America’s original leaders promised–and delivered–on creating a society in which everyone was both free and responsible for pursuing his own interests.
Today’s leaders promise to provide medical care, retirement pensions and college tuition, and much more, in unlimited amounts for unlimited time periods into the future, without reference to the coming bankruptcy of the nation.
America’s original leaders promised–and delivered–on creating a government which was empowered to punish violent criminals and protect us from foreign adversaries, while leaving government out of both economics and religion, which were private matters.
Today’s leaders seek to bring government ever further into the realm of private matters such as religion and economics, subsidizing, regulating, and, in the process, moving towards ultimate total control of both, even though none admit it.
America was founded on the right of the individual to pursue happiness. Today’s leaders care much more about the collective “right” of everyone in society to experience happiness, provided to them by others, with political leaders taking the credit. (Ironically, under the welfare of career politicians, happiness seems to be on the decline.)
In the original America, business and capitalism were encouraged, admired and considered the hallmarks of a healthy, virtuous and productive society. Today, business and capitalism are seen–at best–as necessary evils, tolerated so as to be milked for the commonwealth and then universally and roundly condemned as polluters of the atmosphere and parasites on those who steal from them.
Is there any remote credibility to the claim that the America of today bears any resemblance to the America that was founded?
No politician promising “change” can do anything about this. Only a wholesale change in the attitude and character, in the hearts and minds of most people, will make us once again into a great nation.