When it comes to dependency, there are healthy and unhealthy forms. A healthy form is depending on food and water to sustain one’s life or a dependency on medication to help and cure illness and disease. There is the dependency on electricity to keep the lights on in one’s home. There is also the dependency on transportation to get us where we want to go and back. Unhealthy dependency encompasses an addiction to drugs and alcohol to cope with life and it includes an adult man or woman depending on parents to provide for them. Other forms include depending on shelter not for the purpose of keeping one safe from nature’s elements, but to isolate oneself from the world outside.
The unhealthiest form of dependency, however, is a dependency on government. It is this dependency that has proven to be more harmful and more soul sickening than any addiction to mind altering chemicals. For almost 80 years, the American People, my compatriots, have depended on government for retirement, health care, education, social services and more. Government’s original purpose was to protect the lives, liberties and properties of its citizens. It has now digressed from that intent. The people of the U.S. have had this belief that these and other programs would never face any difficulties. That belief has proven to be false, particularly with regards to programs such as Social Security which will face a deficit in two years and is giving out more money than it takes, or Medicaid and Medicare that will face financial difficulties in five years, maybe sooner. These programs, policies and services cannot be sustained as they are. Most Americans know this but ignore the greater lesson which is the following: Depending on government to provide for you is faulty thinking for sooner or later, the funds run out.
Will my compatriots learn from this lesson and take heed? I hope so, but I remain pessimistic. As far as I am concerned, I'd rather depend on friends and family than a behemoth that expands constantly, takes liberty and freedom bit by bit and eventually runs out of other people’s money.