If you're duplicitous, disingenuous or otherwise manipulative towards another person, then consider the mistake you're making. By being manipulative, you're counting on a weakness or foolishness in the person whose behavior you seek to alter by a means other than reason. You're doing this -- why, exactly? You're doing it in order to gain something from them. What are you trying to gain? Something involving their intelligence or sophistication. In practice, you're counting on someone to be weak and foolish so that you can utilize their intelligence and wisdom.

Don't you think if a person really is worth manipulating, he's likewise incapable of being manipulated?

The contradiction involved is obvious. That's why only the foolish and unintelligent are stupid enough to practice deception or manipulation. They're right that they need assistance. But they're not going to get it in this way -- at least, not from anyone who has something to offer.

A 1999 study by Christina Romer, who now works in the Obama Administration, found that the average length of recessions from 1887 to 1929 was only 10.3 months, with the longest lasting 16 months. Recessions lasted longer during the supposedly enlightened post World War II era (prior to 2000), with three of them lasting 16 to 21 months.

Now wait a minute. Government intervention in the economy really took off in this country after 1929 -- after the Administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt began in 1933, launching the welfare-regulatory state as we know it, in earnest. Every Administration since Roosevelt has either dramatically expanded the welfare state or at least maintained it. If government entitlement programs and regulations are so good for the economy, then how come recessions became longer and nastier since they came into existence? All the government regulation of the past 75 years didn't do much to prevent the Great Recession that began in 2007 and is still going strong in 2010. What gives?

Maybe we actually need less government intervention in the economy. Much less. Or, better yet -- maybe the government should get completely out of the economy. Some claim this would mean a worse economy. But how much worse can it get? The latest unemployment figures suggest the recession is expanding, and we're now in the fourth year of it! Starting with Bush and now with Obama, government has never been so involved in the economy and has never transferred the amount of wealth (hundreds of billions under Bush, now trillions under Obama) from the private sector to the wasteland of government offices.

Could Obama be right that we need change, only 180 degrees the opposite of what he's giving us? And isn't it time to face the fact that neither party in power has any intention, or desire, of curbing their own power in order to give Americans the change they need to thrive and survive?

When you do things for people that they're capable of doing themselves, you do great harm to them. It's the same as telling them: "You're incapable" -- even though they are. By doing the thing for them, you're taking over their sense of self-determination and autonomy. These things matter. In this crazy age we live in, people scream that "self-esteem" is all that matters, and they use this battle cry as an excuse to do all manner of things for people whether they ask for the help, or not; whether they can do it for themselves, or not; whether it's truly their own responsibility, or not. When you act in this way, it's important that you acknowledge at least one thing: This is really all about you. What you call "help" for the sake of another is really your own agenda. The fact that you aren't conscious of what this agenda is does NOT make it reasonable and rational; and the fact that you refuse to acknowledge that you have your own agenda ("I would never act for my own sake!") does not change the fact that you do. I know that in our age of altruism and conspicuous compassion that the ever-present commandments are "do for others" and "be supportive." These are categorical imperatives and they do not answer to reason, facts, logic or objective circumstances. You dare not question them at any time according to the moralists, "spiritualists" and psychological pundits of our era. When all is sacrificed for these things, you're left with very little.