Goodbye Freedom, Hello Government

We are about to enter an unprecedented and dangerous time in our great republic. For the first time, we have elected a president who views taxation as a way to spread wealth and “fairness,” not as a means to fund the necessary functions of government such as protecting our borders, infrastructure, enforcement of contracts, etc (not that taxes have been funding only necessary government functions for some time, but that is a topic for another day)… The voters have said no to personal liberty and yes to the nanny state. People have figured out that they can use the ballot box to plunder what rightfully belongs to others (remember the freeloader who thinks Obama is going to pay her mortgage and pay for her gas?). Not only have the people figured this out, the leftist politicians are now blatantly pandering to that notion. When you take money from achievers and turn it over to non-achievers, it tends to lessen the desire to better oneself.

Obama has done a couple of things successfully during this marathon election. He has managed to change the definition of tax cut to mean a handout for people who are not paying any taxes. He has also managed to get most people on board with the notion that it is a good idea for fewer people to pay taxes. This is an effective scheme because the fewer people there are paying taxes, the less people there are that will vote against him and other big government types when they raise taxes to create new unnecessary social programs. A third thing he managed to do, with the help of many over the last several years, is get people believing that health care is a right, not a responsibility. Your healthcare is your responsibility and nobody else’s.

Part of the problem here was the lack of any credible opposition candidate. McCain was not a particularly exciting candidate. He is not a small government conservative; he is more a liberal in conservative’s clothing. Obama just so happens to be a silver-tongued demagogue that claims that government can be everything to everyone and he is slick enough to make a majority of voters believe it, and was able to capitalize on that ignorance. Bob Barr is a true small government conservative, but he made some errors. First, he ran as a Libertarian. As we all know, just like any other third party candidate, Libertarians have very little chance of getting elected. Even though the lesser of two evils is still evil, we are stuck with the Republican and Democrat parties, at least for now. Second, he split the conservative vote, albeit not by enough to change the outcome of the election. He would have been a good choice, had he been a credible candidate.

The Republican party needs to lick its wounds, regroup and figure out where they are going, and figure out how to rebuild conservatism. They have lost the trust of their base because they have been spending money like drunken Democrats in Washington. They will not be able to continue to be the party of “less big government” that they have become. The Democrats may hang themselves, and a revamped conservative movement needs to be there to capitalize before we get pushed past the tipping point and tumble into the abyss of socialism. If we are to save this great nation, a new conservative movement will need to emerge and actually stick to the principles of protecting liberty and fiscal responsibility. The Democrat party is the party that offers a free lunch. There is no room in this country for two major political parties that do that, so the Republicans need to stop moving in that direction. The Democrats try to be all things to all people, and we need a check on that because the government cannot be all things to all people. Our nation simply cannot survive an ideology like that, as there are too many parasites that will suck the treasury dry.

If we do not act quickly, the liberals will run roughshod over our rights. Over the next two to four years we will see our economic freedoms further erode. I fear we may already be past the tipping point and the damage will be irreversible. We need a strong voice for individual liberty. If one does not step forward, and soon, our days as a nation may be numbered.

Liberty Watchdog