Americans are hopeful that their economy will rebound, in time. Most are still hopeful that Obama and his Washington cohorts will steer or drive that economy towards eventual recovery and prosperity. Frankly, even some Republicans I talk to actually believe this. To me, it is incredible that anyone could think this. Washington DC is full of looters, thieves and plunderers. Call that an overstatement, but it’s the truth. They steal from one group and give to another. The current regime is very big on taking from those who have more and giving to those who have less. They’re out and out socialists; they actually punish productivity because it’s productivity and (not being productive themselves) they hate it. But in one form or another, and to one degree or another, politicians in both parties have done this since at least the days of FDR, in the 1930s. Keep in mind the definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. Last year, I was having a discussion with a member of the Democrat-leaning noncommittal middle of the road. She was not a flaming liberal and she showed regard towards both myself and my ideas. When I pointed out that we needed change both from Obama and the Republicans in the form of far less government, and a restoration of limited government, she replied, “Oh, no. I don’t agree. We need a reformed government, not necessarily a smaller one. I don’t know if Obama will do it, but that’s what we need.” I asked her to define what she meant by “reformed.” She had no answer, other than to say “it should function better,” and changed the subject.
This, it struck me, is exactly what’s wrong with America. The twenty or thirty percent who are crazy liberal socialists don’t matter. If they represented the mainstream, we’d be a third world country by now. The forty percent in the middle are the most worrisome. They’re the ones who are not leery of Republicans because they think Republicans have lacked in limited government principles. They’re leery of Republicans because they fear Republicans will actually become principled. They persist in thinking that American government — its system of looting, theft and plunder that takes place every single day in Washington DC — is not only moral, but economically necessary. In thinking this, they make themselves vulnerable to eventual dictatorship. Why? Because theft, plunder and looting are not sane or practical policies. The government allowed to steal from some groups for the sake of others will eventually steal from everyone for the sake of itself. If the street that you lived on legalized theft, plunder and looting tomorrow, what do you think would happen to your street? The same applies when it’s done in Congress. The fact that it’s done in the shadows of truly great men’s statues, men such as Jefferson, Madison and Franklin, does not change its nature. These policies of theft and plunder simply cannot be sustained. Immoral policies are by definition impractical. It may be good news, for now, that only 30 percent of America really supports Obama. But it’s not good news for freedom, and life as Americans have known it, that the great majority of people (I fear) still think that “government needs to be more efficient, not smaller.” Persisting in this false belief will simply get more people elected who will claim to “reform politics as usual” and then, once elected, proceeding to plunder the people even more.
The days of reckoning brought on by decades of reckless government looting are approaching. The time for ideological neutrality is gone. These noncommittal, nonideological types are standing in the middle of the road and are about to be hit by a truck. It’s painful and pitiful to watch, especially in a society that could and should have soared to ever greater heights.