The Aldrich Alert Gary Aldrich
A Publication of the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty

Don’t Ask For More!

March 31, 2001

by Gary Aldrich - Volume 2, Issue 17

This article appeared on WorldNetDaily.com on Thursday, March 28, 2002.

I believe the time has come to insist that public officials put every law they propose through a common-sense filter before they do any more damage to our present and future liberties.

Federal and state governments are rushing through legislation they say is designed to combat terrorism. Others say they are misusing their powers to hide the fact that they have failed us miserably.

New laws will not provide the safety we need and so richly deserve. But common sense will.

Frankly, I’m becoming concerned with the public statements made by some state officials concerning these new laws. One Maryland state delegate recently said, "I realize that this bill basically says you can tap someone’s phone for jaywalking, and normally I would say, ’No way,’ but after what happened on September 11, I say, ’Screw ’em.’"

No, Ms. State of Maryland Delegate, we won’t let you do this! We won’t let you take away any more of our freedoms – or get any more of our money – because you insist on being politically correct.

We have sent people like this arrogant, ignorant woman enormous sums of money and granted them amazing powers to protect us, and they have failed us. We have granted them state-of-the-art hardware and software to help them do their work, and they have let us down terribly.

They’ve told us – year after year – that they need many new employees and many new federal and state office buildings that cost more money. So, we sent them the money. They said they would hire the best people, but they told us they would decide who the "best" people are based on some politically correct social experiment. In the name of civility, and out of a sense of fairness, we let them do it, even though we knew it was a mistake to abandon the concept of excellence.

Over the years, and in spite of the failures, they’ve consistently ignored corporate models of success in favor of politically correct goals, and they’ve warned us – upon penalty of law – that a meritocracy was bad for America, and they would not permit achievement to be the deciding factor. We’ve allowed them to get away with a most dangerous fiction – all in the name of civil peace.

They’ve filled up ever-enlarging federal and state agencies with mediocre people who are rude to us and make huge mistakes – if they show up for work – and we turn our backs for fear that if we do not permit unacceptable conduct, some angry, revengeful mob will come to our cities and homes … I don’t know, beat us up or rob us.

They’ve blamed machines to cover their colossal mistakes saying there is a "glitch."

They’ve told us that even though we sent them more money and bought and paid for the best new equipment and spent billions on special software, hiring more and more people, somehow they’ve ended up with useless, antiquated computer systems. How is this possible?

We possess in our simple homes the latest technology. Why is it that the federal government, with so much of our money, has hired so many employees working in so many big, palatial office buildings, but have had so many computer glitches caused by so many obsolete computers? Have they carelessly dropped their laptops on the marble floors of their spacious, opulently decorated offices? Perhaps they were momentarily blinded by a glare from the bubbling fountain just outside their satin-draped window?

They continue to lie to us – even today, after all that has happened – and tell us they had the brightest experts working on the problems. They’ve also had studies and hearings and commissions and meetings and talked and talked and talked …

Meanwhile, in 50 percent of our households, and in all of corporate America, Joe Six-pack and Suzi-Q blast along on the Internet, running circles around the government systems, and sometimes hack into them just for fun.

My 12-year-old daughter has a better computer system in her bedroom than the average FBI unit, and I’d venture to say she knows more about how to use it than your average FBI agent.

But as the nice, naive, too-forgiving population that we have become, we allow this idiocy to continue. We’ve been too patient.

When we ask these self-important government officials why there are so many problems, so many mistakes, they say they don’t know. We accept their non-answer, and we move on. We spend less and less of our money on our own children and compliantly send the government more of our hard-earned dollars. They’ve returned the favor by giving us less and less quality and more and more trouble. Is there any doubt that it all came to a head on September 11, 2001?

People died because we have become accepting of mediocrity caused by political correctness – and this once mighty government of ours has become a parody of what the founding fathers intended. It’s so big, so expensive, and so intrusive that it has now reached a point where many believe its out-of-control growth constitutes a significant danger to our way of life.

And yet our bureaucrats cry, "Give us more, give us more!"

The government no longer seems able to protect us – it has forgotten how, and its many conflicting laws, strung all over itself like some Lilliputianesque web, prevents it from doing what must be done. So, it does the only thing it knows how to do – it takes away more of our liberties and more of our money. Meanwhile, we wait for New York City or Washington, D.C., to become a smoking, radioactive ruin.

And yet, as a great people, we patiently wait for the day when we will cut the petty strings that bind us to inaction, woven by small-minded, self-indulgent tyrants, living off the public largesse.

They say it will take many more lost freedoms to get what we have already bought and paid for. Thank you for your blood, toil, sweat and tears, but no, you may not have a refund. No money back, nobody fired, nobody even accused. It’s government business as usual, post 9-11.

We prove to these "public servants" over and over again that we love our country, our children and each other. We assure them that we would forgive their enormous mistakes – if only they would protect us like it says they should do in the Constitution. Yet, somehow they do not possess the courage to do what must be done.

We insist that we especially love our Bill of Rights, and we want to keep the liberties afforded us there. We remind them that those guarantees make us the great people that we are. In return, these benefit-laden cynics glare and sneer at us, ignore us, and take away more freedoms. They even pass new laws to silence us. They accuse us of being "anti-government" when all we really are is pro-excellence.

And then, like the gentlewoman from Maryland, some of them even swear at us.

To her, and all the other arrogant bureaucrats everywhere who have become fat, lazy, stupid and rude on our money and on all the powers we have granted them – and have the right to take away – let us say loud and clear, "Do not ask for more!"

No more of our money, no more of our liberties, and no more excuses for you!

Work with what we have already given you, and work as if your lives – and our lives – depend on it, because our lives really do depend on what you do in the next few months.

But, if you insist on maintaining the politically correct direction that has been so destructive to this country, sooner or later many more of us will be killed – probably sooner.