Then there are those whose aim is to deceive, whose goal is to garner power unto themselves and who would enslave others because of this lust for power. Such men often wear the mask of savior during their rise to power, but once in control their true colors come to the surface. These are men like Stalin, Adolph Hitler, and Pol Pot, who slaughtered millions of their own people in their efforts to retain or expand their power.
In a democratic Republic such as ours, the conversion to statism becomes possible when the people become more interested in security than in freedom. Those who want to bring about such a change are well aware of this and are not averse to generating crisis situations that play on the peoples' fears. The recent Medicare scare is a case in point, and was used to help influence the outcome of an election. It should serve as a warning that we must not allow the government to take control of health care in America, for once it has control over health care it would have far greater control over the people. Would you go against a government that could cut off your health care at any time? If you think the IRS is bad, just wait until some bureaucrat has the say-so over whether or not you receive needed health services.
Franklin Roosevelt, often lionized as a great American, was at heart a statist, and in my estimation did far greater damage than good to our Republic. It was he who started crafting a dependent class within our society. A policy continued by several succeeding Presidents and turned into an art form by Lyndon Johnson and his Great Society. Recently, we have heard some Washington rhetoric about our need to reverse this trend, but the actions taken have been less than whole-hearted, and most of our politicians continue to win elections by out promising their opponents.
Frederic Bastiat, in his treatise "The Law," said that a fatal tendency of mankind is that "when they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others." Many would deny such a tendency, but the tendency to let the state supply one's needs is exactly that, for the state has no resources other than those it confiscates from the people. It is, however, this tendency that allows governments to purchase liberty from the people for a "guaranteed" sustenance.
Of course, the idea that government can guarantee such sustenance is fallacious on its face. Only God has the ultimate power to guarantee anything, and His word tells us that even tomorrow is not assured.
It is people who work the land and grow the food. It is people who weave the fabric and make the clothes. People build the dwelling places and mine the raw materials. The state does none of these. The state only consumes wealth, it does not generate it. When it takes wealth from one and distributes it to another it is engaging in legalized thievery, what Bastiat called "Legal Plunder." He said, "It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of legal plunder."
Statism represents the ultimate plunder. It takes the God given rights of life, liberty and property from the individual and invests them into the hands of the state, and whomever might be at the head of the state. In so doing it denies the existence of Almighty God and exalts the state itself to that status. Even in the hands of the most benevolent of humans it becomes a travesty. In the hands of others it becomes hell on earth.