The term may seem far fetched, but I think that in many ways our growing dependence on the State, is similar to that of a codependent abusive relationship.
Over the years I have had conversations with people who had temporarily escaped abusive relationships. While they all had horrendous stories of violence and humiliation perpetrated against them, nearly all of them still had romantic notions of their time with their abuser. Unfortunately, many of them ended up back with the same abusive person. They would all say something like, “I like being cared for,” or “I always knew where I stood.” In a very real way, they were saying that for a level of comfort and relative stability, they would tolerate the other “stuff.”
How does this pertain to citizenship? In many of our lifetimes,
as the scope of the States has grown, there have been incremental retreats of freedoms. In my lifetime, I’ve seen increases in punitive seat belt laws and parental rights slowly being eroded. As a young teenager, I lived in a very small town in northwestern Utah. It was very common for kids in our town to jump in the back of a neighbors pickup truck and ride to the next town (often with a dog and various loose tools). Kids riding in the bed of a truck is now is rarely seen and would be potentially a criminal offense (as would the dog riding back there). That is one example of my point however, that would come from what happened to one of our neighbors. One father was heading out into the nearby desert with his oldest son in the back. While they were on their way, something flew up and hit the young son in the eye. The damage to the young boy’s eye was extensive and to correct was a great expense to the family. The subsequent surgeries were painful and took several months to complete. Still the family handled the situation and a year or so later the family was, more or less, living as they had before the accident.
Had that incident happened today, the hospital would have investigated the family, the father may have been charged with neglect and the family’s life would have possibly been changed irreparably. In this same town a group of young and rambunctious teenagers (no not me) enjoyed pipe bombing local mail boxes. I know, this isn’t a healthy past time, but bare with me. The young pipe bombers were arrested and charged. Here is the kicker, they were released to their parents and were punished by their fathers. Had this happened today, the pipe bombers would have been put on a watch list, they would have most likely made every cable news channel, and the teen boy’s lives would have possibly been damaged for decades.
So why do we put up with this erosion of the ability to occasionally have non-life damaging screw ups. Too many citizens say to those in power “take care of me,” or “I need to know where I stand.” How do citizens say this? When a new tragedy hits the news there is the inevitable call of a horde of people asking for their respective elected officials to “do something.” And “something” is always done. If you then add that many citizens are “cared for” by some governing agency, the similarities between domestic abuse and citizen abuse are very close. It wouldn’t seem odd for an elected official to say, “where would you be without me?” Many mental health professionals have explained those who stay in abusive relationships as having an addiction. The same can be said of many citizens who relish the more protective and encroaching laws that come their way.
If you are a smoker, your tobacco products are increasing in price that outpaces inflation at a stifling rate. You also have to find a place to smoke, and those places are fewer and fewer. So your not a smoker, what difference does it make? Plus fewer smokers means that “I don’t have to smell it,” and smoking is an Unhealthy habit…right? Well, Wendell Willkie once said, “whenever we take away the liberties of those we hate, we are opening the way to loss of liberty for those we love." When a society is “cared for,” like being protected from smelling someone’s cigarette smoke, it should come as no surprise that there are those in the executive branch who would mandate salt content. The “obesity epidemic” can be addressed one of several ways, but the prevailing wisdom is to give people fewer choices of fattening foods. The ability to choose, even those things which are deemed bad for us but we may enjoy, is being taken away. This is much like an abuser making choices for the abused.
I am not attempting to minimize domestic abuse which is purely inexcusable. I am however raising the point of the serious erosion of citizens having the right to screw up, without having the lives of themselves and their families irreparably damaged. Just as those in abusive relationships should say, “enough,” and stand for their own determination, I would urge more and more citizens to say, and do, the same thing.
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