Leave Us Alone!

Written By: The growing presence of government busybodies  |  Posted: Friday, January 30th, 2015

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   When our first child was three days old, I received a scary phone call.

   As young parents, we were overjoyed with our new baby and had everything ready for her. We had a home business, so my husband was always around to give me support. My mother was a phone call away, our next door neighbor was a doula, we had many books on infant care, and I attended a breastfeeding support group at our local hospital. In short, we were as prepared as we could be for a newborn.

   But that didn't mean we met with everyone's approval. At the time we were a penniless, uninsured young couple struggling to start a home business. We paid cash for our medical expenses. Our house was old (1875), our clothing and furnishings were second-hand, and our fiercely self-sufficient attitude raised a few eyebrows. But we were living the life we wanted - independent, rural and frugal.

   But there are those who find this kind of lifestyle and attitude suspicious. Independent, self-employed and rural - what kind of nefarious secrets must we be hiding?

   The phone call that rocked my secure, happy little world was from a social worker inquiring how I was doing with our new baby. Upon hearing that I was fine, she asked if she could come over to show me proper parenting techniques and supply some helpful literature.

   I said I had plenty of support and lots of books and literature, and refused her offer. The social worker again offered to come over, this time to discuss post-partum depression and discipline techniques. I thanked her for her concern but politely declined.

   I hung up and looked around our shabby little house, trying to see it from a stranger's viewpoint. I knew our home and lifestyle would never meet with a government busybody's approval. I decided hell would freeze over before we'd let a social worker into our home to "teach" me anything.

   This brief experience cemented my husband's and my desire to never, ever request government assistance. We live with the mantra of LEAVE US ALONE when it comes to busybodies. When we need help - and of course there are times we do - we seek first the assistance of family, then friends, then church, then community. In that order.

   But apparently we are in the minority. Not only do people have no qualms about taking government assistance as a first (rather than last) resort, but the government actively encourages people to take assistance, whether they need it or not. A couple years ago, CNN ran an article discussing how the Obama administration was trying to get more people to sign up for help. "More than one in seven Americans are on food stamps, but the federal government wants even more people to sign up for the safety net program," the article reports. "The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been running radio ads for the past four months encouraging those eligible to enroll. The campaign is targeted at the elderly, working poor, the unemployed and Hispanics."

   "Eligible" to enroll? How broad is the definition of "eligible"? If elderly, working poor, unemployed, or Hispanic people hadn't signed up for food stamps before - doubtless because they were relying on family, friends, churches, or community for assistance - then why is the USDA trying to disrupt those family or community ties and rope people into government dependency? What's their agenda?

   Examples of government busybody interference are legion. Recently a Fox News commentary by Todd Starnes reported how a Virginia school district scrapped a policy "that allowed it to interrogate Christian homeschool teenagers and their parents about their religious beliefs." When hundreds of furious parents packed a school board meeting to protest this intrusive policy, the board backed down. "[I]t's … a reminder that the government seems to believe they know what's best for our children," concluded Mr. Starnes. "So let what happened in Goochland County, Virginia, serve as a warning to school boards across the fruited plain. 'We the People' will not tolerate busybody school marms meddling in the private religious affairs of American school children."

   In other words, LEAVE US ALONE.

   But remaining free to live our lives as we see fit, undisturbed by government busybodies, is becoming more difficult. People are being monitored a lot more than they would feel comfortable with if they only knew. Phone calls, emails, drones, credit card transactions, Internet cookies, store cards, smartphones, traffic cams … barely a moment goes by when we're not under some sort of government examination. And this doesn't even cover such intimate information as our medical data. We are being cultivated to passively accept this interference and surveillance as normal and necessary.

   I hate it.

   Of course none of this is an accident. The government is deliberately cultivating dependency, pronouncing it the "new normal" and otherwise incrementally taking away peoples' desire for independence. When a thirst for independence is gone, no one cares if the government removes our right to bear arms or the other constitutionally enumerated freedoms. More and more people indifferently ask, "What's the big deal? The government will take care of us."

   Never forget that bureaucrats have the "I am smarter than you little people" syndrome despite the fact that most government officials have never run a business, educated their own children, raised livestock or a garden, or otherwise dipped their toes into the Real World.

   But this lack of "real world" education doesn't keep bureaucratic busybodies from taking control of what should be universal personal responsibility - and we the people let them. We even welcome it. Today people prefer freedom from responsibility - and call it progress.

   Slavery is always evil because it takes away a person's free will. How, then, is state-sponsored dependency any better than slavery? It, too, takes away a person's free will.

   Over two centuries ago, our forefathers gave us a remarkable gift: a life astonishingly free of government interference. We've spent much of the last 200 years trashing that gift and shoving it back in their faces, rejected and unwanted. Many people, it seems, would rather be slaves than free men.

   But not everyone. Leave us alone.

Patrice Lewis is a freelance writer whose latest book is "The Simplicity Primer: 365 Ideas for Making Life more Livable."  Visit her blog at www.rural-revolution.com.

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