I’ve been traveling for the last several days. I’ve had to watch the major news networks in restaurants and airports. I did a little first person observation as well. I watched the news media as I was standing behind hundreds of reporters when President Trump entered the room to address a convention. Very few of the reporters stood up. After listening to their news stories, I think there is a struggle for America’s soul. The struggle is real as Socialist politicians and their media supporters cling to power. The Socialists say we need more government, and they will say anything to get it. Then again, the Socialists always say they need more power, no matter how big government gets. Some of us say more freedom is better than more government. Freedom is the answer to our most serious and our most pressing persistent problems. The reason lies in our very nature. We can judge the results for ourselves…and we must if we are to repair this mess.
No candidate is perfect. All of us are flawed. Look at your community and at our nation. My community suffers from every sin imaginable. We are weak and corruptible. We see the same weaknesses in our public figures. Look at the presidential pardons Barack Obama made in his last days in office. Look at Obama’s military sales in his last hours in office! Look at the hundreds of millions of dollars the Clinton Foundation laundered as foreign governments bought favors. No one is immune.
What should we do in light of that fact? Socialists say solutions come from government programs. They say we need an all-powerful government that can soothe every injustice wrought by an imperfect populace and an unfair world. Only an omnipotent government can deliver equality in the face of human imperfection. Because the government’s mission is so important, ordinary citizens must be taught what to think so we will all obey the state. (unless a Republican is in office)
Sure, government is flawed, but those flaws are really features according to the socialists and their apologists. Government corruption, kickbacks, and graft are simply the perquisites of government service. Government should be powerful and centrally planned. Elites think the government is too complex to be understood or operated by ordinary citizens.
I disagree. Government is made of men. These bureaucrats and politicians are as flawed as any of us. They are as biased and partisan and self-serving as any capitalist robber-baron ever was. We are corrupt, and so are our politicians! Perfection is nowhere to be found. Not at my kitchen table, and not at the White House.
Let’s look at the results. Our behemoth government spent uncountable fortunes trying to satisfy every need. Today we are taxed and controlled by an unknowable mountain of government regulations. Government is so complex that we can be neither sure we followed the laws nor sure we properly paid our taxes. Despite those sacrifices, we have the sick, the crazy, the fatherless, and the poor in record numbers.
Can you name even one problem that government made smaller?
There are alternatives. Conservatives have a different view of society. Contemporary conservatives live in a dirty and imperfect world. Political conservatives live in a world that never goes according to plan. Accidents happen, and the people on the scene have the best idea about how to solve their problems. Their solution is to simplify government if it becomes too complex. Conservatives want to fit government to us, rather than demand that we mold our lives to fit some government plan. Conservatives think that government should be small, local, and simple.
These conflicting visions are clashing across America today. Are we uncaring if we reject an all-powerful government? Speaking personally, I want my neighbors to keep their own money and their freedom. My neighbors are flawed, yet I trust my neighbors far more than I trust a government bureaucrat. Judging by the latest election results, lots of my neighbors think the same thing.
Freedom is the answer and I love the solutions I’ve seen. I saw working class families start their own schools. I saw doctors start their own medical practices without the insurance companies. They didn’t like the options they saw, so they made their own. They reformed education and healthcare without a government plan or approval. I’ve seen companies move from over-regulated and overtaxed blue states so they could grow their businesses.
We live in a messy laboratory of freedom. You have options, so choose the solution you want. Move to a big-government blue city like New York, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, Saint Louis, or San Francisco if you want. If that isn’t your cup of tea, then move to a free state. I love that freedom of choice. I resent anyone who tries to take those choices away or who says we must all be the same. I resent politicians who say it is noble to rob my neighbor of his freedom or his wallet. I resent politicians who have such bad solutions that they need to impose them on all of us by force.
Please listen for those distortions as you hear news reporters and Socialist politicians tell us what we should do. I resent the lies, like being told that I could keep my doctor, or that the earth is warming because of my car. Government should be held accountable for their lies, and that is what the Socialists fear. We can hold the media accountable for the lies they tell us as well.
That leaves open the questions of utility and morality. A nation of angels doesn’t benefit from an all-powerful government. A nation of flawed humans can’t survive an all-powerful government. That shows that government should be limited, but it leaves open the spiritual question.
Are we perfect or are we flawed, and how should we live together?
photo credit: CJS*64 Are You Afraid of the Dark ? “I am !!” via photopin (license)
