A Government of Thieves

Walter Williams, like Thomas Sowell, is one of my favorite economists. He's a direct no-nonsense, straight from the shoulder kind of guy when it comes to cutting to the chase. In his column yesterday which you can read at Investor's Business Daily he asks the rather obvious questions:
Do you believe that it is moral and just for one person to be forcibly used to serve the purposes of another? And, if that person does not peaceably submit to being so used, do you believe that there should be the initiation of some kind of force against him?

He goes on to answer a resounding "No" to each. Somehow we seem to have forgotten that just because the gubment does it, doesn't make it right. Stealing is no less stealing when done by the government. Indeed, done by the government it is the rankest form of tyranny. A citizen has a chance against a brigand. He can possibly defend himself. But against the force of the government the citizen can rarely do more than submit. We have travelled a long way down the path toward tyranny and in steps that individually seem small, but collectively have brought us to this point.

The scary fact as Williams goes on to point out is:
Unfortunately, there is no way out of our immoral quagmire. The reason is that now that the U.S. Congress has established the principle that one American has a right to live at the expense of another American, it no longer pays to be moral.

Williams makes a clear and powerful point. We have long gone over the brink and we are far gone. It is not clear that there is a recovery from this point. Perhaps collapse is all we can look forward to and perhaps in the far future another free state will arise. This one was once a city on a hill, a great hope for freedom. If we work at turning back the tempest, perhaps it can be again.