We call them “imposers.” They are The Government, working on our behalf to ensure our life, our liberty, and our property are protected. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
It is an honorable position to be called a civil servant, whether they be a congressman, an EPA inspector, or a CMS surveyor. The imposers hold the sacred trust to work on our collective behalf – to give us all the opportunity to pursue our happiness, while steadfastly protecting our lives and liberty.
We are not born with an innate ability to govern. And with the decisive edge to American politics, we struggle to give our civil servants a reasoned approach to what it means to be a lawmaker or regulator. So when those rare occurrences arise in which we find ourselves with the opportunity to influence the perspectives of our imposers, we must be purposeful and diligent to equip our civil servants to govern us better.
Therefore, it is our commitment to help governments around the world make sense of what it means to govern, what it means to be the imposer. How, in the modern world, do we guide a very large group of inescapably fallible human beings intent on expressing their free will with the personal mission of pursuing their own individual happiness? To this question, we have answers.
