The Fall of Localism and Rugged Individualism

Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

The Founding Fathers believed that central government should have a limited role.  The Federal Government was designed to only handle external issues, or those that would protect, promote, or preserve the union ... such as mediating disputes between the States.  Otherwise, local domestic issues are only supposed to be handled by local government with no influence by the federal government whatsoever.

We also emerged from being colonies to being a union of States through hard work and rugged individualism.  In other words, what the social justice warriors call "toxic" is actually the necessary ingredient for prosperity.  Liberty means doing for yourself without government assistance (if a safety net is absolutely necessary, the federal government has no authority to provide one, but your local government and State government may constitutionally provide one if the local culture believes it to be essential).  Government isn't there to hold your hand, they are there to ensure we have an orderly society largely by securing our natural rights (meaning, provide an environment in which we can pursue our rights without obstacles by either the government, or other potential tyrannical forces).

Someone said to me not too long ago that "hard work is the key to prosperity.  The easy road robs people."  They are robbed of their ambition, potential innovation, and personal worth.  Dependency upon the government turns people into subjects, people expected to serve their masters in the government (shall we call it the new plantation?), and ultimately it turns people into non-producers who only consume.  

Once all of the producers become only consumers, the system dies from starvation, and death becomes rampant.

The new generation has been taught that prosperity takes too much work.  "Forget localism.  Forget rugged individualism.  You can keep your liberty.  All I need to know," asks today's new American pawns of socialism, "is where is mine?"

History has proven the folly of such thinking.

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