A Ship of Fools

That's us. We think the government is something other than ourselves. How can They treat us this way? How is it they get an excellent pension and I get nothing? They get medical benefits, we get nothing. Why is it they no longer seem to be working for me, but instead seem to be helping themselves and their rich friends to all our money? Jefferson is credited for writing this in the Declaration of Independence: "Prudence....will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariable the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security." I would say it a bit differently, but it would amount to about the same thing: When you are absolutely sure the government is no longer serving the common good, it is time to dump it, one way or another.