By Douglas V. Gibbs
My wife and I were out and about this morning, and with us was our youngest grandchild, a bright-eyed little boy at 10 months of age. He enjoys the outdoors, and going places. When we set him in the shopping cart, however, he does not like to sit and face the shopping cart operator. Instead, little Cortez twists and turns until he can see where the cart is going, wishing, I am sure, that he could plot out his own course.
I joked with my wife, "Isn't that something? He wants to see where he is going, not where he's been."
When I was a boy I don't recall children ever twisting around in the shopping carts as Cortez does. And if any of us tried, the parent in charge of cart operation was quick to correct the situation. Now, we have a society full of nitwits, sitting in their carts, letting the politicians push them wherever they desire. When we try to view where the government-hacks are trying to steer this country, they tell us to sit down, shut up, and trust them. Personally, if they aren't going to tell me where they are trying to take us, I want to see it for myself, and I will jump off of the cart if it is someplace I'd rather not be.
An old friend of mine used to tell me, "I don't trust experts. Not only do they always have some kind of selfish agenda behind their false wisdom, but you have to think about what an expert really is. An 'ex' is a has-been, and a spurt is a drip."
The experts in Washington are even worse. They tell us they are looking forward for us, steering us to a place we want to be. But what they are doing is the same thing that has been done time and time again, and always results in failure, and tyranny.
If We The People fail to remember what's behind us, for some reason, and we greet the rhetoric as if it is some kind of new hope, or a change for the better, we will be doomed to repeat the mistakes of a number of fallen societies. What is being played for us by big government liberals is the same old song and dance presented by socialists and tyrants of the past.
Utopia is the leftist goal, but such a state is unattainable by humanity's flawed nature. Besides, paradise for one, may not be for the next. We are individuals. Government cannot create an ideal environment for us. To achieve what we desire, we must do so as individuals, in a free society, chasing the opportunities of a thriving environment.
If I sit to enjoy a cigar, in today's society there will be someone around to warn me about the danger to my lungs. If I have a juicy hamburger, someone will exclaim that it will clog my arteries. If I wish to have a beer, someone, somewhere, will espouse the evils of alcohol. The beauty of it is that if I disagree with those people, or if I decide not to be concerned about their warnings, in America I can still have a hamburger, a beer, and then smoke a cigar to finish off the meal, as I pat my .357 revolver on the stool next to me. They are free to be concerned, and I am free to fill my system with smoke, transfats, and alcohol - should I so desire.
Conservatives view these decisions as the beauty of individual choice. If a conservative doesn't like cigars, then the conservative won't smoke one. If the conservative believes greasy red meat is not good for you, then they will limit their intake of hamburgers. If a conservative has a problem with alcohol, then that person won't drink. If a conservative doesn't like guns, they don't buy one.
The problem with leftists, however, is they believe that if cigars are bad for you, nobody should be allowed to smoke. If they believe the hamburger will clog your arteries, they will campaign to ban hamburgers. If a liberal decides alcohol is harmful, they will work to take the product away from everyone. If they don't like guns, they want to make sure nobody can own one.
Choice, and personal responsibility is the basis of liberty.
Free will is a God given right. I am free do make my decisions, and in the end, the consequences in life, or with God, are nobody's fault but my own.
Of course, with freedom comes responsibility. After all, my freedom to swing my arms stops at the tip of my neighbor's nose.
When the pilgrims first came to The New World, they tried different forms of societies. At one point they even tried communal living, a lifestyle similar to socialism. The town's people produced goods, and then placed those goods in a community storage location. The goods were to be distributed to the settlers on an equal basis. Equity, however, was not achieved, and the producers began to produce less because they had no incentive to do well, since they were going to receive what they needed to survive, regardless of their contribution. In short, the experiment in socialism failed.
Ultimately, the leadership decided to try a free market, one that encouraged self-responsibility. The concept was that you get to keep what you produce, and if you have anything left over, you were free to sell or trade your goods to your neighbors. If you did not produce enough goods, your family went hungry, and it was nobody's fault but your own.
The lesson learned by the pilgrims is that when a person is not given the incentive to produce for themselves, they will begin to depend upon the community, producing less, and ultimately becoming completely dependant upon the governmental leadership for their survival. Ultimately, the community begins to depend upon the work of the few, of which eventually collapses.
In short, government was not the best provider of one's welfare. The best provider of one's welfare is one's self.
Of course, in hard times, family or friends, and even the charitable assistance from members of the community, would assist members of the society in their survival. But, knowing that the assistance was not government mandated, the receiver feels obligated to repay those that helped them, and feels obligated to right their ship - rather than fall into a culture of dependency on charity.
In fact, any time big government is used to provide for the people as the great equalizer, taking control of money distribution through taxation and wage controls, and/or creating entitlement programs that eventually become a way of life for the majority of the population, the society fails. Such political agendas brought about the end of the Greek Empire, Rome, Russia, and now endangers the societies in Europe and the United States.
Rather than looking forward to continuing to use what has worked for America for 233 years, the liberal left desires to look back to a failed ideology, and try it again, as if after failing time and time again, they can somehow make it work through some magical alteration in human nature.
Defense of the nation, and of liberty, is the same. Today's leftists have decided it is time to use a failed philosophy that not only results in a society being unable to defend itself against aggressive enemies, but a philosophy that always results in the death of millions.
As Obama works to disarm America and the other Western nations through the help of the progressively infested United Nations, the Islamic Jihad, and other tyrannies, are arming and preparing for war.
During the 1920s and 1930s the progressives of that time period felt similar as today's liberals. After the horror of the first world war the progressives of that day determined that the war had been so horrible that no nation would ever be willing to take up arms again. Following a model of disarmament proposed by the intellectuals of the day, Britain and France began to dwindle the sizes of their militaries in the pursuit of peace, and mutual understanding. Had they never disarmed, when Germany took the Alsace-Lorraine, France would have defeated the German forces in a day. But, because Britain and France had disarmed under the naive leadership of utopian-minded peace-mongers, they were ill-prepared to deal with a revived Germany bent on the destruction of their European neighbors. The progressive's desire to disarm themselves, and appease the enemy, literally led to millions of deaths during World War II, a number that would never had been reached had Britain and France remained militarily strong, and able to stop Germany before the Third Reich began its march across Europe, and embarked on its attempt to control the world.
As was the case then, we need to look forward into the future and recognize the potential dangers that lie before us. In preparation for such dangers, we must remain armed, remain strong, and remain on the battle-front against the Islamic Jihad, which follows a political ideology of hate, destruction, and tyranny, masked by the face of a false religion that is designed to stir the followers into a frenzy that will literally enable the leadership to send the faithful to their death with bombs strapped to their bodies.
Hoping for the nuclear disarmament of the world is a noble thought, but it doesn't take into consideration that the technology to build "the bomb" exists, and if you don't have nuclear capabilities as a nation, it does not mean that the Irans or North Koreas of the world will suddenly decide to stop their pursuit of nuclear weapons. If America and Europe weakens themselves through disarmament, someone will still arm up, and threaten to control you by force, as a result.
The politicians of the world fail to look forward to where we are going, and they don't wish to remember where we've been - it seems that President Obama, Prime Minister Brown, and all of the other leftists of the world, would rather repeat the mistakes that was so painfully learned in bygone eras.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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