A large number of politically active Americans begin a feverish
search during every national election, hoping to find a candidate who
will challenge big government. They are looking for a reformer who will
cut Leviathan down to size.
The government is too big, too wasteful and too involved in trying to
micro-manage the private lives and private businesses of citizens. Our
government is clogged with swarms of badly organized and poorly equipped
employees, cubicled away from reality, running failed programs.
Bureaucratic bloat is a phenomenon experienced sooner or later by
every large organization. In the private sector, companies who stay
successful will, from time to time, take such action as is necessary to
get them trim and fit again. They prune dead wood; they repair mistakes;
they cut out organizational layers; they cancel failed programs and
products; they re-examine the markets they serve; they eliminate
organizational redundancies and overlaps; they shorten and unclog lines
of communication; they refocus on customers; and they get rid of surplus
people.
The government doesn't do these things; it has become an end unto
itself. While market-driven private companies self-correct, the
government does not.
But the problems of big government run deeper and are more insidious
than simple waste and incompetence. In its lust for expanded power, it
has sucked the vitality out of cherished traditions and institutions.
Many churches have lost membership and grown weak because they
abandoned responsibility for the education of children and for the care
of the poor. Now, they wonder why so many young people scorn the church,
and why the needy look to the government for salvation, rather than to
God.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has
abandoned its crusade and devolved into little more than a
special-interest group soliciting favors from the government. Although
liberal policies have literally shattered the black family and condemned
black youth to life-long damage from inferior, government-run, ghetto
schools, the NAACP has become a servile constituency of the liberal
establishment.
Unions have foolishly participated in their own undoing. They
undermined themselves by seeking political solutions and increased
government involvement in issues such as retirement, affirmative action,
training, safety, working conditions, terms of employment, employee
"rights" and medical coverage. With government making all the decisions,
who needs a union?
Unions today spend millions of dollars to elect a political party,
whose socialist policies will eventually make the union movement
obsolete and workers subservient to the state.
The family itself has been severely damaged by the pre-emption of
parental responsibilities. Liberal ideologists and social reformers in
charge of government schools have already decided what they want to do
with other people's children. They will preach the gospel of secular
humanism, praise "Big Brother" government, endorse homosexuality, pass
out condoms, and arrange secret abortions -- whether parents like it or
not.
The government is on the cusp of invading the last sanctuary of
individual freedom: the home. Within the past few months, government
agencies have tried to justify the need to police and regulate home
offices to ensure compliance with standards set by the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration. And the philosophical groundwork has
been laid for the government to enter homes to prevent the abuse of
children from second-hand tobacco smoke.
Hate-crime legislation borders on thought-control. Already, both
private and governmental organizations are engaged in the insidious
business of "reprogramming" the thinking and mind-sets of employees to
ensure that their speech and attitudes conform with politically correct
standards -- which currently forbid hate and judgmentalism, except
toward white, heterosexual males, and Christians.
Religious apartheid is the official policy of the United States. If
authorities caught the Creator of the universe walking on public
property, they would attempt to put Him under arrest for having
levitated over the wall separating church and state.
Who among the candidates for president has the insight and the will
to put America back on the track laid down in the Constitution? This
election cycle, media-darling John McCain has inherited the mantle of
reform from Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan.
Alas, McCain has been a part of government (the problem) for 17
years, and currently heads the powerful Senate Commerce Committee. He
does not have a clue. The only man in the race with a deep understanding
of what has gone wrong in America and what should be done to make it
right again is Alan Keyes -- and he has little chance of being elected,
the reason being that he does understand the problem, which makes him a
dangerous threat to the overlords of the entrenched establishment.