money — such as a water utility — it has the opportunity to cook the books in ways no private company can. In addition to revenues from water sales, there can be tax monies, developer fees, and other sources of income that give the false appearance that water rates are low, when in fact they may be sky high due to government waste and inefficiency. Want to know what it really costs for municipal water? Good luck finding out. When accountability depends on having a government body investigate itself, citizens are left in the cold.
Aside from the lack of transparency inherent in municipal services, there are more sinister aspects as well.
By hiding the true costs of these services from voters and taxpayers, the politicians and bureaucrats can erect a façade of caring, to gain support from the very persons who are the unwitting marks of the con game. This leads to the victims subsidizing (and re-electing) their ruling class victimizers.
Furthermore, governments demonizing sound business practices on the part of private businesses while creating a halo around their own deceptive and unsustainable leadership, promotes the further growth of government — including the restriction and regulation (if not destruction) of private business — despite the fact that government creates nothing. Once government subsumes the private sector, you no longer have freedom — you have communism.
Not that many decades ago, the state control exemplified in the Soviet Union and Red China were recognized as the enemy of our American way of life. Now, government at every level seems to striving to emulate the communist model.
With each passing day, our freedoms, our privacies, and our securities diminish, while government oppression grows apace. Unfortunately, the bitter lesson of history is that governments never willingly give up power, so eventually the only way back to freedom is through violent upheaval.
To avoid that, we must act now to strip governments of their illicitly-gained powers, and return freedom and responsibility to the people.
— Greg Raven is Co-Chair of Apple Valley Citizens for Government Accountability, and is concerned about quality of life issues.