THE PARASITE STATE

One of the major problems with the defenders of freedom is that they are losing the sound bite war, the battle of brief comments that help make an argument stick in the minds of listeners and/or readers. Well, here is a way to begin to change this by calling the welfare state what it really is: the parasite state. This is not name calling, but an accurate description of the statist system of government in America.

A parasite is a living creature which feeds, without permission, from the life of another. Statist politicians institutionalize parasitism, a process in which some human beings forcibly feed off of the efforts of those who earn their own living.

The parasites in America are not just the so-called poor. The parasites thrive on all income levels, including the wealthy. Consider the manner in which they consume the lives of the productive.

The poor use the parasite state to forcibly take your money to provide them with the so-called basic necessities, with food, housing and clothing.

Those with average incomes use the parasite state to take your money to build their bridges, their highways, their schools and anything else which might improve their lives. These are the recipients of the so-called "pork barrel" projects which emanate from Congress, at the behest of the most dangerous lobbyist in America: your Congressman.

Among the wealthy, we have parasites who get their money, not by honestly earning it, but by using the force of government to provide them with a special advantage, such as local cable companies who are granted a government-enforced monopoly to eliminate competition. Then there are those who gain their wealth from lucrative government contracts, contracts awarded in exchange for political contributions.

Conventional wisdom claims that the solution to the foregoing is to limit campaign contributions, that money has corrupted the system. However, the truth is this: the corruption lies in the nature of statism, in a system which claims the "right" to forcibly take your money and give it to others. It is not money which has corrupted the system, it is the parasite state’s claim to your money, and to your life, which is corrupt.

The first step toward eradicating an evil is to correctly identify it. To identify parasitism is to destroy it. Let statists attempt to defend parasitism. They won’t be able to do it. It is indefensible. The only way they can continue with their deadly game of gorging themselves off of your earnings is through obfuscation, by covering up the real nature of what they are doing.

Who wants to be identified as a parasite? Certainly not the parasites, who hope to avoid the light of day, who hope you never discover what they are doing. What politician would be able to stand before voters and defend a government of the parasites, by the parasites and for the parasites? Not a single one—at least, not in America. Yet, in fact, in America, statist politicians succeed in defending the parasite state by simply never identifying it. Instead, in the name of children or safety or health or education or some other supposedly noble goal, statist politicians promote program after program whose only purpose is to forcibly siphon off your money, put it into the pockets of parasites and increase the power of statists.

No one can defend the morality of a parasite. It is immoral for an individual to spend his life mooching off of others. It is viciously immoral for an individual to force you, at the point of a gun, to fork over your money—yet this is precisely what statist politicians do, so their bloated supporters can continue to receive unearned funds.

Think about your neighbors, friends and acquaintances. Most of them would never dream of personally doing what their hired guns, statist politicians, do on their behalf. But the anonymity of the voting booth, and the intellectual camouflage provided by statists, permit them to remain oblivious to statism’s meaning and to do by surrogate what they would never have the guts to do to your face—forcibly take your money. This means they know they have no moral right to your life and money—and this means you have the upper hand if you assert yourself by clearly identifying what statists are doing.

If enough begin to name the real nature of statism, it will put statist politicians on the defensive, it will be the beginning of their retreat. But as long as statist politicians continue to succeed in cloaking what they are doing, freedom in America will continue its slow, downward spiral.

Fulton Huxtable
June 7, 1998

© Copyright 1998 Fulton Huxtable

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