Dr. Strangelove 2024
Or how I learned to stop worrying and love big government and the debt bomb.
First, let me state I am unequivocally a small government classical liberal (aka a conservative) who, like Thomas Jefferson, believes public debt leads to sinning and suffering.
I choose to believe that the best government is the one that governs (and taxes and spends) least. I believe:
Government has nothing but that which is taken from someone else or borrowed in that person’s name and creating an obligation or a claim on another person’s productivity without their consent is immoral. Yet, that is what the American government is doing.
The less that a government takes from society in taxes, resources, and capital, the more there is for individuals to leverage to the benefit of society.
Power and money are addictive drugs that fuel bad decisions in governance.
Any government should be as close to the people from whom it draws its consent because the smaller the governmental unit, the better it can understand and accommodate local issues.
The Framers contemplated a limited federal government and reserved the balance of the governing to the States for this exact reason. They certainly understood the issues of post-colonial life and the sheer impossibility of governing a nation as expansive and growing as the nation they created.
When one looks at facts, that government tax receipts never match spending (we have a 2.2 trillion-dollar deficit), that federal debt is now approaching 36 trillion dollars, the interest on the debt alone has eclipsed any other spending except welfare entitlements, and total unfunded liabilities have reached 219.3 trillion dollars, it seems clear this is unsustainable.
Has this this massive increase in spending made anything better? Is anything getting more affordable? Is anything more plentiful? Have we borrowed and spent our way to prosperity yet?
No.
Take healthcare. Obamacare was signed into law 14 years ago. Wasn’t Obamacare supposed to make everything better?
Healthcare hasn’t improved at all. It can be argued that it has gotten worse. It certainly has become more expensive, more cumbersome, and more of an obstacle course. The only thing that has really changed is that the government has gotten increasingly involved in your healthcare – just like Ronald Reagan predicted when he spoke about socialized medicine in 1961, 63 years ago.
With government it is always, lather, rinse, and repeat.
These three words might as well be printed on every dollar bill.
Does it strike anyone else that the answer to most of the issues of both left and right is less government, not more?
What role “we the people” want our government to play in our society and our daily lives is a daily question and is a constant in every election regardless of what person or policy is being debated.
There are certainly issues of national importance that have arisen with the coming of a modernized society. Some would argue that there is no possibility that a person in 1789 could know what wonders would exist in 2024.
While that is true, it is also true that core principles are transcendent and will be just as true today as they were at any time in the past. The basic concepts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are just as relevant today even though they exist in changing economic and societal contexts. If we accept that premise, the question becomes: what is the role of our government in today’s world? Should it be limited as in the Constitution or should it be an omnipotent, controlling entity?
I would argue there is even less reason today for an overweening government. We certainly seem to be experiencing the modern-day version of “Atlas Shrugged” where the output of the producers is transferred to the non-producers. It is without argument that the Federal government takes taxes from the state and local level only to repackage them and redistribute them to “equalize” funding and in some cases, send the money right back to the location where it started.
Given that we seem to be stuck in a doom loop, why would any rational being want more of this? Why would we have such an inefficient system?
There is something this approach to big government does produce - the real product of this process is power…and lots of it. That is why politicians, bureaucrats and government dependents will choose to ride America into the ground the same way Major T. J. "King" Kong (Slim Pickens) rode that atomic bomb in Dr. Strangelove.
Unless and until take a stand based on traditional Constitutional principles, politicians who trust in, and have the trust of, the people they represent, we are going to continue to drift away from the individual liberty that built this country.
We the people must start somewhere.
November 5, 2024, seems as good a day as any.
The person I will be voting for was decided almost 4 years ago when the election was stolen, unlawfully stolen from the person who legitimately won. We all know that. We all saw the shenanigan's that happened late that night into the wee hours of the morning. We all saw the videos of countless votes being rerun through the scanners and counted a second time, we saw the totes of votes being taken from underneath the tables after the polls closed. And we all saw the reams of paper being placed in the windows to block out onlookers eyes.
Oh yes, the plumbing leaked (wink, wink), and yes the remote voting boxes were stuffed with bought ballots - but who cares - Orange man didn't win did he (ala Harry 'The Liar' Reid).
You see this is modern day politics at its finest. They DO NOT CARE about us as long as they stay in power. That is all that matters to them. And for them - the ends do justify the means.
My decision has already been made and no amount of rhetoric from the left, no amount of lies from the left and no amount of threats from the left will keep me from casting my vote.
My 2 cents.
We live in surreal times.
The healthcare system is a horrible mess.