The World leaders often utter the words that can be taken out of the context by the exploiters to mislead the ignorant masses. One of the examples of this is the famous quote that is attributed to President Regan, “Government is the problem.” In fact, the actual quote of the President is, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." President was certainly referring to a specific situation when he said that. However, some of his followers and the politicians have been maliciously feeding this anti-government mantra into the minds of the people who, now, falsely believe that government is the hindrance to their freedom.
It is important for us to recognize the role of the government in our daily life. Without government, there would be anarchy. We should ask ourselves that it is us, the people, who conceived the idea of the government for the people by the people in order to have a society based upon the rule of laws. When we oppose government, we, in fact, condemn ourselves. We must not confuse freedom with anarchy. A constitutional government is essential for a country to provide its citizens the liberty, equal opportunity and the pursuit of happiness. Individual freedom does not mean that one can drive on the wrong side of the road. It does not mean that individual or group of individuals can exploit the natural resources of the country for their selfish motives. It does not mean that Might becomes Right. Ironically, the proponents of the freedom favor privatizations but completely ignore the fact that private companies also operate under the same concept of the government. We just call the head of the company as CEO rather than a President. So, what is this fuss about anti-government sentiments? Perhaps, the answer lies in the following:
Anti-Government motive is simply based upon selfishness, greed and hypocrisy. The intelligentsias with corruption or without compassion, the shrewd with intent to exploit the weak and the vulnerable, the ignorant without any capability of facts checking are the ones who preach these anti-government sentiments. It is the height of hypocrisy that those running for the offices in the government absurdly talk about the anti-government. It has been observed all the time that most of the anti-government protestors, being the beneficiaries of the government entitlements themselves, shamefully hold the banners like, “Get the Government off My Back.” These are the same people who also call themselves to be the constitutionalists but never hesitate to violate the constitution when it collides with their own vested interests.
On the other hand, it is also equally important that we must always stand against the corruption, the nepotism, the inefficiency, the waste and the over-blown bureaucracy in our governments. Our institutions of checks and balances must have their tight grips on the affairs of the governments. We must elect our representatives on the content of their characters. We should work on eliminating the influence of the money into our governments. The money and the greed corrupt the governments. The government is not the problem but the people who run it might be the problem. We should elect the bright, compassionate and intelligent people for our governments and get rid of those neither worthy nor graceful for the offices they hold.