You can call me a troll all you want and yet reality doesn't change.

I have over 35 years in business as an entrepreneur and have made (and lost) more money than most people can dream about making. I know a thing or two about how shit works in the real world. I know how it worked during low and high tax "seasons" and I know what decisions real business people are forced to make due to government meddling.

I am speaking out of real context having started and run companies with my own cash, having succeeded, failed, gone bankrupt and risen-up again and having created tons of jobs in my community. I am not some asshole simply spouting off based on ideology. I live this shit. I am spouting off the reality every business person in this nation faces.

I am here to tell you that if you don't understand why it is that our government has become the enemy of growth and progress in this nation you really need to gain a better understanding of how the world works. Start a cookie baking operation with your own money and see what you learn after five or ten years.

Call me a troll. Down vote my comments. Call me a jerk and an asshole. Do as you wish. None of that is going to change the reality of what is going on around us. Not one bit.

The government isn't hitting Uber over the head to "protect the little guy". That's pure bullshit. They are protecting the unions that are threatened by Uber. They are actively using anything they can to stop Uber because it threatens their own political gain. Can't you see that? These politicians couldn't give a shit about the little guy.

This isn't about having zero regulations either. Healthy controls are important, necessary and reasonable.

This is about government consuming OUR money efficiently, not growing beyond a reasonable size, not spending without accountability, working with us, not against us, not becoming the enemy of growth and progress. Government does not have the right to meddle in every aspect of our lives.

The tax code is some 70,000 pages. I've been in business for 35 years and I can safely say I can't even begin to comprehend all of it. It is humanly impossible. Can you? Please explain why we need 70,000 pages of convoluted rules to pay for the running of our government and services? The only people who benefit from such a monster are the super-rich who can afford to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for accountants to figure out how to pay less taxes. The rest of us get screwed.

You seem to be so brainwashed by this idea that we need government for everything that you just can't see it the other way. There are few possibilities here:

- You are a unionized worker and, of course, will be pro-government all the way because you benefit from politicians pandering to you. In this case you don't realize what damage you are doing to our country in the long term.

- You are unemployed and supported by some government program. I'm sorry that is that case. I hope you find work soon and make that money available to support others that might have hit hard times. This is important. We as a society must help people during hard times.

- You are a college student or just out of college and have been fed a steady dose of left wing liberal ideology that you swallowed hook-line-and-sinker. Not much I can say to you other than, you've been indoctrinated and I hope you will, at some point in your life, see that the emperor has no clothes. From my experience most liberal ideologs suddently see reality when they start a business and start to experience the consequences of some of the ideology they used to support. I have many ex-liberal friends.

- You are a government worker. Enough said.

- You are and have always been an employee. You've never been an entrepreneur at scale. No, publishing an app in the app store does not expose you to the realities of how government meddles with business. There are a lot of little businesses (graphic design, consulting, freelance software dev, etc.) that can escape the nasty experience afforded to manufacturers, food processors and a whole layer of businesses deeply "touched" by government. There's nothing wrong with being an employee or having operated a small business outside some of the nasty stuff government can do to businesses. Nothing wrong at all. That said, if that is your case, you have to be honest enough with yourself to understand that you simply do not have the context necessary to understand the issues and even begin to discuss them. Arguing about something you don't understand would definitely make you a certified troll. It's like me arguing about open heart surgery with a practicing cardilogist because I read a few articles about it.

As one of my favorite sayings goes: A man holding a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way (Mark Twain).

There are other angles here, but in my experience someone who doesn't agree with the idea that government has gotten out of hand simply isn't exposed to the realities some of us see every day. Nothing wrong with that. Congratulations, But don't pretend you know what's going on because you don't.