If the pundits and news headlines are to be believed, America is in its worse (insert your favorite excuse for not living your life here) crisis since the beginning of human history.
More than that, we are all victims. We are all victims of global warming, an impending ice age, big pharma, bovine flatulence, landfills, endangered species collapse and not enough tinfoil hats to protect our citizens! We will be lucky to make it to our next payday.
It’s the government’s job, of course, to fix all these things. I mean, we’re just individuals! What can we do about problems on a global scale? Time is running out! It may have run out yesterday! Just do something – anything! If not for yourself, then do it for the children!
But of course, what chance do the children have in America? I mean, this is a racist cesspool, where the poor are tormented with welfare benefits, free health care, free education, free contraceptives, free child care and the dumbing down of the nation as a whole so they don’t feel inferior. Why, if we didn’t have the likes of ACORN registering illegal aliens to vote, well, none of the poor and downtrodden would have a voice in this country!
Like most of you, I thought our problems would be over once we elected our first affirmative action president! Both Democrats and Republicans were so eager to elect an oppressed minority that they waived the Constitution’s citizenship requirements. Obliging lesser officials sealed his education records, from preschool to law school. And the governor of Hawaii sealed his non-existent birth certificate from public examination. And the Democrats want to do away with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”?
Anyway, “change” was on its way, and that’s all that mattered!
The first thing to change was that “pay as you go” was banished from the halls of Congress and the communist-leaning, East Coast political establishment. Long used to prevent “change” by requiring taxes be “changed” to pay for “change,” paygo adherents suddenly forgot all about their deepest convictions. We haven’t heard from them – or their deepest convictions – since. (Well, we have heard about some of their other convictions.)
All those pieces of pork that had been hanging in congressional offices, aging to perfection, were suddenly ready to grill! The White House barbecue was fired up to roast skeptics. Bazillions of dollars were borrowed from our friends, the Chinese, who were happy to loan us the “change” they had left over from flooding our country with cheap imports made by oppressed workers polluting the environment and evading safety standards. The Federal Reserve accelerated the process by tapping a few computer keys and releasing billions of dollars worth of electrons into the banking ether.
Certainly, “change” was happening at breakneck speed! Funny, though; the “change” began to look awfully familiar. Pork barrel projects to reward congressional supporters and beef up corporate contributions. Scripted press conferences with handpicked questions. Air Force One boondoggles. An inaccessible White House visitor calendar. And the ever-present, presidential teleprompter.
It was almost like nothing had changed.
America’s problem is that like other failed democracies, we expect the government to do everything for us. As a result, the government is filled with people either dumb enough to try, or deceitful enough to promise and then do what benefits their own pocketbook.
Here’s the real truth: If you want “change” in America, the government needs to do less, not more.
The reason is simple. By the time government gets prodded into “doing something,” opinion has become so divided on whether or not the problem exists, let alone how to solve it, that half the people are going to be outraged at whatever government comes up with to fix the problem.
America became great because we had individual choice. Don’t like your doctor? Choose another one. Don’t like your employer? Get another job. Don’t like your insurance policy? Buy another one. Can’t find a product to solve your problem? Start a company and sell your solution to others.
We didn’t become great by wringing our hands while waiting for bureaucrats to study the problem to death, craft a solution in committee and then mandate that we buy their wares.
But that’s what a majority of America now says they want. Just remember this: Asking the government to fix your problem will be the last time you exercise choice. Government doesn’t permit competition, and you can’t opt out. America’s problem isn’t that the government won’t fix your problems. America’s problem is that we’re overflowing with people who want government to fix their problems.
