I'm Starting a New Political Party

I've decided to start a new political party.  I don't have a name yet, and "The Leave Me the Hell Alone Party" doesn't cut it.  So for right now, we'll call it the "Grizzly Adams Party", after that fine 1970s show about a mountain man who lives alone with gentle grizzly bear, and is visited occassionaly by Denver Pyle.

The basic principle of the Grizzly Adams Party can be boiled down to this:  government should leave me the hell alone, and stick to the things it does best (note: I did not say well, because I do not believe it does anything well).

I am tired of the nattering nincompoops of technocracy thinking they have "all the answers".  They don't. They should stop telling me how much water my toilet should use.  They should stop telling me where to set my thermostat. Or to use mercury-filled fluorescent bulbs.  Or what channels to watch.  Or how to teach my kids about... well, anything.

They should stop telling me what food to eat, and how much. Or what kind of car to drive.  They should stop telling me whether I can enjoy adult products like cigars.  Or how much "health insurance" I should have.  Or if I should get my energy from nuclear, solar, oil, coal, wind, or bottled farts.

They should stop telling me all of the people I am supposed to like.  And stop telling me all of the people I should dislike.  They should stop telling me who I should be "tolerant" of.  Or not "tolerant" of.  They should stope telling me what to think, what to hear, what to read, and what to watch.  And how much to exercise.  And that I should ride a bike to work.  And that I should use the MTA-- especially when the MTA doesn't go anywhere near my home.

I want the government to stop taking my money to save it for me for my retirement.  And I want the government to stop taking my money to save it for me for my health care in my old age.  Not to mention, they can stop taking my money to give to other people too lazy to save for themselves, or work for themselves.

I want the government to stop telling me -- by way of asinine tariffs and confiscatory Agricultural Policy -- that my food has to be sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup instead of good old sugar.  If the government really wanted to solve childhood obesity, they would kill the tariffs on imported sugar.

And so on.  Basically, I want the government to leave me the hell alone.  Leave me alone, and I will leave it alone.  But if you keep sticking a finger in my eye, I will be tempted to shove a bat up your ass.

Let me live my life the way I choose.  And let others live their lives the way they choose.  And let us all deal with our own consequences.  That is the fundamental, bedrock principle of a constitutional republic, after all.  More importantly, it is the fundamental bedrock principle of our constitutional republic:  life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Liberty is a messy business.  But to be free -- to experience liberty and pursue our own happiness-- we must have the right to do things others might consider dumb or immoral.

John Adams once wrote that the chief aim of government was enable the pursuit of the greatest happiness of its citizens.  Interestingly, Adams did not say "guarantee", "provide for" or "determine".  And by enable, he did not mean "empower".  He meant enable in the most passive meaning of the word.  He meant that government should, by and large, leave the citizens alone to pursue their own path to what they felt was their greatest happiness.

So to politicians everywhere, I say this: leave me the hell alone.  Or I will sick my grizzly bear on you.