Hope? Well yeah ... kinda.
This morning, a friend of mine posed the following question to me:
"Are you even a bit excited about the election results?"
My initial reaction, probably to no one’s surprise, was to point out that to me it’s all part of a great continuum: the continuum of statism. We’re coming to the end of the reign of a statist, war-making president, who will be replaced by an even more statist but perhaps (hopefully?) slightly less war-making president. In other words, we haven’t had a president since Calvin Coolidge who actually read, understood and followed the principles of limited, constitutional government, so why should I get excited about the election of yet another collectivist who will centralize even more power in Washington? As I pointed out in my last post, the cult of the president and the wisdom of the majority are illusions of belief anyway.
But on the other hand, I guess I am a bit excited. My objective in life is to convince people of the benefits of liberty: limited government, free markets, and free people - enlightened by science and learning and liberated from the shackles of mind-numbing religion and pseudoscience. And taking this into consideration, there’s a part of me that believes that Obama may help the cause more than anyone realizes.
After all, he’s probably the most openly socialist president we’ve ever elected. Where in the past it was possible to blame our economic woes on capitalism and the pro-capitalist president who was sitting in office at the time, this time it won’t be so easy. Moreover, hope as people may, socialism doesn’t work in the long run. You can only spread the wealth around as long as someone is still creating the wealth, and since human greed tends to outstrip human production in the long run, it doesn’t take too long before those with their hands out outnumber those with their noses to the grindstone. Socialism encourages parasitism, dependence, and that childlike reliance upon a mother/father figure to always be there for you (in this way it's really just another religion). Enter the Chosen One - our new president.
But there’s a big difference between promising things on the campaign trail and actually delivering them. Just as legislating morality is difficult (you’ll note that laws against "immoral" behavior haven’t really stopped any of it … for thousands of years no less), trying to direct the economy from above doesn’t yield particularly good results either. And while many old hippie boomer types have a love affair with labor and the unions that wish to have a stranglehold over it, it’s also well documented that unions restrict employment, raise prices, and reduce competitiveness in the marketplace. In other words, if Obama actually does what he promises, the economy is going to go even further in the tank than it is now, because just as Bush couldn’t spend and legislate his way to prosperity, neither will Obama be able to pull off this reality-defying feat.
And that’s why I’m slightly hopeful. When a well-attested socialist, collectivist, "progressive"* president dusts off the same old tired socialist policies that have insured decades of economic stagnation in western Europe and then ratchets them up even more than his predecessors, there’s no place to go but down.
Maybe government has to get REALLY big and REALLY oppressive before people notice it and start to rediscover limited self government and true federalism. I think Obama’s up to the challenge.
Maybe there is indeed hope for real change.
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*Just as an aside - I love how socialists now call themselves "progressives". Nice little semantic shift. Instead of owning up to the fact that they are indeed socialists, they instead wish to gain power so we can progress ever forward toward socialism.
PS -- if you want a neat little flashback to show just how little political discourse and our perceptions of our system have changed, take a gander at this little Pete Seeger clip from 1964.
"Are you even a bit excited about the election results?"
My initial reaction, probably to no one’s surprise, was to point out that to me it’s all part of a great continuum: the continuum of statism. We’re coming to the end of the reign of a statist, war-making president, who will be replaced by an even more statist but perhaps (hopefully?) slightly less war-making president. In other words, we haven’t had a president since Calvin Coolidge who actually read, understood and followed the principles of limited, constitutional government, so why should I get excited about the election of yet another collectivist who will centralize even more power in Washington? As I pointed out in my last post, the cult of the president and the wisdom of the majority are illusions of belief anyway.
But on the other hand, I guess I am a bit excited. My objective in life is to convince people of the benefits of liberty: limited government, free markets, and free people - enlightened by science and learning and liberated from the shackles of mind-numbing religion and pseudoscience. And taking this into consideration, there’s a part of me that believes that Obama may help the cause more than anyone realizes.
After all, he’s probably the most openly socialist president we’ve ever elected. Where in the past it was possible to blame our economic woes on capitalism and the pro-capitalist president who was sitting in office at the time, this time it won’t be so easy. Moreover, hope as people may, socialism doesn’t work in the long run. You can only spread the wealth around as long as someone is still creating the wealth, and since human greed tends to outstrip human production in the long run, it doesn’t take too long before those with their hands out outnumber those with their noses to the grindstone. Socialism encourages parasitism, dependence, and that childlike reliance upon a mother/father figure to always be there for you (in this way it's really just another religion). Enter the Chosen One - our new president.
But there’s a big difference between promising things on the campaign trail and actually delivering them. Just as legislating morality is difficult (you’ll note that laws against "immoral" behavior haven’t really stopped any of it … for thousands of years no less), trying to direct the economy from above doesn’t yield particularly good results either. And while many old hippie boomer types have a love affair with labor and the unions that wish to have a stranglehold over it, it’s also well documented that unions restrict employment, raise prices, and reduce competitiveness in the marketplace. In other words, if Obama actually does what he promises, the economy is going to go even further in the tank than it is now, because just as Bush couldn’t spend and legislate his way to prosperity, neither will Obama be able to pull off this reality-defying feat.
And that’s why I’m slightly hopeful. When a well-attested socialist, collectivist, "progressive"* president dusts off the same old tired socialist policies that have insured decades of economic stagnation in western Europe and then ratchets them up even more than his predecessors, there’s no place to go but down.
Maybe government has to get REALLY big and REALLY oppressive before people notice it and start to rediscover limited self government and true federalism. I think Obama’s up to the challenge.
Maybe there is indeed hope for real change.
------------------------------------------------------
*Just as an aside - I love how socialists now call themselves "progressives". Nice little semantic shift. Instead of owning up to the fact that they are indeed socialists, they instead wish to gain power so we can progress ever forward toward socialism.
PS -- if you want a neat little flashback to show just how little political discourse and our perceptions of our system have changed, take a gander at this little Pete Seeger clip from 1964.
posted by DrJDG @ 14:22
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