It doesn’t get talked about nearly as much as it should, but one of the biggest reasons the government should have limited power is due to the tendency toward corruption that those in government tend to be obsessed with.  It’s not just the danger of what a large government can do to those it is supposed to serve but also the annoying obsession that comes from those who discover how they can use it to destroy political rivals, which is just another form of election fraud that is so systemic in our current culture.  It’s not just the political hit on Ken Paxton at the national level that should draw our attention or the antics of the Ukraine War, the lies of the Chinese government regarding the Covid virus release out of Wuhan.  Of the Jack Smith prosecution of Trump, along with the many others who are doing everything with the power of their offices to stop the former president from becoming the next one.  But we see such abuses happening even in our neighborhoods.  For me, in Butler County, Ohio, we have witnessed Sheriff Jones go after political rivals abusing the court system to destroy competing politicians, and we have even seen a school board member from Lakota, Lynda O’Conner, call in the favor of judges to take her rival to court and attempt to destroy their life and manipulate anybody she could in the process to achieve her objective.  I could name off a long list of such instances just in my community, so across the reach of government, this is a genuine problem.  The power that the government can give worthless people.  The more Democrat-oriented the politician, the worse it gets, but government power must be a significant part of our concern.  What will a politician do to acquire strength so they can abuse it for personal reasons? 

I don’t have a lot of personal tolerance when I witness this kind of personal corruption and power of government.  Very few things make me angry more, especially the acquisition of a political office to abuse power over others to sustain some personal failing from the public eye.  I have a lot of people who report their stories of terror to me, from the harassing phone calls when they find themselves on the opposite of an issue from an influential person to the harassment that comes because of the power of government, tampering with financial transactions, digital meters mysteriously falling out of calibration for utility companies, strange people rifling through trash to dig up dirt on their political targets—open threats of violence and vandalism.  You would be surprised what people who want to abuse the power of government will do to harass their political foes.  Very few of them let the process of a republic play out honestly because they seek to abuse the power of government to gain more control; that’s why they are attracted to government in the first place.  They don’t get into government to serve the community; they seek that power to abuse it.  And it is their default mode of operation.  The tendency toward corruption is as abundant as salmon trying to swim upstream to their birthplace.  It’s a standard and is the primary reason we must maintain the smallest government possible.  To prevent such abuses from occurring as frequently as they do.  Knowing that corruption is the destination for most political figures, limited government must inspire them toward honesty because they won’t do it on their own. 

I always say it: I love all Republicans until they show me they aren’t.  Then I don’t like them anymore because, along the political scale, the more big government a person becomes, the less you can trust them as valuable people.  And you certainly can’t trust them with the power of government at their command.  And in my own regional Butler County Republican Party, I do not like to hear people referring to it as corrupt or that it’s like a mob.  That the country club Republicans are a mafia who will exert violence and abuse of the law through legal measures they control to subdue rivals no different than the kind of hits that are known in organized crime.  I have watched several very talented people interested in helping with politics run up against these influential people and see harassment of all kinds come their way, and I explain to them that isn’t how it’s supposed to be.  Many people get involved in politics for all the right reasons, but they soon find that if they don’t appease that mob-like power, they are destroyed in the process and personally harassed in entirely unacceptable ways.  And that’s not how it’s supposed to be.  Our government was designed to serve people, not to subdue them.  Looking for reasons to control the political process so it can be used as a weapon was not how the Constitution should be utilized.  But it’s the primary danger of government; we can’t just make blanket statements about rival political parties when the true villain is the size of the government itself and what weak people will do to gain the power to utilize for all kinds of corrupt reasons.  People wonder why there aren’t more good people in politics; well, it’s because we have accepted levels of corruption due to the size and influence of government that keeps good people out and preserves the power of those who least deserve it.

I even say that politics is a blood sport, and if the rivals want to lose blood, then so be it.  I’m willing to play the game to win in any way necessary.  But should it be that way? Of course not.  That is why limited government should always be our agreed-upon baseline.  The more government power there is, the worse people seek to be in it.  And if we make it profitable for horrible people to gain office, then to keep office, then we shouldn’t be surprised that the process lets us down.  We can complain about it, but what are we doing about it?  Accepting such corruption is not a position any healthy society would accommodate.  It’s all too tempting for people who gain power over others to abuse that power, so for any government that acquires such power, it is common to see them abuse it for personal reasons.  We can laugh about that level of corruption and how ridiculous the people who seek to use it are, but should we laugh it off?  I don’t think so.  If you can’t tend to things in your backyard and will put up with reprehensible behavior for worthless political seats, then we are contributing to evil itself.  I like to see good people enter political offices intending to do good work.  I don’t like to see lazy people who want to enter politics do a lousy job and then use government power to hide their lack of skill from a judging public.  Or they will clamor for a seat because it’s the only thing worth anything in their life, the only path they have to social respect.  And because they are so faulty, they will do anything to hold those seats of power by trying to destroy people who could do better than them.  In politics, if we are not creating an environment of competition to get the best people in the best spots to improve our government, then we are only feeding the tendency toward corruption for all the means of abuse that the government can utilize for all the wrong reasons.  And it should be one of our most significant concerns.  Remember when some politicians say to you, “There is misleading information about me and I want to set the record straight,” just think of the mobster who says the same thing before they try to take a baseball bat out to show how much power they have become because of the government.  Be sure to judge them based on what they do, not the worthless things they say.  Then, use the force of government to conceal.

When everyone wonders why such crappy people end up in elected office, it’s because the garbage who can do nothing else in life cleave for the power of government, then use it to stop better people from beating them in elections.  And that is a problem with Republicans, Democrats, communists, and revolutionaries.  Until we take away the power the government gives to people to use to prop up their otherwise broken and useless lives, bad people will continue to dominate in politics, whereas good, honest people who can do a million other things will do so.  And leave politics to the worst that the human race produces. Instead, it should be the other way around; our best should move into politics to help others become better because they are examples everyone should follow toward individual success.  

I’m happy to help build an excellent political team, and there are at least 20 people I can think of who want to get involved in Republican politics.  But I will not put up with weaponized bureaucracy by incompetent people who clamor for power because it gives them something they wouldn’t otherwise have: power over others.  That is not acceptable.   

Rich Hoffman