From Pick-Pockets to Dictators: Big Government Becoming A Tyranny

Bail-outs are opportunities, some may say. A chance to try again, but with a little help from the government. An opportunity for a second chance.

If only that was in fact what government economic stimulus packages were really all about.

Thomas Jefferson said, "To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it."

Businesses fail. That is simply a fact of life. People make bad decisions, too. Sometimes there are those who are greedy, or power hungry. Normally, if these are the conditions of running a business, the company is doomed to fail due to bad management. When they fail, they should dwindle away with the rest of the remnants of history. To bail out a failed business, however, and to keep as the captain of the ship the manager that caused the business to fail, is foolish. What is even more foolish is for government, run by failed politicians who know nothing about running a successful enterprise, to bail out a business, and then dictate to the entity how to run their business, proclaiming they can do so because it was with the taxpayer's money, and money being printed or borrowed, that the business was spared in the first place.

Capitalism is a natural tendency of humanity. We trade, buy and sale. We strive to succeed. When we fail we brush ourselves off and try again. We desire to keep the spoils from what we work for. When we succeed we deserve to enjoy that success, and we have the responsibility to voluntarily share that success, be it through charity, or teaching others how to succeed.

However, the Democratic Party disagrees. The Democrats wish to limit your success, to cap your earnings, and to take from you your hard earned dollars and redistribute it to their pet projects. When they complain about the oil companies making too much money, or argue the sins of golden parachutes, or impose salary caps, it is their way of saying, "How dare anyone have that kind of success and power." I agree that top executives rewarding themselves with over-the-top compensation during an economic downturn is a bad strategy. Bad, or unethical, business practices, are never the right thing to do, but that does not warrant governmental intrusions into private business, regardless of the party behind the expansion of government.

The Obama Administration, by giving federal funds to corporations, now feels they have a right to dictate to these business entities terms and wages. This is what happens anytime government becomes too big and becomes socialistic. Be it Universal Health, or bailouts, government control is a dangerous thing, and once in the driver's seat, government is not shy about manipulating the situation.

Fact is, what Obama and his Democratic cronies are attempting is flat out socialism. Historically, socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried. The European nations, after their stint with socialism, have finally begun to awaken to the fact that big government control is a failed idea, and are now voting the socialists out of public office. America, however, has just voted into office our second socialist President (I count Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the first), and is on the road to becoming a nation the founding fathers did not wish us to become if something is not done to stop it.

Our Republic is at a crossroads, and I, for one, do not plan to watch our liberty and American way of life wilt and die without a fight.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship." -- Alexander Tytler