Well, Let's See ...

The federal government wants to know about my hemorrhoids. They have a need to know about my drinking habits. They want to know if I smoke. They are concerned about the possibility of my drinking a 16-ounce soda pop, or how many happy meals I consume in any given month. They want to restrict religious freedom, and they would dearly love to tax the Internet and therefore impinge upon my right of self-expression. Government also wants to know how I discipline my children, and they want to know how much money I make in order to extort their fair share of the money I earned. Does it ever stop? Is there no such thing as too much government in our lives?

Of course, the answer to this question is “No, there is no such thing as too much government.” It is not enough that government places closed circuit television cameras at intersections to see if I have rolled through a stop, or turned right on red without coming to a full stop. Now, Big Brother wants to install a “black box” inside my automobile to determine speed, acceleration, seat belt use, wheel spin, steering wheel behavior, and direction—and while this may assist insurance companies determine cause and culpability for automobile wrecks (I have never been in a wreck), it is a massive government intrusion of my personal right to privacy.

I also have an E-Pass device in my car. In my state, this allows me to pass through tollbooths without slowing down. The transponder records my passage, and the toll appears on my credit card each month. It is a great convenience if you use toll roads and bridges. It also allows the state police to track me down if they decide I am a person of interest in a crime. Obviously, this last example of too much government was self-inflicted, but while I was led to believe this device allows ease of passage through tollbooths, no one mentioned the tracking capability.

The issue here is not so much the government’s right to investigate serious accidents; it is a matter of trust. How does one trust a government that continually seeks to exercise extraordinary powers over “we the people” who ostensibly believe that WE are the government? For example, what happens when police begin downloading data from the “Event Data Recorder” and then begins issuing tickets by mail because data shows that I was traveling 5 miles over the posted speed limit on four separate occasions in one day? Suppose “law enforcement” did this for a solid month and the cost of each “speeding violation” was $100.00? What if this was not about public safety, but rather a program designed to force me to use a government-funded electrical car, or force me into using mass transportation as opposed to my own vehicle…

I guess my real question is this: Are we going to put up with this abusive behavior for very much longer? If so, then maybe I need to move to a less restrictive country, such as communist China.