Quote from rew:
But that has nothing to do with the government ensuring our rights. The debt is because the federal government insists upon doing all sorts of things it was never supposed to do, such as policing the world and providing expensive entitlement programs. It costs government nothing to let you speak freely, peaceably assemble, practice your religion, own your guns, print what you want, or be free from unreasonable warrantless searches. Indeed it costs lots of money for the government to *violate* these rights, as when it wastes our money on the TSA gestapo.
It costs nothing to speak freely or print what you want? So, you think that legal terms like slander, defamation of character, incitement to riot, and the newest -- cyberbullying all just popped out of thin air at zero cost?
Peaceful assembly? Guess you missed that viral video of those girls being maced by the police in NYC a few weeks ago.
Own guns? Really? Never mind automatic weapons, in some places it's near impossible to own a hand gun today.
Free from unreasonable warrant-less searches? You need to check up on the 24/7 wiretaps and the growing ability of police to search the contents of your cellphone -- both without a warrant.
Sorry, but you've got it completely backwards. The government spends a lot of
our money to put laws on the books that limit
our rights.
There are over 4,000 of them today and there are no signs of them stopping from adding more anytime soon.
If anything good comes from the current mess is that we finally get to put boundaries on the Congress in how much and how often they can spend our money.
IMHO, any topic anyone cares to bitch about can ultimately be solved by limiting government spending.
