It really bugs me when perfectly intelligent people spout the tenets of liberalism, skate perilously close to socialism and get personally insulted when I don’t agree with them. It’s part of the reason I put the Mencken quote on the page, I don’t have all the answers and neither do you. “But,” they cry, “it’s a crisis! We have to do something!”
No. We bloody well do not have to do something.
“Oh heavens,” they exclaim, “think of the poor. Think of the children.” Hrm, do they think I’m entirely heartless? You think it doesn’t bum me out to see poor folks scraping by to eat and put a roof over their heads? Sure it does, it may not seem like it sometimes but I’m still mostly human. Nevertheless, I’ve seen poor folks who couldn’t pay the rent but always had cable TV. So, sometimes it’s a matter of priorities. But what about those folks who didn’t make that choice and who are honestly trying to do the right thing? Well, the best thing for them to do is get a job. And how do we ensure there are jobs for everyone? My philosophy says to make it inexpensive to do business – particularly small, entreprenurial business – and let the market take care of the problem.
And there’s so many more things to deal with: inefficiency in public transportation, bad schools, decaying cities, the like. Surely the best way to solve these problems is by central planning? Have the government set rules and regulations and dictate how these things should be solved. Well, maybe not the federal government – maybe you’re right, they’re just too big and can’t deal with the minute and rapid changes needed – maybe a regional layer of government?
Gee, does that smack of Stalin-era Soviet “Glorious Five Year Plan” to anybody else? Why not let local communities decide for themselves how to deal with things? Sure, it’s inefficient and some things might not get done but democracy proves that inefficiency is the best way to ensure the greatest possible measure of liberty for all. The Third Reich was marvellously efficient at ensuring the trains to Auschwitz ran on time and always came back empty in order to receive another load – numbered, catalouged and cross-referenced. Pardon me if I don’t think efficiency is the ideal to aspire to.
Top-down government doesn’t work, has never worked and can never work. The United States proves – by its very existence – that it’s the people who have ideas and cooperate with other people to put those ideas into action that make things happen and make a nation great. Sure, the people are often ignorant and sometimes stubborn but, in the end, if left to their own devices they usually make the best choice.
Trust in the great mass of ignoramuses we call America. They haven’t led us wrong yet.