subject: Vote To Change Course [print this page] Many of the greatest minds in human history believed democracy was folly. Human beings are too emotional, too self-centered, too undisciplined to govern themselves. In a democracy the only impediment standing between freedom and tyranny is time - every democracy has failed. The United States is on a course to prove the critics of self-government correct. On the road to ruin all our political leaders can do is step on the accelerator.
The theme of national elections of late has been "change". Unfortunately, the only thing people like better than the way things are, is the way things were. We are living on borrowed time - time borrowed from our children.
To change this reality requires the people show some resolve.
In America we like to believe freedom is a universal value. Yet with freedom comes responsibility - these are two sides of the same coin. Though we claim we want freedom, we enthusiastically shift responsibility away from individuals and cast into the realm of public goods - public goods we can readily ignore.
To enjoy freedom we, the people, must bear responsibility - there is no other way.
To fund this collective foolishness we pile up debt at an unsustainable rate. No less than George Washington warned as our fledgling nation struggled to survive: 'To contract new debts is not the way to pay the old. We ungenerously throw upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.'
Our centralized, redistributive social, economic, and national security policies are stripping individual responsibility. We compound our error by consequently funding the imagined utopia with borrowed dollars. This madness accomplishes three temporary conveniences:
1. We avoid having to share our lives and property with our parents or our children. We all know how challenging that could be.
2. We are complicit in a fools-errand attempting to extend life indefinitely through every measure of medical intervention. We outspend the world on healthcare, but don't seem healthier for it.
3. We enrich the craftiest among us - those who recognize the idiocy of public policy and organize to skim all means of profit in everything from healthcare to national security.
Our supposed leaders cannot, will not, do what is necessary and required to save the republic. Lacking real leaders and true statesmen, it is time the people step up. It is time for the people to be counted. It is time to vote for real change.
Abraham Lincoln once remarked, "The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow it." Changing course will be painful; changing course will require sacrifice; changing course will mean taking responsibility for our actions and our lives. Are we up to the task?
The United States was built by dreamers and risk takers - people who were willing to act; people who were willing to dare and to persevere. Some of those people still dwell among us. Are the masses - the people like you and me - ready to take on the challenge?
What we overcome makes us stronger. Instead of following the route of least resistance we must venture forth and begin building anew.
It is time we bear the mantle of freedom and become responsible citizens of a democracy again. Instead of voting against reform, against fiscal discipline, and against responsible government, vote to restore our dignity and our honor. Vote to change course.
