Government failing at its only job

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for October 8, 2025)

Much of the conflict over government stems from different ideas about what its job is— or should be.

If we strip away all the nonsense and propaganda- all the excuses- there's only one justification for government that holds water; it's there to protect the life, liberty, and property- the fundamental human rights- of the people forced to live with it. A job it seems unwilling or unable to do. Anything else it does is a direct betrayal of this purpose.

So much for the notion of a "night watchman" government.

If government were capable of fulfilling this purpose, it might be worthwhile to keep one around. Since government is the main problem we are likely to encounter in our daily lives, it's not worth the expense or the risk. Government is the wolf at the door, demanding you let it in so it can protect you from wolves.

So-called "safety net" programs- welfare, subsidies, and other handouts- are often sold as government's duty, but it's a trick. Every cent funneled through these schemes must first be stolen from the rightful owners through taxation. If government's job is to protect property, picking your pocket to hand the loot to me is a contradiction. You can't protect property by stealing property. You can't protect rights by violating rights.

No one needs bureaucrats taking their money and then deciding who to give it to. Charity is better at filling real needs while correcting for mistakes or scams. Stealing money through taxation, then giving it away (even if they aren't trying to buy votes with it) isn't generosity. It doesn't make for a kinder society. It breeds dependence and resentment, and it undermines the foundations of society. If there were any such thing as a "social contract", this would break it.

If you assume people can't run their own lives, and treat them as if they can't, they'll prove you right. If you try to remove the cost of being irresponsible, no one has any incentive to be responsible. If you insist on governing them, they'll never learn to govern themselves.

If government is to be tolerated, it must stick to its job of protecting your rights. Not violating you in the name of what someone pretends is a right. Not being a nightmarish nanny or a parallel universe Robin Hood who steals from the people to give to the state.

It can't do this, so why put up with it?

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Truth in labeling

I recently watched the movie Soylent Green. It was made in 1973 (“based on” a 1966 novel) and set in 2022.

The movie was not nearly as shocking as I'd been made to think it would be. Which doesn't say good things about how dystopian the world has been turning since the early '70s, or how callous I may be.

It seems to me that the core problem in the movie is a truth-in-labeling issue. Turning a massive glut of corpses into food seems a good use of resources (protein) under the fictional overpopulation scenario depicted in the movie. 

I can't imagine that the people of that world- seeing what they have become accustomed to tolerating- would really have that big an issue eating the processed remains of their fellow humans. 

Maybe Thorn was acting like it was a big deal, but no one else cared. That is where the movie ended, after all. He screamed the truth, the cameras shut off, and people shrugged and went on about their miserable lives, with bigger problems to worry about.

Come to think of it, that feels like the response to most uncomfortable truths about government and lost liberty that I feel people should care about.

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