Government is a parasite

Government is a parasite.  Its sole capability is to perpetuate itself by feeding on and debilitating its hosts. Government’s host, human society, permits government to feed off it in exchange for social order i.e. government can reduce the harm one individual or a group can do to other innocent individuals. 

• Government can do nothing without first taking something from someone else. The bigger government grows, the more it takes, and the more it takes the more it saps the vitality of its hosts.  
• Politicians and lawyers pretend that they are important people doing important work. But often they're important because they are parasites. They feed off others, while creating no wealth of their own.
• Every merchant must offer us something we want in order to get our money. But that's not true for politicians and their businessman cronies. They get to use government force to grab our money. The parasite economy thrives wherever "you use the law to get something you couldn't get voluntarily in the marketplace."
• The more parasitic government saps the vitality of its hosts, the more the hosts resist. The more the hosts resist, the more government is compelled to visit force and violence upon the hosts to subdue them.
• Government invariably ends up spending a large and ever increasing amount of the energy it sucks from its hosts, thus subduing them. It becomes a host-destructive, and self-destructive, spiral for the host population and the parasitic government. 
• If Government got its spending under control, it would not need to pick our pockets. 
• Government’s appetite is unlimited, and majoritarian democracies in particular lack the self-discipline to limit their feeding to the optimal level that would preserve the vitality of the hosts.  
• Government also infects its hosts by transmitting all manner of ancillary social and economic diseases and disorders that further diminish the hosts’ vitality. 
• Governments have developed survival strategies to overcome their self-destructive gluttony by evolving into what biologists call a hyperparasite - a parasite that hosts another parasite - and by transforming itself into a predator capable of preying upon humans outside the host population. Government-parasite-turned-predator is called “empire.” Government as hyperparasite is called the “welfare state.”
• Government in its hyper-parasitic state sucks the sustenance from one group of human hosts within society to provide nourishment to another group of human hosts. Hyper-parasitic government feeds excessively off the more nutritious (productive) segment of society to nourish the less productive segment, from which it parasitizes less than it returns in nourishment.
• This host-farm, redistribution strategy also has the added benefit of providing parasitic politicians sufficient votes to ward off any revolt of the hosts.
• Eventually the productive hosts will cease to produce sufficient to nourish the rest of society adequately. At this point, hyper-parasitic government begins to starve its human hosts to death.
• More and more people and groups are now a days whining and complaining as they demand that the government declare them to be clean and righteous. 

By using euphemisms and spin, the Government tries to hide the truth. If the Government cleaned up its own act, it might one day be able to give some money back, so its mates could spend their own hard earned money in the way they know is best for them. Sadly, none of the major parties seem to know what true mate-ship looks like, because real mates don’t force mates to hand over hard-earned money.

Government is not the solution to our problem; 

government is the problem - Ronald Reagan 

There is nothing fair about a tax that is effectively a fine for doing well. 

We have no government armed with power capable of contending 
with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. 
Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. 
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other -  John Adams

Metaphorically, government is a parasite and we are its host. We support it and pump it up. When the parasite grows bigger than the host, the host will die. It's a logical conclusion. Every human dysfunction, every deviant behavior and even lawlessness feeds this parasite. Since the parasite is not allowed to judge, nor apply any moral discernment to its process and all the crooked things get guarded and shielded by politics. The host with awareness of conscience now lives in unease of the larger parasite that lives conscience-free.

Abraham Lincoln’s advice to lawyers

Abraham Lincoln, who famously served as America’s sixteenth President during the Civil War, was for most of his life prior to the presidency a lawyer. He was moderately successful, but certainly would not have been one of the “celebrity” lawyers of today. His average fee was between $5 and $20. The highest fee he ever charged was $5,000, which, though substantial for the time, was not common for him. But his success was notable enough to induce various people to ask him for his advice on not only becoming a lawyer, but the practice of law. His answers epitomize the typically homespun, and common sense way in which Lincoln famously expressed himself, even as President.  Baked into his answers was a healthy dose of life wisdom which anyone intent on a successful career could benefit from.

Lincoln’s summary of the “best practices” to which lawyers should adhere for their realistic appraisal of human nature, and the art of virtue. They are reproduced here:

I am not an accomplished lawyer. I find quite as much material for a lecture, in those points wherein I have failed, as in those wherein I have been moderately successful.

The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man, of every calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow, which can be done to-day. Never let your correspondence fall behind. Whatever piece of business you have in hand, before stopping, do all the labor pertaining to it which can then be done. When you bring a common-law suit, if you have the facts for doing so, write the declaration at once. If a law point be involved, examine the books, and note the authority you rely on, upon the declaration itself, where you are sure to find it when wanted. The same of defenses and pleas. In business not likely to be litigated—ordinary collection cases, foreclosures, partitions, and the like—make all examinations of titles, and note them, and even draft orders and decrees in advance. This course has a triple advantage; it avoids omissions and neglect, save your labor, when once done; performs the labor out of court when you have leisure, rather than in court, when you have not. Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer’s avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business, if he cannot make a speech. And yet there is not a more fatal error to young lawyers, than relying too much on speech-making. If anyone, upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim exemption from the drudgery of the law, his case is a failure in advance.

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser—in fees, and expenses, and waste of time. As a peace-maker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.

Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this. Who can be more nearly a fiend than he who habitually overhauls the Register of deeds, in search of defects in titles, whereon to stir up strife, and put money in his pocket? A moral tone ought to be infused into the profession, which should drive such men out of it.

The matter of fees is important far beyond the mere question of bread and butter involved. Properly attended to fuller justice is done to both lawyer and client. An exorbitant fee should never be claimed. As a general rule, never take your whole fee in advance, nor any more than a small retainer. When fully paid beforehand, you are more than a common mortal if you can feel the same interest in the case, as if something was still in prospect for you, as well as for your client. And when you lack interest in the case, the job will very likely lack skill and diligence in the performance. Settle the amount of fee, and take a note in advance. Then you will feel that you are working for something, and you are sure to do your work faithfully and well. Never sell a fee-note—at least, not before the consideration service is to be performed. It leads to negligence and dishonesty—negligence, by losing interest in the case, and dishonesty in refusing to refund, when you have allowed the consideration to fail.

There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are necessarily dishonest. I say vague, because when we consider to what extent confidence, and honors are reposed in, and conferred upon lawyers by the people, it appears improbable that their impression of dishonesty is very distinct and vivid. Yet the impression, is common—almost universal. Let no young man, choosing the law for a calling, for a moment yield to this popular belief. Resolve to be honest at all events; and if, in your own judgment, you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave. 

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If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already. It is but a small matter whether you read with anybody or not. I did not read with anyone. Get the books, and read and study them till you understand them in their principal features; and that is the main thing…The books, and your capacity for understanding them, are just the same in all places…Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.

If you wish to be a lawyer, attach no consequence to the place you are in, or the person you are with; but get books, sit down anywhere, and go to reading for yourself. That will make a lawyer of you quicker than any other way.

Yours of the 24th, asking “the best mode of obtaining a thorough knowledge of the law” is received. The mode is very simple, though laborious, and tedious. It is only to get the books, and read, and study them carefully. Begin with Blackstone’s Commentaries, and after reading it carefully through, say twice, take up Chitty’s Pleading, Greenleaf’s Evidence, and Story’s Equity etc. in succession. Work, work, work, is the main thing.

In law it is good policy to never plead what you need not, lest you oblige yourself to prove what you can not. Reflect on this well before you proceed.

As to fees, it is impossible to establish a rule that will apply in all, or even a great many cases. We believe we are never accused of being very unreasonable in this particular, and we would always be easily satisfied, provided we could see the money—but whatever fees we earn at a distance, if not paid before, we have noticed we never hear of after the work is done. We therefore, are growing a little sensitive on that point.