One of my favorite western prints is Gary Carter’s springtime branding scene.  In the foreground, safely away from sweating ropers and wrestlers, the artist placed a cowboy seated in the shade of a brace post enjoying a sweet slice of watermelon.  The print is titled, “Hiring You Was Like Three Good Men Leaving.”  It makes me chuckle, as this scene is seen in real life, such as during government’s recent shutdown. 

Since America’s bicentennial, our nation has survived 17 shutdowns, yet today’s progressive media portrays cessation of services as the apocalypse.  If government is your god, perhaps their comparison is fitting.  This most recent halt lasted a whopping three days and with two of those being the weekend, the disaster was hardly noticed in the hinterlands.  Monday morning, non-essential government employees were told to not report for work prompting me to ponder why we hire non-essential employees?  One unneeded employee is like three good men leaving and this thought prompted me to peak beneath the surface of our federal payroll. 

As a percent of America’s growing population, the number of federal employees has actually dropped from a 3 percent high in the ‘70s to roughly 1.25 percent today.  This is how former President Obama claimed government was smaller than ever, but here is why this figure is misleading.  First, over a similar timeframe, state and local government payrolls have tripled to 18 million employees and they are mostly funded with federal dollars.  Second, progressivism has so saturated institutes of higher indoctrination, the philosophy the little people are incapable of managing their affairs has become epidemic.  This is the deep state where bureaucrats reflexively impose regulation because they believe they know best.  As real-life examples, examine the FMCA’s new Electronic Logging Device mandate and the FDA’s Veterinary Feed Directive.  Both these rules wield the power of law yet were inflicted on the citizenry without a single congressional hearing or vote.  Failure to comply with either decree empowers the federal authorities to separate you from your property.  Jefferson is credited as saying, “government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take from you everything you have.”  He was and remains spot-on. 

America is trapped in a battle between good and evil with the second category relying on deception to advance their cause.  Don’t be fooled.  You are being led to the slaughter by a ruling class pretending to have your best interest at heart.  They do not.