There are many ways governments manipulate their populace. The simple enactment of any policy or law will serve to manipulate people into or away from particular behaviors. In most cases, this is a good thing. Societies need order and security, and some of these methods are ideal to influence large numbers and groups of people. Without compliance and obedience to the laws and policies of government, there would be chaos.
A relatively new field in the news lately is called behavioral economics. It brings together psychology and economics. In its simplest form, it involves financial incentives or penalties directly tied to behavior. It makes the assumption that people will inherently make bad choices and they need a slight push toward the right decisions.
On targeted populations, behavioral economics can be a good thing as well. One example cited took place in a small town that had a higher than normal teen pregnancy rate. Authorities implemented a program that paid teen mothers $1 a day for every day they kept from getting pregnant again. The program illustrated the power of a financial incentive, however small, in nudging people toward making the right decisions. Teen pregnancy rates under the program dropped significantly.
This is timely because the Obama administration is an advocate of it, only on a much larger scale. This is evident in the program just started where people can trade in a gas-guzzling car for a new fuel efficient one and get a $4500 government incentive. One of the problems with this program, aside for the $1B of taxpayer money to be spent on it, is that its intent is not to conserve fuel, but to boost sales of American made General Motors and Chrysler vehicles. It manipulates people on a massive scale to purchase vehicles they wouldn't otherwise buy. Another problem is that it invites fraud by those who would obtain a salvaged vehicle worth much less, just to trade it in for the government incentive.
Behavioral economics, when instituted on a national level, is a poor excuse for manipulation, but it is manipulation. It is meant to force people into making decisions that support the government agenda, but the decisions are not those the people would make if they had the choice. For example, when gas prices are extraordinarily high, it supports the government agenda of not drilling in Anwar or off our coasts to produce more domestic oil, but it also reduces the demand because people drive less and use less energy. Less demand means less imported oil and a better balance of trade. But to the average American, it means higher costs and an inability to do what we want because we can no longer afford to. In essence, when the government manipulates, the people lose freedoms.
The Obama administration just passed in the House of Representatives their Cap and Trade legislation. Obama is on record as saying such legislation would make energy process skyrocket. The press is calling it the largest tax increase in the history of the world. It has no other purpose other than to reduce energy use under the guise of global warming, and totally bogus excuse for science.
It isn't bogus in that global warming may very well be possible, but only through the natural cycles of the earth, not through man-caused energy use. Just think about it; the Great Lakes were carved into their shapes by glaciers over millions of years. Clearly, the glaciers are no longer carving the Great Lakes. Global warming happens in cycles, just as cooling does.
For the government to tax every American for every small unit of energy use is disingenuous. The real intent is not to impact global warming, it is to create revenue to pay for the trillions of dollars already spent on other wasteful programs and projects the Obama administration wants to enact. It also provides a windfall for Obama supporters, key Democratic members of Congress who are heavily invested in companies that will benefit, and most of all, for Al Gore.
Few Americans have made as much money as Al Gore has made touting global warming as legitimate science. When he left office in 2000, he was nearly broke. He had never had a private sector job in his life. Fewer than ten years later, today he has a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars. That's because global warming is not science, it's business, a multi-billion dollar industry, and those on the ground floor will reap the greatest benefits, just as Al Gore has done. They will all do it with the blood, sweat and tears of the American taxpayer.
When you buy into it, you are being manipulated. When you go along with it, you are being manipulated. When you sit silently and let it happen, you are being manipulated. Because you are being manipulated, you are losing your freedoms and your right to choose how much energy you use and pay for at fair market-driven prices. Very soon now, the government will be driving the prices, and they will quickly become beyond the reach of many of us.