McManigal: Government 'help' solves nothing

If you want something done, do it without forcing your will on anyone else, and without forcing others to pay for what you want.

Good ideas don’t require force.

Kent McManigal

After the recent SpaceX rocket explosion, I saw someone arguing that this was why space exploration should be left to governments, thus financed with taxation. After all, the apparent cause of the blast was something NASA solved 50 years ago.

While this may be true, you’ll also notice tax-financed space exploration stagnated decades ago. Long before commercial rockets became a reality.

If you want space exploration to get anywhere, you need people trying new things and taking new risks; innovating, not just copying solutions found long ago.

Even when government does innovate it’s as likely to make things worse as to make them better.

Government got involved and started regulating and de facto rationing health care over a century ago. This increased the cost of health care, which caused some to demand government “do something.”

Government did, and now we have ObamaCare regulating and rationing health care even further. When people start feeling the failure, some will scream for government to do even more, and the situation will accelerate toward a total collapse.

This belief, that government should get involved anytime someone sees a problem, creates even bigger problems — ones more meddling can’t solve.

Government, if it is to exist at all, must stay within its limits. If it isn’t specifically spelled out in the Constitution as something government is allowed to do, then it is a crime for government to do it, regardless of how many believe it’s a good idea.

A more permissive view would still limit government to protecting the life, liberty, and property of those who consent to its control. Government meddling does none of those.

Government shouldn’t be allowed to interfere with space exploration, health care, education, travel, or even something as simple as pets.

When people decided government needed to “do something” about pets we ended up with animal control ordinances and animal shelters. For government extremists it wasn’t good enough to let private individuals approach the problem — if there were a problem. Force was used, and this coercive system is failing again.

Governments don’t understand economics. When you raise the price of anything, especially if you charge for mandatory features people may not want, you reduce the demand for it. Yet they seem surprised at the decrease in the number of adoptions.

There are always consequences for letting government meddle. Government breaks everything it touches.

Farwell’s Kent McManigal champions liberty. Contact him at:

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