The laws that nitpick at our lives - that's too much government.
The laws that provide for our well being, that fulfill the social contracts that keep our society running smoothly are exactly what government is for: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, our military troops, food stamps, welfare assistance, the Job Corps, the infrastructure of roads, bridges, and utilities, the regulation of imports, and the oversight of businesses, the criminal justice system, the prisons, and our relations with foreign countries. 100% of American should be dependent upon our government for these social contracts we created and that we fund through our taxes.
But this isn't about what government is, but what too much government is.
It's the laws that misappropriate the funds we provide for our social contracts and programs to benefit only the already wealthy.
It's the laws that allow people to deny others the medications they need because of "religious objections" on the part of the provider - and be damned to the recipient's religious beliefs and medical needs. It's the laws that erect barriers between a patient and their physician, based on religious beliefs, and not medical care.
It's the laws that prevent business owners from doing business during hours beneficial to them - not because of commerce and competition and fair trade, but because of the religious beliefs of one small group of people who pushed those religious bans through to make them laws for everyone, not just their small coterie of adherents.
It's the laws that restrict the amount of money an employee can receive as wages. I know it was originally meant to be the minimum an employer could pay their employees, but it's been used as an excuse to keep from paying the employee a fair and living wage.
It's the that allow the employer to steal from the employee without penalties. It's the laws that allow employers to abuse their employees by denying them breaks, lunch hours, or overtime pay. It's the laws that allow employers to deny employees paid sick leave, thus exposing people unnecessarily to contagious diseases. It's the laws that allow employers to deny their employees paid vacation time to renew and rejuvenate themselves so they work smarter and better.
It's the laws that allow law enforcement to treat their employers (the tax-payers - you and me) as if we were all criminals, using military force against us when we exercise our Constitutional rights to seek redress for wrongs done to us.
It's the laws that place the lion's share of the tax burden on the poor, and lifts the burden from the rich.
It's the laws that require a citizen in need to use up all their resources before they can seek help, so they are plunged to the deepest possible poverty levels, and then place undue restrictions on them to be "worthy" of aid, forcing them to spend years trying to re-achieve what they lost.
It's the laws that attack us as citizens, that prevent us from achieving our potentials, that burdens us with unreasonable debts and usurious interest rates, that restrict our freedom of movement within the borders of our country, that treat us as if we were the enemy and not citizens that are "too much government".
It's the riders on legislation that sneak burdensome and unfair laws onto us, that benefit only the wealthy at our expense. Stop the riders on legislation - that's where most of the unreasonable government laws come from. Reinforce regulations on businesses to treat employees fairly and to provide living wages.
Get the rich people's fingers out of the dams they built to steal our hard-earned money from us so it spills down the causeways and back to us where it belongs. Get the rich people out of government so they stop writing and passing laws that treat half the country or more as if we were irrelevant and unimportant, criminals waiting for jail time.
That's where the "too much government" comes in. Rich people writing and passing laws to restrict and burden everyone else.