Missing Uncle Much?

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Do you miss the government much?

It’s going on a month now since the “shutdown” of “nonessential” government services began and – from what I can tell – this has only confirmed just how non-essential these “services” are.

I put “services” in quotes to emphasis a point, which is that a service – legitimately defined – is defined by one’s willingness to pay for it.

Otherwise, it is a mulcting, extortion – theft.

Whether the thief gives you something you didn’t want in return in no way changes the fact that a mulcting, a theft, has occurred. Imagine a street mugger who – after having relieved you of your wallet – hands you the remainder of the sandwich he was eating as he backs away from you out of the alley. 

A better analogy is the Squeegee Man. He also provides a “service” you didn’t ask for – but are under duress to pay for, the duress being the implied threat to your car’s paint job and perhaps to yourself as well if you fail to pay up.

If the Squeegee Man disappeared, we’d all be happy – and even better, no one would still be paying for his “services.”

The government continues to mulct and extort, of course. That very essential function continues unabated.

What hasn’t continued is the providing of some of the (heavy cough) “services” the government provides in exchange for the money it mulcts from us – and which millions of us don’t miss in the slightest.

This seems like an uneven deal.

We are forced to pay not only for “services” many of us never asked for and don’t want or use but now aren’t even getting those “services.”

This is like being made to make payments on a car you don’t drive.

You don’t miss the car – hell, you never even sat in the damned thing –  but you definitely miss the cash taken to make the payments on it.

Given that – by the government’s own admission – these “services” are not “essential” (and many of them – like for a instance marriage licenses and passports – are only “essential” because the filthy government makes them so) why not put them on a pay as you go basis? If you desire a given “service,” you pay the going rate for it – just as people who want cable TV pay the fee.

But people who don’t want cable aren’t (yet) forced to pay the monthly bill for those who do.

Why shouldn’t the same reasoning apply to government “services,” especially in view of the fact that they are defined by the government as “non-essential”?

If the government is going to deprive anyone of their liberty – which is  done whenever anyone is deprived of their property – then surely it ought to be only for essential reasons?

In fact, it’s not the “services” we’re being mulcted for.

We are mulcted to pay for the salaries of legions of government make-workers, who are now howling about not being paid. These make-workers (I use the term to describe anyone engaged in an activity others aren’t willing to pay for but are instead forced to pay for) are afflicted by a disease of the brain which leads the sufferer to believe he has the right to use force to compel other people to pay his salary.

The “work” he does is the mental trick used to assuage whatever vestigial guilt may pain him over being a thief; it is the means by which he convinces himself he is something other than a thief.

After all, he is providing a “service,” not merely collecting a check paid by people forced to hand over their money for his benefit.

But he is a Squeegee Man, nonetheless. I wish he’d take his greasy rag and bottle of Windex and just leave me alone. I wish him no ill – I just wish I didn’t have to pay him.

The same goes for the millions of government make-workers currently kvetching about not being being paid to not make-work. They are non-essential.  How many businesses, lacking the ability to force people to pay for their services, have non-essential employees?

Electricity, for instance, is pretty damned essential.

I freely and even happily pay for that service.

It is well worth the exchange of say $70 each month to be able to turn on the lights at night – and so I do pay, without anyone sending me threatening letters, followed up by threatening men.

Government “services,” on the other hand . . .

I don’t miss them much at all. But I’m still being forced to pay for them anyhow.

And so are you.

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