A government with endless power?

This is a subject that reaches nearly every Americans heart. Does the government have too much power over it's people? I would argue that it does. From simple township and city regulations that are petty and annoying to the federal level offices that regulate, fine and imprison us and our families over nonsense, I've found that we have allowed our government to not only have too much power over our every day lives, but to also turn our country into the largest prison state in the world.

On a local township or city level we have government telling us how we can or can not develop our properties, raise our children, and even worship or not worship. While SOME regulation is needed for the safety of all of us and our children, there is a line where they need to butt out. How We choose to raise our children, what we feed them, and discipline them are non of the states or federal governments business. This does not mean get rid of the abuse laws, but this does mean they have in many cases made it nearly impossible to give justified punishment to our children as we see fit. And then when they grow up and are criminals and disrespectful, who is to blame? The parents? In some cases yes, however I would argue that in most cases you will find that the lack of control by parents in the home has had adverse effects on the people coming of age today, and these people have grown up in a country where a simple spanking, or even your run of the mill lecture after doing something wrong can land a parent in a situation where the government can and will take your child away, and even jail the parents in many cases claiming mental or physical abuse.

Now if being upset that my 16 year old went out and got drunk at some party, and then punishing her by lecturing her to the point where she cries and feels bad about her choices to do this action is mental and emotional abuse, then I'm guilty. And I will happily be guilty. And yes, children have been taken by state agencies for things like this. In fact there are an astonishing amount of these situations happening all over the country. Simply because your child cried while you reprimanded them you too could be charged with child abuse and have them taken away.

Have fun fighting an agency with state and federal dollars backing them too. This makes for an agency that not only has been given far too much power to do whatever it wants but also the money to keep you in court over it for years to come. While this situation has not happened to me, I know people who have had this situation happen to them, and you can see some of these stories surface in the news from time to time when they are not too busy covering politics and special interest stories that get more ratings.

So for my first finger point, it goes out to what was suppose to be the agiencies that help protect the children of the country and is now just tearing families apart over a spanking or a pep talk.

Another arm of the government that has both state and federal level funding is child support. While child support should be paid in order to help support the children, there needs to be clear limits to how much and how it can be collected. As it sits many people think they can only take a small amount of your income, however this is not true at all. In fact they can take up to 50 percent of your income as child support.

Now for someone who makes a great living and can easily hand out this kind of support, in most cases the people getting hit by this are people who are making under 40,000 a year. Now I ask you, how is someone to survive off of 20,000 a year without needed to turn to food stamps, and government medical benefits? In many states, especially right now the rent of a simple one bedroom apartment is around 700-1000 dollars a month. Now on top of that, what happens if this person also has a child or perhaps two or three living with them? Well as far as the government is concerned , it is not their problem, they only care about collecting the money.

Now I know of situations where the person collecting the child support has a great job, good benefits paid by their employers, and there is no legitimate need for child support at all. While every parent should want to do what they can for their children, in many cases this enforcement is done by someone who is simply being vindictive. This arm of the government can take your paychecks, taxes, stocks, bonds, and any other property from you to pay support to someone who may in fact not even need it. But they don't even consider this, because they are nearly unregulated by anyone. So I would argue that the child support agencies need to have an overhaul and some stiff regulations that make them stop and think about what they should really do, and if support is actually needed, and if so, how much is fair based on the incomes of both parties, and not just simply collecting as much as they can possibly squeeze out of someone. After all, when you take half of nearly nothing from someone who has children to take care of, you are also destroying their quality of life and possibly putting them in physical and emotional danger.

Another government arm that reaches far into our every day lives is the IRS. In recent years there has been some law firms popping up claiming to be able to fight the IRS and their over stretched power , on your behalf. While in some cases this is true to an extent, it's also not so true. Let me explain.

The IRS is there to collect taxes, and not a whole lot more than that. Much like the other two agencies, they have a job and will stop and just about nothing to collect what they want from you. Did you know, even by having a simple yard sale you risk an audit by the IRS? Most people are unaware that selling off your property that you no longer want is taxable. Not just by the IRS either, in some places, you need a permit to have a yard sale. How absurd is that?! We're not talking about a week long bonanza of selling everything you can muster up from the whole family either. Some places over regulate even the most simple things you may take for granted, and in many cases you might not even know that you are suppose to pay taxes or pay for permits in order to do what want to do.

Another example is Gift tax, YES gift tax. Some states charge you money to gift someone money, or items. Frankly I'm surprised they are not taxing Christmas presents in some states when I look at the sheer amount greedy and stupid things they tax already! Now, look at the big picture here. While there does need to be an IRS to collect money and do all that wonderful numbers crunching, do we really want or need them to charge someone with tax evasion over a yard sale? Is this really a proper use of power and tax payers money? I don't think so. I say let the yard sales be free of federal government hands, and I would love to see state and local governments not make a huge deal over something so simple. Its a waste of money, and quite frankly there are better things to spend the time and money on, like companies that are cheating the tax man. Enron anyone?

Ok, so I've labeled three arms of government with more power than they really should have, but I have to name one more, though there are many more that need to be pulled back and swatted on the rear for being bullies.

The nations district attorney offices truly need an overhaul. In our great country we believe in one great lie that seems to cast a huge shadow, and lingering smell over all of us. The idea that in our country you are innocent until proven guilty. Anyone who actually believes this has not watched the news, has not gone to many court houses and simply took the time to watch a few cases as they progress. In our country you are suppose to prove the accused guilty IF he or she is guilty. There are a few issues with this. First issue is that you have two entities that don't care if you are innocent or guilty. In fact, in some cases it's illegal for them to care. The district attorney has one simple job, and its the only thing that person cares about. To convince, the judge and or the jurry that you MIGHT be guilty. Or at least make it look like you had reason to do the crime in their eyes.

But we have lawyers to help us prove us innocent don't we? Well yes, but how much money do you have to fight back? If you have very little or no money you are stuck with a public defender, and believe me I've seen the records of many of those people and it's grim. I've even personally heard on several accounts, comments made by some that they just try to push out as many cases as they can, cause they get paid weather you are found guilty or innocent. In most cases, you will find an opening argument, which if followed by a plea bargain. And then we have one more person in jail. But what many don't see is that these so called defenders convince even innocent people to just take the plea bargain and get it over with.

I believe that everyone in a position such as this should be held to the highest standards and regulations. They should never knowingly submit false statements, false evidence, and if there is no real evidence of guilt then the person needs to be let go. This is what we call innocent until PROOVEN guilty. Believe me, I've seen more cases where the person was sent to jail based on the most ridiculous so called evidence of guilt than anything , And I've been to quite a few courts and seen many cases first hand. And then I turn on my tv and see people with millions of dollars pay for these high priced layers and get murderers off Scott free. So yes this system is not only, not perfect, but beyond broken.

I would argue that if a prosecuting attorney knows and feels he or she can not prove with truly hard evidence, that a person is guilty, or if the person may not deserve the charges they have been charged with, that they should be legally and morally obligated to drop charges or adjust them to a fitting charge in which they truly believe the person is be guilty of.

For instance, If you slap someone, while this is not an act of kindness, and should not be done, do you deserve to be jailed for 5 years and have a felony record? Personally, I don't think so. There are charges that befit that crime better.

Now, this is not me saying that all public defenders and district attorneys don't try to be fair and fight for what is right. There are some out there. However, they are few and far in between. Please also know that while I believe all four government arms mentioned here are over stretching and over powered in our lives, that I do also believe that there is legitimate need for all of them and they also do good for people. What I would like to see is regulation more on our own government to ensure that we are treated fairly, and that our civil liberties and god given rights are not infringed upon. And less regulation on our people and how we can live our lives, and the comfort of knowing that if I am accused of wrong doing, that I will receive defence that is fair, informed, and regulated by law to actually defend me, while also knowing that the prosecution will not be shoving criminal charges at me that should not have been pressed in the first place.

I hope everyone reading this has enjoyed my writings and I hope it sparks some curiosity in your minds about government and how it treats people across the nation. None of my articles suggest that we don't need government, or that all governing bodies are bad, just that each has serious issues that need to be fixed so that they can work for the people and not always against the people.

God Bless America