Is the straw coming?

When I said last week that "The problem is not Big Government but Dumb Government" it was meant to bring about discussion. The Dems think that the solution to any problem involves government. The Libertarians tend to think that no solution can ever involve government. The Republicans tend to think ... well, no one knows quite what they think, but it tends to be closer to the Libertarians.

As usual, everybody is wrong except me. Government intervention in the marketplace has been a good thing when the market was not responsive to the wishes of the people, such as with telemarketing and smoking in restaurants. We need certain environmental regulations, and we need standardization in certain products. That is provided by government, and can only be provided by government.

But, then, government can be dumb, and has been increasingly dumb in recent years, not making the lives of citizens easier, but harder, for no good reason. Jeff Randall, in an article titled "Forget the G20 mob, coping-class fury is about to reach boiling point" gives a taste from the British perspective:

[L]ong after the G20 circus has left the capital and the mess has been cleaned up, there will remain, right across the country, a festering resentment with disgracefully few legitimate outlets for redress. It is the product of frustration, exploitation and a mounting sense of betrayal.

This is not the synthetic indignation of those who would eat the bankers, but the boiling rage of the United Kingdom's coping classes – law-abiding, hard-working, tax-paying citizens – who, over the past decade, have despaired as their country's sovereignty has been dissipated, its freedoms compromised and ancient institutions diminished by a tribe of political pygmies.

[...]

Since the turn of the millennium, Britain's finest have paid about £1.2 trillion – trillion – in income tax. This does not include VAT, inheritance tax, excise duty, stamp duty, death duty or, for the self-employed, business taxes. To put this colossal plundering of wage-packets into context, it amounts to more than twice President Obama's bail-out package for the US economy.

At Labour's first party conference after its return to power in 1997, Tony Blair spoke with great conviction: "This country, any country today, will not just carry on paying more and more in taxes and getting less… the new welfare state must encourage work not dependency… and we cannot say we want a strong and secure society when we ignore its very foundation: family life… [we must] build a country whose people will say that 'I care about Britain because I know that Britain cares about me'… that is the Britain I offer you."

Fine words, but it never happened. Quite the reverse. We keep paying more and more in taxes and getting less. Far from encouraging work, the state penalises it, while rewarding handsomely the dependency culture of Karen Matthews and her ilk. Family life has not just been ignored, it has been debased by a benefits system that subsidises teenage pregnancies with generous handouts and social housing. It incentivises single parents.

As for the promise, "Britain cares about me", it turned out to be true only if you are an MP with your fingers in the Commons' petty-cash tin, a fully abled claimant of incapacity benefits, or a bogus asylum seeker. The rest of us have been subjected to a remorseless onslaught on our traditional values, civil liberties and freedom of speech. Now we are angry; really bloody angry.

It is the contained ire of citizens who don't have the time or inclination to join a riot because they are too busy fulfilling their duties of personal responsibility: caring for children, paying the bills, funding the profligacy of ministers, some of whom are not merely dim-witted but dangerous.

When the will of the people runs contrary to Government intentions, it is simply bypassed. How else can we interpret an admission by Caroline Flint, the Europe Minister, that she had not even bothered to read the Lisbon Treaty?

Isn't this what we pay her for? Having claimed £158,000 in expenses, it would have been nice had she done a little homework. There again, why bother? She knows that we will not be offered a referendum on the EU Constitution because it would be rejected. Instead, the treaty is rammed down our throats.

Immigration is dealt with in much the same way. Strip out a crumbling economy, and Britain's open door to foreigners is the public's number one concern. It's not just worries about competition for jobs, but also fears over dilution of national character and social cohesion. Many are dismayed at the way their local communities have been changed – irreversibly – beyond recognition. Does the Government listen? Not at all. It tramples over dissent, bullying through an unpopular policy with ludicrous propaganda.

As the screw tightens on household budgets, state education is a disgrace. Only this week, we learnt that at almost 800 primary schools (about one in 20), the majority of 11-year-olds are unable to read or write to a decent standard. No wonder so many aspiring parents are prepared to move home, embrace religion and take on two jobs to give their offspring a better hope of securing a place in a grammar or private school.

It gets worse. Rural communities are banned from hunting foxes, while British soldiers are sent to grisly deaths in sub-standard equipment. Fine young men and women from good families are, literally, blown away in desert hell holes, fighting to establish freedoms that are being usurped in their own country. Could someone, please, explain the priorities here?

Those in the Armed Forces who make it back in one piece, return to the kind of society which Mr Blair vowed in his Brighton speech to banish: "A country… where gangs of teenagers hang around street corners, doing nothing but spitting and swearing and abusing passers-by." In short, a place where civility and manners have become glaring anachronisms, and their promotion ranks a poor second behind the indulgence of thugs and spongers.

This Government, I accept, is not solely responsible for the diminution of decency, but it has played a significant role. It promised much and delivered little. In doing so, it fostered a wrath among those who cling on to the hope that sanity can be restored to high office. These voters will not be found hurling rocks at the Bank of England or setting fire to RBS's head office. But, make no mistake, their yearning for fulsome retribution is palpable.

That rage is finding its way into the US, largely because of our disconnected political class. The latest example, out of Washington state, is dishwashing detergent:

The quest for squeaky-clean dishes has turned some law-abiding people in Spokane into dishwater-detergent smugglers. They are bringing Cascade or Electrasol in from out of state because the eco-friendly varieties required under Washington state law don't work as well. Spokane County became the launch pad last July for the nation's strictest ban on dishwasher detergent made with phosphates, a measure aimed at reducing water pollution. The ban will be expanded statewide in July 2010, the same time similar laws take effect in several other states.

But it's not easy to get sparkling dishes when you go green.

Many people were shocked to find that products like Seventh Generation, Ecover and Trader Joe's left their dishes encrusted with food, smeared with grease and too gross to use without rewashing them by hand. The culprit was hard water, which is mineral-rich and resistant to soap.

As a result, there has been a quiet rush of Spokane-area shoppers heading east on Interstate 90 into Idaho in search of old-school suds.

It sounds like a little thing, doesn't it? But it'd not just one little thing, but a lot of them. Government determining what kind of dishwashing detergent we should buy -- the environmentally friendly but ineffective kind. What kind of light bulbs we should have -- again, the environmentally friendly but ineffective kind. What kind of toilets we should have -- yet again, the environmentally friendly but ineffective kind. What kind of cars we should drive -- tiny, unsafe ones that look like suppositories on wheels (yes, I am talking about the Toyota Prius) but again are environmentally friendly.

But it goes beyond regulation. How about taxes on absolutely everything? Income, sales, restaurant, etc. Most of it for stuff we don't want or need. How about police forces that put your life at risk with their precious red-light cameras but can't catch the guy who stole your car or burglarized your house? Ridiculously low speed limits to increase revenue? How about a criminal justice system that places the needs of the criminals over the needs of the victims. How about high energy prices because our government refuses to let us use the energy resources we have? Or the inability to get a burger medium rare because of the fear of litigation?

Erick Erickson asks the obvious question:

At what point do the people tell the politicians to go to hell? At what point do they get off the couch, march down to their state legislator’s house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?

At some point soon, it will happen. It’ll be over an innocuous issue. But the rage is building. It’s not a partisan issue. There is bipartisan angst at out of control government made worse by dumb bans like this and unintended consequences like AIG’s bonus problems.

That time is coming. Indeed, it has already started, with examples like the Minutemen trying to stop illegal aliens from entering the country when the government won't, to ignoring posted speed limits, to the tea party protests across the country.

When a government can't or int his case won't hold up its end of the social contract and, furthermore, becomes abusive to the very citizens it is supposed to protect, the people will take matters into their own hands.

As Erickson says, it will be a small thing, but it will prove to be the straw.