Caveat Emptor
It’s an age-old warning: let the buyer beware.
There ARE people (and businesses) who will try to cheat you or deliver far less value than what you expect. It is YOUR responsibility as a buyer to examine all aspects of “the deal” before consummating it. But it applies not just to business dealings, it applies in all areas of our lives.
There are some people who think it is the government’s job to keep you from being cheated. It is a misguided notion. It is NOT POSSIBLE for the government to protect you from predators. The government can pass laws to make certain practices illegal. The government can prosecute those who are found to have broken those laws. The government can mete out some punishment for convicted lawbreakers. The government can warn you about the possibility of some illegal act being perpetrated. The government can establish some barriers that make it harder for people to break the laws.
But, no matter what it does, the government cannot absolutely prevent someone from breaking the law. So, WE must take some responsibility in the way we live our lives, the activities we get involved in, the people we associate with, and the situations we expose ourselves to.
Even if WE are diligent about protecting ourselves, WE cannot prevent some bad things from happening to us. But WE have much more control than most people seem to think… because most of US are self-reliant, responsible, THINKING citizens who hold ourselves accountable for our actions.
There is a portion of our population who do not want to be responsible for themselves, who accept no responsibility for their actions, who look outward to place blame on the bad things that happen to them, and who rely on the government to “take care of” them. Apparently, these people WANT the government to make decisions for them and are willing to give up some of their freedom in the process. They proactively take a step toward enslaving themselves.
If that’s as far as it went, I’d say: let the fools have what they want!
But people who want the government to have more and more control want it to have more control just over them… they want it to have more control over you and me, too! THEY think they know better and want to sacrifice not only their own freedom, but OURS as well. So, the fools want to jump off a steep cliff… and grasp onto the rest of us while doing so. They want to take us with them!!
ANY time we hear about some faction wanting the government to have more control, WE must LOUDLY PROTEST… or we will soon find the advocates have lost a bit of their liberty… and WE have, too.
