What is wrong with our country?

With the recent police killings of unarmed citizens, and many other problems currently facing our country someone asked me "What is wrong with our country?" Here is my response,

I think the problem that we are currently facing is a problem that has faced all people, especially those who live in Democracies and Republics. We have fallen victim to the Tytler Cycle.

The Tyler Cycle if the cycle of people from Tyranny to Freedom and back to Tyranny. When people initially gain their liberty from Tyranny, such as our founding fathers did in the late 1700's they are vigilant in the defense of freedom. Within that free and protected society there is abundance of ideas, products, and the quality of life increases rapidly due to economic and social freedoms. The curse of this abundance is that many people begin to believe that they deserve this prosperity and have a right to it, not that they have to work for it. By this point in the cycle the people who initially fought against Tyranny are long dead and can’t show the people their error. In this state of selfishness the people of a democracy elect in politicians who are selfish. The politicians realize that they can use the public funds to buy voters through "bread and circuses" a.k.a. massive social welfare spending and distraction from the issues facing the nation. The public is made complacent and the politicians begin to use their power for personal gains.

The complacency leads to apathy, the point in the cycle where we are now. With an apathetic society the government is free to gain more and more power. We have seen this with the militarization of police forces, government economic intervention, and the expansion of the government into almost every aspect of our lives. When I say that we are apathetic you most likely find yourself saying “We aren’t apathetic, look at the protests on the streets for Eric Garner and Michael Brown! We care, we are making a difference!”

The issue is that these protests and protesters aren’t going to do anything. The murder of Eric Garner is a side effect of the problems that we actually have in our system. Eric Garner was killed because he was illegally selling cigarettes. Why would anyone want to buy illegal cigarettes, cigarettes are legal? In NYC there are huge taxes leading to the price of cigarettes being over $12 a pack compared to the national average of less than $6 a pack. What does this have to do with what is happening in our country? It has everything to do with our current national situation. The government of the United States and the states need money to fund their ever-growing power over the people. With a federal debt of over $18 trillion dollars and nearly $2 trillion in state debt the government is looking for more and more money to keep feeding the bread and circuses that we have grown accustomed to.

This is where that apathy comes in. The people of the United States are too addicted to the government. As a society we believe that we have a right to things without having to work for them, and that it is the government’s job to provide them for us.

Most people don’t oppose the laws and systems that have been put in place over time that control things that the founding fathers never meant to have controlled by the government. The Constitution of the United States was written for a very specific purpose, it is a warning label. Why is it a warning label? Because governments are dangerous, really dangerous, more dangerous than guns, bombs, and atomic and nuclear weapons. Governments make compliant and apathetic people believe that they have the power to take away your rights with laws “in order to work for the public good.” Law was made by man to serve man, man was not made to serve law. The point of the Bill of Rights specifically was to say " When the government messes with these things, you need to be ready to fight for your freedom again.

The people out protesting on the streets aren’t the people who are actually willing to change the government. Do not get me wrong on this, I have many friends out there with them and they are well intentioned, I believe some of the same things they do. The issue is they are fighting for equality. The majority of people who want to change the government are too misguided. The social justice generation, my generation, the people out protesting, are more interested in the false sense of safety provided by the government and only want to change the surface problems. Where I am from in the US people protest the police, but believe that no one except the army and police should be able to own guns. What America needs is not equality, we need freedom. Freedom enhances equality, equality does not necessarily enhance freedom. The people of the Soviet Union were equal. We need to realize that the only way to change the government is to make them afraid of us. When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.

That is what is wrong with our country.