Tuesday’s election reflected this nation’s ongoing debate between proponents of statism (excessive government) and those who cherish the power of individual freedom.
Here on the coast, our local paper often joins national media outlets in touting big government programs as the preferred solution to all economic, social and cultural woes. It is a mantra repeated over and over again. ObamaCare, Cap and Tax, the massive stimulus package: all are statist “remedies” that over regulate and redistribute wealth.
Those who express views contrary to the statist agenda are dismissed out of hand as purveyors of ideas that are unscientific, divisive, selfish, stupid, or as President Obama stated recently, “enemies”. Yet, it is statism that stifles individual initiatives that flow from our special freedoms.
Statism has its advocates but it can never flourish in America because “our free-market intellect adopts and innovates at a pace no bureaucracy can hope to comprehend. In the time it takes calcified government agencies to mix objective reality with the interests and prejudices of the State ... the free market has already evolved through generations of production and improvement.” (“The Mind of America”, John Hayward, Human Events.com, 10/30/2010)
Most members of Congress passed ObamaCare unread, in a manner shameful to a democratic people. A model of statism, Obamacare’s tens of thousands of pages of regulations charge countless bureaucrats with enforcing its requirements, many of which will be obsolete or degrade upon implementation.
As Mr. Hayward’s beautifully written essay so aptly puts it, “The mind of America is an unconscious engine of fantastic power and perception . . . statists and their hollow promises are tedious, but I can’t wait to see what the free people of the United States dream up next.”
Concerned Coastal Voters believe in limited, effective government, not massive, repressive statism.
Jim Littlejohn
