This election was about what the country doesn't like--and what it doesn't like is heavy-handed politics, deals with big special interest groups, rising national debt, continued high unemployment, ever-increasing government spending, and the threat of rising taxes.
The problem is most people still want Medicare, Social Security, public education, strict environmental regulation and a whole slew of other government programs. Basically, our country wants to have its cake and eat it too. Since neither the Republicans nor the Democrats can pull that off, every two years the party in charge gets voted out.
So where do we go from here?
People have some homework to do.
As a country, we are going to have to relearn this important lesson of history: command and control, central planning does not --nay, can not--lead to prosperity. It leads instead to economic stagnation, environmental degradation and the erosion of liberty. Until that lesson is crystal clear, people will continue to look to government to solve problems which fall more appropriately on their own shoulders.
That doesn't mean we can't band together voluntarily to help the less fortunate. It does mean that in order to preserve the just and inalienable right to our own lives, we can't use the force of government to rule or rob our neighbor. It means that the solutions to the many difficult problems we face must be solved only by means which respect the individual rights of everyone, equally before for the law. No exceptions. No special interests.
The initiation of force must be totally banned from the realm of acceptable behavior...and not just between citizens. Government force must be strictly limited to protecting citizens from those who do initiate force. This county's motto need to be, not "Don't tread on me" but "Convince me, or leave me alone."
We desperately need effective statesmen who are capable of leading this country back to the ideals of self-ownership, self-reliance, and a compassion based on mutual respect.
Let's hope we voted a few of them in.
2 comments:
Where do we go from here? It is clear, as you said, and others have been saying that this election represents a vote against the party in power and not a vote for the republicans. And we are sending those freshmen Congressmen and Senators right into the lions den. Given these facts, I suggest:
1) Hold the republicans' feet to the fire. Never let them think we are not watching, and let them know what we expect. (I am sending our new Congressman a post card that says simply: You were elected and now you are expected to remember this: IT'S THE CONSTITUTION, STUPID!).
2) Give the newbies support for doing the right thing. Let them know that as voters, we will back them when they do. They need a support group in order to deal with the temptations that are out there to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage.
Since this was not a vote for the Republicans, they really, really need to know that as a party, they are on probation. And we are ready to vote them out just as surely as we voted out the Democratic Socialists (formerly known as the Democratic Party). I believe that if the Republicans screw it up like they did under Bush, they will go the way of the Whigs in 1858, who were gone by 1860. These modern-day Whigs will also be gone and a third party will become one of the dominant two.
Go Elisheva!
Be the calcium for their spines! Write your congressman.
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