TWENTY ØNE PILØTS’ second signed album, Blurryface, has a great song on it that’s playing on iPhones across America.  The song is catchy and seems upbeat, until you pay attention to the heart wrenching lyrics. His life has been crushed by a woman, seemingly the topic of 90% of songs ever sung.  Except there’s this jewel in the middle.

The singer cares about this woman so much – who apparently tore a hole in his heart —  that he resents the small things in life that cause her discomfort. Tyler Joseph sings:

You fell asleep in my / Car. I drove the whole time / But that’s okay / I’ll just avoid the holes so you sleep fine / I’m driving here. I sit / Cursing my government / For not using my taxes / To fill holes with more cement.

At the risk of reading too much into a pop song, I like this because TWENTY ØNE PILØTS inadvertently express the simplicity of what Americans want from their governments — we want problems solved that we can’t do ourselves.

As much as we love self-governance, you don’t want individuals out there fixing the roads.  Our taxes pay for the government to keep the roads up and do the things we can’t do.  And that’s pretty much it.  The government (especially the federal government) has so encroached into every area of life, it’s hard to remember a time when they weren’t involved in the conversations we had about healthcare, education, and even marriage.

That’s why I love this song.

Americans want the government to protect life, liberty and property.

Wouldn’t it be nice if they would focus on the small, every day details of governance, and — once all the potholes are filled — leave us alone?

Here’s this great song…  let it become your anthem if you are a heartbroken fan of self-governance.  (And isn’t that all of us during this modern political climate?)

Photo Credit: Majorie Lam / Shutterstock.com

About The Author

Mark was a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, and served as the national coordinator. He left the organization to work more broadly on expanding the self-governance movement beyond the partisan divide. Mark appears regularly on television in outlets as diverse as MSNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox Business and the BBC. He’s highly sought after for the tea party perspective from print and electronic media outlets, from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington Examiner, Politico and the The Hill. Mark blogs at MarkMeckler.com, and his opinion editorials regularly run in many of the leading political newspapers both on and offline. Mark has a BA in English from San Diego State University and graduated with honors from University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 1988. He practiced real estate and business law for almost a decade. For the last eleven years of his legal career he specialized in Internet advertising law. When not fighting for the future of our nation, Mark is an avid horseman, and lives in rural northern California with his wife Patty and two children.

One Response

  1. JOHN H. PRIMM

    THE WAY THINGS ARE SET UP NO ONE IN GOVERMENT IS HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE YEARS OF MISMANAGEMENT. THE FINANCIAL CAN IS CONTINUALLY KICKED DOWN THE ROAD AN FUTURE TAXPAYERS ( AT SOME TIME OF THEIR CHOOSING ) IS LEFT HOLDING THE BAG. THEY CONTINUALLY PASS LEGISLATION PUTTING THE PUNISHMENT ON PRIVATE CITIZENS TO DETRACT FROM THEIR INCOMPETANCE. THINGS ARE BAD BECAUSE OF GOVERN MISMANAGEMENT. TAX AND SPEND APPROACE WILL GET US OUT OF THIS MASSISVE MESS. I DO NOT SEE ANY POLITICIAN WHO KNOWS WHAT TO DO, EXCEP DIG US IN DEEPER AND DEEPER.

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