As the old saying goes, “The cat, once burned, stays off hot stoves. The trouble is, he stays off all stoves.”
In the Tea Party movement, we see the “all stoves” response to government. Having spent a generation, from Reagan onwards, with a government that told them over and over that “government is the problem, not the solution,” while proving this point by changes in law and regulation that squeezed them and removed many protections, they now have fully formed faith-distrust of anything called government.
The problem is that only government, good government, has the power and mandate to correct the maltreatment of bad government. Not business, not finance, not private militias, not NGOs, not churches – only government. Their faith-distrust cuts them off from the primary lifeboat -- however leaky it may be -- that can get them clear of the wreck.
The Angry Bear
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The problem with the "good government" approach is that it's been tried and failed. Look across the Atlantic. Their laws didn't protect them from the financial mess.
ReplyDeleteTheir society? An entitlement mentality.
Their economy? High taxes, high unemployment, low productivity.
I'm no anarchist; I recognize the need for a certain amount of government and regulation, but I think the lesson of our neighbors in Europe is that less is more.
Europe hasn't escaped all the problems we created, but at least they aren't stupid enough to suggest more of the same as the solution.
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