Liberal Government?

Of all of the presidential contenders' slogans last year, Barack Obama was the most interesting. His campaign motto of "Yes, we can", was however somewhat ambiguous. Any reasonable person would ask: "Can what?", to which the stock answer was "Hope." But yet again, a reasonable person might ask: "Hope for what?" To which the answer was always "For change", or perhaps "Change We Can Believe In". I suppose that’s the opposite of unbelievable changes. It did make quite a battle cry of course, but the problem is that change can be either good or bad.

It would seem to me that the Democrats usually confuse change with improvement. They appear to believe in some sort of natural law which decrees “change” to always be for the better. They also fail to weigh the costs of change, or to consider unintended consequences. But the ability to bring about change becomes the leading symbol of the liberal politician. Thus it was that Hillary was so quick to join Obama on the change bandwagon. Her claim of "experience" sounded a bit thin, so "Ready on Day One" signs were soon replaced by "Ready for Change." But then, Republican campaign slogans weren’t much to brag about either. John McCain didn’t have a slogan, except "Mac is Back." Mitt Romney's idea was: "Washington is Broken" which was slightly better, but was still little more than an echo of Ross Perot.

Well, I was ready for change as well, but I like to think I’m smart enough to realize that the value of change lies in the eye of the beholder. Consider that when the Forest Service policies were changed, the destruction of the timber industry was an improvement to the environmentalists, even though the rest of us had a somewhat different viewpoint. But I’m still ready for “change”. I would certainly like to see a change with government expenditures being reduced, and our tax load trimmed as well. I would also like to see government agents and agencies get out of our personal lives. Then to, I would very much like to see a change to a limited government based on our constitution. The Democrats of course want even more government, so their ignoring government limitations are to be expected. But the Republican “dereliction of duty” indicates a serious drift away from the conservative standards of our nation’s founders. (I also realize that abandoning the constitutional ideals of our nations founders is grounds for a serious party in the halls of the DNC!)

But anyway, we’ve been promised a change by the present regime. Well… I’m still waiting. Our wars continue, we’re still mad at Iran, and I suspect that with the recent developments in North Korea we can expect a lot of saber rattling in that direction as well. Taxes are still going up you may have noticed (while the economy still flounders about), the Brady gun grab continues, globalization is once again on the rise, and of course anyone who doesn’t fully agree with the regime is listed as a domestic terrorist by homeland security. After all the weeping and wailing during the Bush administration I also notice that our Democratic Congress hasn’t repealed the so called Patriot Act, we’re still being “folded, spindled, and mutilated” into a national database, torture is now an approved interrogation technique, the Homeland Security guys happily continue spying on us, and the national debt is increasing fast enough to make FDR proud!

Then there are a few other choice tidbits from the Democrats, one of the best being, as I understand things: back in January that Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) seriously proposed a Constitutional Amendment to repeal the 22nd Amendment (the one that limits a president to two terms in office). FDR would have loved the possibility of becoming “President for Life”… well, FDR did just that in a manner of speaking, but this of course would make it official. Now the Dems want to try again with Mr. Obama I presume. The proposal was sent to the “Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties” for serious consideration. Dunno if the mainstream media ever noticed this or not, but they sure didn’t mention it!

It’s been said that the country is not yet ready for a three party political system. However, I don’t see where it’s ready for our current “one and a half party” system either. At present it appears that we have the disorganized Conservatives on the one hand, and the far more numerous Republicrats on the other. Unfortunately the hand on the throttle has us running full speed on a downhill slope, with no thought about what happens when we hit the curve at the bottom! (Its gonna be one jim-dandy train wreck I can assure you!) If however, the nation’s conservatives can ever get their act together, they stand a very good chance of grabbing the brake lever and stopping this pell-mell rush to disaster! Remember Ross Perot? He won 19% of the (mostly hard core conservative) vote in a presidential election when we weren’t facing anywhere near the problems we see today. Incidentally, Conservatives do make up about 48% of today’s voters. Now if we could just find another Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater…

The solution to the problem is fairly simple in concept, but will be rather difficult to put into practice. Essentially we need to get the nations conservatives to put aside their petty squabbles, join hands, and take back the government of our nation, starting with the various statehouses. Americans have been notorious over the last couple of hundred years for being able to cooperate, and put up a pretty respectable fight, in the face of severe adversity. If we, as a free and independent nation, have lost that ability, we might as well forget the whole thing and get used to new world order globalization and European style socialism!

There is of course the easy way out of the dilemma, just join the liberals, because then everyone will like you, including the ex-friends who abandoned you when you started spouting conservative opinions. Besides, it’s much easier to allow others to form your opinions instead of researching an issue for yourself, particularly when the facts you discover differ from the politically correct consensus. You can be rewarded for all shortcomings and nothing would ever be your fault. Your irresponsible behavior would be forgiven merely by preaching the spending of someone else’s money on whatever the latest cause. If you ‘care’, you won’t have to accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions. Besides, everyone knows that conservatives are racist, homophobic, stupid, and motivated only by profit, instead of any desire to be nice people. Even better, you can redefine reality to whatever you might want it to be. You could turn failure into success, murder into choice, or lies into ‘misstatements’, just by wanting the meaning of a word or two changed. You can be considered wise by your peers, instead of opinionated. Best of all, you could make up the rules as you go, changing them in midstream if needed, and then blame everything bad that happens on the conservatives.

That of course would be the easy way.