What (or who) is the government?

A fair question.  With recent events like health care, gun control, and an ever-deepening encroach on personal freedoms, just who is this omnipotent 'government' that seeks to usurp the precious liberty of the American people?

The better question is who is this omnipotent government that seeks to usurp the precious liberty of the American people?  That is the more accurate question.  We tend to see monolithic bodies like religions, corporations, universities and other structured institutions as faceless entities that wield power with force.  The government is no exception.

But what is a government?  In our case, it is an elected or an appointed body of people put in place by other people.  That's right:  People.  People who are imbued with ego, ambition, hubris and often megalomania.  They love power.  They want control.  They enjoy the self-importance.  They also tend to be self-conscious, insecure and paranoid.  Look to any career politician, for example, and see whether or not my theory holds true.

Weaving a tangle of stipulations, regulations, laws and statutes, they maintain their hold over an ignorant populace.  Worse, they endeavor to maintain that ignorance by control of information, restrictions on movement, retracting individual freedom of choice, etc., all in the name of security and greater good.

Beware and be informed.  We are a people about to be ruled by other people.  We are a batting eyelash away from a narrow, elitist segment of our population who seek to lord over us all by fiat and by decree.  And the penalty for protest is the further eroding of our freedoms.

Time to stand up and start speaking out people.  Rally, write, gather, protest and question the authority of those who strive to keep you under a boot of a tyranny that is disguised as entitlements and benevolence.  Treat yourself better and believe that you have the right of self-determination, and that you are gifted enough to fend for yourself without intrusion from some citizen in power who would rather treat you as a peasant.