Lyndon Johnson stole something substantial from America and I want it back.

As even the most amateur of historians knows, Johnson was the architect of "the Great Society". The idea of this socialist piece of propaganda was that everyone in America was owed a certain standard of living, no matter how little they contributed to the society at large, and that the federal government would simply increase taxation until that dream was realized. Forty years later, a whole generation has come of age wholly dependent upon the federal government for their survival and happiness. We have come to expect the government to completely ensure our safety, from the food we eat to the water we drink and beyond. As if that weren't enough, we expect the government to teach our children, to teach us as parents how to parent, even when governmental philosophies are antithetical to our own, and to pretty much absolve us of any important decision in life. As I follow government abuses, I do not believe it will be long before the government begins removing children from homes where the parents smoke, arguing that the parents are endangering the health of their children.

The thing is, before the Great Society, the tools for self improvement and self actualization weren't absentl, they were, in fact, alive and well within the context of the community. When parents needed parenting advice, they turned to others within the community for more experience and wisdom. When a family needed food, it was usually the community that provided either the food or the means to obtain it. There was a realization that the plight of the downtrodden could well be our own plight, and that we had an obligation to make our community stronger through involvement.

When the government took the reigns, all that changed. Suddenly, rather than providing a needy family with a basket of food, we sent them to the local welfare office to provide them with food stamps. Poverty became, not OUR problem, but that of a faceless bureaucracy that we began to feel was essential for a safety net. We began to lose the understanding of the meaning of the word "neighbour", because we no longer needed to be interdependent to receive everything we needed in life. Where once pseudo-microsocialist communities had existed where there was a certain amount of responsibility to one's fellow man, now a giant corporation in the name of the federal government, took on the role, with less efficiency, and less humanity. And neighbours, no longer needing to be neighbours to survive, built mental fences along with the physical ones because the man or woman living next to them was no longer important in their quest to survive.

The thing is, the greatest hope for the poor and downtrodden lies in their neighbours, NOT in their government. And in an odd twist, this idea which is clearly expressed in the Christian Bible, in the Torah, and yes, even in the Qu'Ran, has been twisted into the idea that it is the government, not the individual, that is, in fact, their brother's keeper. While Lyndon Johnson stole the sense of community, it was the members of the community themselves who fell asleep at the watch and allowed that to happen. And it is the members of the community themselves who must reclaim the responsibility of caring for their neighbours and creating stronger communities. In other words, we can, and SHOULD steal BACK the sense of community, and kick big business, wearing the mask of the federal government, OUT. We should reclaim tax properties to plant victory gardens for the community and build housing with the very hands of the people who stand to benefit from the housing. We should find creative and efficient ways to provide transportation for the very neediest among us that is funded not with the tax dollars of the forced, but with the voluntary contributions of the willing. We should give our disabled and elderly the chance to live and die with dignity not in sterile institutions, but in comfortable environments created not for the purpose of increasing the wealth of those running the institutions, but for the purpose of increasing the happiness of those inhabiting them. We should restore pride in the community by instilling in every citizen young and old a sense of responsibility to the community at large. For no amount of money, no matter how great, can equal the product of a community built by the hands of citizens working for the common good.

We have it in our power to create communities that are healthier, stronger, and happier. But if we are ever to do so, we need to kick the federal government out and shoulder the responsibility ourselves. Only when we have a stake in the outcome will we truly care about its success or failure.