A large government is inherently anti-poor, anti-black, anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-woman, and anti-white. In fact, big government is so anti-everybody that we might as well slap big giant BIGOT signs on most (not all) of our government buildings that represent our vast bureaucracies all over Washington, DC.
So, you think this is an outrageous claim, do you? Let me go down the list and explain to you why it’s not.
Anti-Poor
One of the reasons why governments grow and expand and get really big is because they create social welfare programs, which need vast bureaucracies to run these programs, which cause the size of government to explode, and when these programs are first created, they are pushed by politicians as being needed to fight the “war on poverty,” which insinuates that the whole purpose behind such programs is to help reduce, or even eliminate, poverty in the country.
So, here in the United States, these programs have been in place since the 1960’s, that is, for more than half a century, which means that if these social welfare programs were really about eradicating poverty, we should have seen a significant drop in poverty rates in our country. But is that what we see?
Absolutely not! From the time our social welfare programs were put in place in the early 1960’s to the time Reagan became president in 1980, the latent poverty rate in the country increased by 22 percent. Why? The best way to help people personally get out of poverty is to teach them the ropes, that is, the things they need to do to get out of poverty – things like being disciplined enough to go to work each day even when they don’t feel like it, managing their finances properly, having a healthy marriage relationship, and staying out of trouble.
Our social welfare programs don’t do any of that – what they do is make it look attractive to not work and just sit there and “suck the government’s nipple.” Because these programs look attractive, more and more people became dependent on them over time, causing the rise in our latent poverty. And all these people stay chronically dependent on the government.
Then the government writes these people off in their statistical manuals as poor, and then turns around and tells the public that we need these programs to “help the poor” and “to show compassion,” even though there’s nothing about these programs that help the poor get out of poverty and into a place of prosperity, and all they do is keep people chronically poor, and increase the percentage of the population that is statistically defined as poor over time.
From this standpoint, big government isn’t about helping the poor, but only about keeping them that way. Besides, many of these welfare dependents want to stay chronically locked into these programs, and don’t want to be responsible for their own lives, so they keep voting for those politicians that want bigger government, and those politicians like it, because it keeps them in power. In other words, those social welfare programs that cause the government to balloon in size are really about keeping some politicians in power rather than actually helping the poor.
But wait, it doesn’t stop there. It gets worse. Waaaaay worse.
Anti-Black
About those social welfare programs that don’t actually help people get out of the poor-box, but actually keep those people chronically poor – I’ve got two questions for you: first, who do you think gets hurt the worst by these programs, and, secondly, what group of people, more than any other, is encouraged to become dependent on these programs? Answer to both questions: the blacks.
Because of this, a higher percentage of black people are dependent on these programs that keep them chronically poor. So big government, in the form of social welfare programs, are, in the end, not only anti-poor, but anti-black, because black people, African Americans, get hurt the most by these programs.
But wait, there’s more. Like I’ve said before, government then writes off all these welfare dependents as poor in their statistical manuals, and because a higher percentage of black people take advantage of these programs, a higher percentage of black people appear poor than the percentage of other racial groups that appear poor.
So then the left-leaning politicians who push these programs on black people by calling them “entitlements,” then turn around and claim that the disparity in the poverty rates between blacks and others is proof that racism is alive and well and “just as bad as it’s ever been.”
The truth of the matter, though, is that traditional forms of racism are at an all-time low, which means that black people have more of a chance to succeed and to have a better life now more than they ever have before. I don’t know about you, but if I was black, I would want to know that things are looking up for me. But that’s not what the political left does – the same politicians that want big government are the same politicians that are heavily invested in the racism narrative and need black people to keep thinking racism is alive and well in order to keep getting their vote. And these social welfare programs are about keeping this disparity in place to keep pushing that false narrative while simultaneously working to keep black people down. Hence, big government is anti-black.
Anti-Immigrant
Question: Why do people leave their old lives behind in whatever country they came from in order to come here? Why not just stay where they are? The answer is quite simple – they came here for a better life. The expectation is that the social and economic environment will be better here, and that environment will allow them to have that better life they so deeply want.
So, where does big government come into the picture? And why do I say that big government is anti-immigrant?
So big-government advocates are always trying to find ways to make the government bigger. As they make it bigger, it costs more money to operate, which means taxes have to be raised, ever higher, to pay for the ever-increasing size of our government. This ever-increasing tax burden, like I made clear in my article “Big Government Hinders Economic Growth and Blocks Widespread Prosperity: The Backpack Analogy,” puts more and more burden on the economy, particularly the private, wealth-creating portion of it that supports the public sector, which is the government.
By increasing the size of government, and increasingly burdening the private sector, it lessens the ability of the economy to bring a better life to new people who are introduced into the economy, that is, the immigrants. We’re taking away the very reason why they come here in the first place.
If we really want a country that supports our immigrants, gives them a better life, and is pro-immigrant, then we need to have the kind of environment that maximizes their ability to succeed and have a better life, the very reason why they came here, leaving their home country behind, in the first place.
Yes, big governments can create policies that require, by law, that businesses hire lots of immigrants, and can then turn around and say that this policy makes them pro-immigrant, but it still doesn’t take away the burden the big government puts on the private sector, or the fact that it’s hindering economic growth, more widespread prosperity, and a better life for immigrants, as well as to all other Americans.
The fact that big government works against the very reasons why immigrants come here means that big government, in reality, is anti-immigrant.
Anti-Minority and Anti-White
For our nation to function properly, and for all people to thrive and prosper, and have a high level freedom, there has to be a good deal of social stability, and in order for this to happen in a highly diverse and pluralistic nation such as our own, people need to learn to accept and tolerate each other and get along, despite the fact that diversity, by definition, means widespread disagreement about basically everything. I talk more about what tolerance really is in my article “What is Tolerance?”
This kind of social environment is one that allows minorities to be treated with the same rights, and have the same access to jobs, well-being, and upward economic mobility as the majority. It also means that we, as a society, need to be more unified, and work better as a cohesive whole, where everyone treats each other equally.
Big-government politicians don’t do this and don’t like this. They need hostility and vilification to thrive throughout society to maintain their power. They need a society that is factionalized and divided – one faction against another faction. They create a false narrative that convinces one of those factions that the other faction is out to get them, that they are evil, and must be stopped at all costs, and in order to stop them and be saved from that other faction, voters need to keep voting for those same politicians that claim they will be their saviors.
Now pay attention to who are in these two factions that are being put at odds with each other – minority groups vs. the whites. These big-government politicians are always trying to put minorities at odds with the whites. The end result is that there is increasing hostility from the minorities towards whites, because these minorities are constantly being fed a false narrative stream that says, “You better be careful, because all whites are out to get you and hurt you and keep you down. Keep voting for us because we’ll protect you from those dastardly white people, who are all racist!” This false narrative, over time, causes minorities to develop increasing hostility, and even hatred, towards white people, while continuing to vote back in office the same politicians who push this hate and hostility, and thus rewarding those politicians, motivating them to keep up this false narrative.
In the meantime, white people, who see this increasing hostility from minorities, can feel the unease and hostility and hatred emanating and seething from those minorities, and increasingly distance themselves from them.
From the white-person perspective, they keep hearing these politicians say disparaging things about white people, which makes them distance themselves from those minorities who act hostile and the politicians who spread these non-truths. Those same said politicians use this act of distancing by white people to “validate” their claims that all white people are out to get those minorities, and use it to their advantage to further increase hostilities and get those minorities to continue voting for them.
Now, if we’re to be honest, we’d have to admit that all of this works against the minorities. It keeps certain doors from opening, and distances them from those who can help bring more prosperity to themselves, and can help make their lives better. This hostility brings us ever closer to social breakdown and civil unrest, which causes pain and suffering, and who will get hurt the worst when that happens? The minorities.
Of course, this only scratches the surface of how big government is anti-minority and anti-white.
Remember how I said earlier that these social welfare programs don’t actually work, but hurt the people they claim they help? Remember how I said these programs hurt black people the most? Well, they hurt other minorities the second-most. Just like black people get lured into these government “bait-and-trap” programs, which causes them to stay chronically poor, other minorities get lured into these programs as well. Because they get written off in government statistical manuals as poor, and because more minorities take advantage of these programs than white people, it makes minorities have a higher poverty rate than white people, which the big-government politicians then use to make the false claim that the disparity is because of racism and white supremacy – the same claim they make with black people – they use this false claim to get more votes.
Who gets vilified in all this? White people, who suffer from a lot of hostility emanating from the minority communities. In the end, no one wins – minorities get hurt by big government and whites have to keep their distance to maintain this fragile stability.
Anti-Woman
Women’s rights have come a long way since the days of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. There are more women in colleges and universities today than there are men. And what is one of the big things pushed by women’s rights groups today? Women having the ability to have successful careers.
Now with this in mind, remember back to my article “Big Government Hinders Economic Growth and Blocks Widespread Prosperity” – the bigger the government is, the more burden it puts on the economy, meaning economic growth slows and prospects for prosperity disappear. It is a growing economy, with lots of prosperity going on, that creates the job positions that allow people to have successful careers. This includes women’s careers.
In order to maximize the ability for women to have successful careers, you have to maximize the ability for women to even have careers to begin with. By limiting the economic growth that allows for a plenitude of careers to be created, you’re limiting the ability of women to have successful careers, because none will be present. Big government limits the ability of women to have successful careers. You’ll end up having a lot of women graduate from colleges and universities with a “Go get ’em!” attitude, ready to pursue their goals of having successful careers, but with nowhere to turn, because the economy is not conducive to women, or men for that matter, having successful careers.
Yes, in bigger governments, you can make sure that there are plenty of women in leadership positions in the state bureaucracies, and then make the claim that you’re pro-women, but in reality, they’re only bureaucratic positions, which those women got because they “knew somebody,” not because they worked hard and earned their place of success. Besides, all big government does is hinder women from having successful careers in the private, wealth-creating, pro-innovation sector of the economy. So, I would say big government is anti-woman.
In Summary
So, there you have it. Big government is anti-poor, anti-black, anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-woman, and anti-white. It’s one of the worst forms of bigotry you can even imagine.
If you care about the well-being of all these groups of people, then why would you support big government? And I’m the bad guy for not wanting a bigger government? Seriously, folks, get your heads on straight!
