The Government or the Mafia?

I recently read a statement by Lysander Spooner detailing how the government was less respectable than a common highwayman. Spooner wrote about that in the 1800s, but I think the more apt comparison for this day and age would be the mafia.

The mafia started up by taking money for protection. Of course they never completely explained what that protection was from. Though we can guess. Some of that protection was from the mafia itself, just ask the shopkeepers who thought they didn’t have to pay.

If you were very good to the mafia, and a problem arose, there was a good chance the mafia boss might take care of the problem for you. Don’t ask how, you May not want to know. (Makes me wonder what the statistics would say about how many child molesters resided in mafia territory. I bet not many unless they were extremely good at hiding.)

Our government takes money for protection as well. Of course they term protection money as taxes and fees. Just like the mafia, our government continually raises those taxes though. You can only count on the tax rate for one year at a time. Never know just what congress might want this time.

Don’t forget to make your tax contributions! You don’t even want to know what the IRS might do to you and your family if you don’t!

What is the government protecting us from? That is a subject of much debate. They seem only to truly want to protect us from ourselves. Wear your seat-belt. Wear your motorcycle helmet. No drinking until you are 21. Can’t get antibiotics unless you pay a licensed practitioner to write you a prescription. Last I checked the government wasn’t supposed to be my mother!

Is the government protecting us from that which is actually endangering us? How about the plethora of sexual predators that roam the streets, and live in our neighborhoods? How about from all those gang bangers that I hear about on the news every day, making me scared to go into certain neighborhoods? How about from terrorists? They say they are, but isn’t it just luck that we haven’t been hit again. Just look how many people freely cross our borders with nothing stopping them.

As a nation, we have romanticized the horrible. Look how loved pirates, serial murders and the mafia is. Is it any wonder that this happens when our government seems no better?