I pulled the trailer into the campground shortly after eleven that night. Tired and a bit frazzled from four hours of pounding over formerly state maintained washboard asphalt roads, I simply wanted a level campsite in which to park the rig, and some fresh sea breeze flowing through an open window to clear my head. I’m a man of simple needs.
Backing the trailer in the dark presents some interesting challenges, most of which revolve around that not being able to see a thing, thing. First, I got out with the flashlight to check the campsite on foot, hoping to avoid that crunching noise that can accompany backing into the hazards you cannot spot in the mirror. I walked into the campsite and poked my light around the place, looking for logs, rocks, holes, and any outer space debris that might have fallen from the heavens. My landing zone was clear except for one thing. And she was a trifle annoyed with me.
Don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but when you shine your flashlight at animals in your campsite in the dark, they look much larger than they do during the day. Maybe this is an optical illusion. Maybe it’s because you often are much closer to said animal when you surprise em in the dark. Certainly that raccoon or bear always grows when framed by the flashlight. And on this night, the deer that stood up when I hit her with the light looked pretty impressive. And I wasn’t expecting that.
I don’t know if she was asleep or merely ruminating upon something, but when I dropped into her bedroom in the dark, she stood up, eyes wide and ears spread, incensed. I apologized of course, but after a faux pas like that, what can you say? She chose to move her bed, but there was plenty of room for her in the area.
My campsite was nestled comfortably in a California state park. The deer do well there, as does that little rodent no one ever sees, the nearly extinct Aplodontia that live in the sand dunes, and so does the endangered Snowy Plover which nests on the open beach. I do well there, too. I’m pleased that the folks, who once more wisely decided how to distribute my tax dollars, have spent a very few bucks to preserve this place. I’ve enjoyed the park for over thirty years, and I’m going to miss it when the latest bunch closes it down. But we have to cut spending somewhere, and California would much rather sacrifice its natural treasures than disappoint the folks who clamber for more government graft and spending. So the unions and illegals are safe, for now.
This paradise is on the list of state parks due for shutdown next year, because this monumentally mismanaged state of ours has run out of money again. It’s not the fault of the deer, or the Snowy Plover, or the Aplodontia. Heck, it’s not my fault either. I’ve paid my taxes and voted against ridiculous increases in government overspending. I don’t know what more you can ask from a citizen. Now all I can do is complain.
Complaining people recently put their feet down in Wisconsin and Minnesota when their state governments overspent, hoping for the resumption of sanity. Such reasonable thinking has become heresy in this country, where dependence upon government has reduced much of the population to simpering eunuchs, and our media, striving to sway the masses, cries out constantly for higher taxes, more government, and less freedom. But if the citizens don’t act to stop reckless government spending, who will?
Socialism failed again in Europe, and the citizens of Greece abruptly realized that they have been deceived by their rulers. After taking to the streets in desperation, they were crushed by their bosses. Several other governments teeter, hoping they can fake their way just a little longer. History teaches that totalitarian government always follows the failure of socialism, but the siren song of cradle to grave loving care by the government continues to play over and over and over.
I listened to the senior senator from California recently. She is outraged, because her lifelong goal of imposing government control over our citizens is being slowed by those few people in the opposition who don’t want to see our meager two centuries of freedom errased by overreaching government glut. Battle rages in the halls of power, as the spenders wail that the unreasonable opposition won’t let them continue to bankrupt our nation. Our senator whines that we need to raise the debt ceiling again, so that the spending can continue to outpace income. What can be wrong with this, she asks, since we have raised the debt ceiling over 100 times in the recent past? And this, mostly during her tenure in office. In a rational world, such logic would get her arrested, or at least institutionalized. But it is this version of corruption that has gotten her re-elected time and again by the fools and gullible.
Our senator claims that limiting government spending now will impact those poor folks dependent upon Social Security and Medicare, conveniently forgetting that under her watch, her version of government has stolen the funds for those programs for years to fund other nonsense. The thief calls the folks who would reform this outrage the problem. And the media chants its assent.
We cannot stop runaway government without feeling some pain. But if we don’t cut the cancer out of the body now, it will die as the body dies. The senator will take her massive fortune and run, and she will do just fine. The rest of us will protest in the streets helplessly as the armed force closes in around us, and freedom will be a distant memory. And once again, we will have failed to learn from history.
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