“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. ”
Ayn Rand wrote this decades ago. Let’s take a look at the evidence, from the past several years, to indicate that her concern has been realized:
The Congress, in collusion with the President of the United States, takes over the medical profession. A majority vote could barely be orchestrated to pass the bill, which led the Speaker of the House to state she was prepared to merely “deem” portions of the bill passed, without sufficient votes, in order to make the legislation law. Under the new law, the head of Medicare (government-run insurance) states that rationing is a good thing and will be implemented. The new official also states that decisions previously worked out by doctors, patients and insurance companies in the more or less private marketplace will now be determined by federal authorities.
Massive tax increases are set to occur January 1. A Value Added Tax (VAT) is under serious consideration and will be passed by the current Congress and President unless one or both are removed in elections. The higher taxes mean two things. One, there is less private property and private income in the United States than ever before. Two, a smaller proportion of the population will pay taxes in order to ensure that more private wealth is redistributed to a larger number of people — i.e., people favored by the politicians who currently control Congress and the White House.
Government, thanks to so-called “financial reform” regulation soon to be passed, now determines what financial decisions are, and are not, appropriate.
Government now owns the majority of stock in previously privately owned American automobile companies.
Congress and the President are attempting to pass legislation, known as “cap and trade,” which will treat all privately produced and consumed energy and fuel as property of the government — to be rationed, restricted or redistributed to politically favored parties as the government sees fit, in the name of “saving the planet.”
The Federal Communications Commission takes steps to consolidate government ownership of all broadband technology, regulating and distributing this Internet-supporting technology as it sees fit, and according to political, not economic, standards. Congress begins to plan to impose sales taxes on all Internet commerce.
Does it look to you like government now sets the terms of most economic and personal activity that takes place in the United States? Or do private, free and independent individuals remain in control of their destinies? Clearly, government is now the driver. This has been the trend or tendency for a long time. In the last year or two, that trend has so fearlessly, dramatically and unequivocally accelerated that the founders of the United States of America would no longer recognize our system of government. In fact, it’s hard for most of us alive today to recognize the nation as we knew it three short years ago. In the United States of the near future, destiny (to recall the William Jennings Bryan quote) will no longer be a matter of chance or choice; it will be a matter of government coercion.
Only a revolution can save us now. A “revolution” refers to a fundamental change in thinking backed up by total reversals in policy. It need not be bloody, especially if most support it. The problem is, we need free elections — which as of this moment, the Obama-Pelosi government still allows. We also need people to vote for who will reverse our policy course 180 degrees. I don’t yet see them. I sure hope we see them soon.