Posted by
Crescen7(Regis Matejcik) on Thursday, May 15, 2008 10:45:38 AM
Limited Government. It is the basis on which the United States has seperated itself from the balance of human civilization. It's enemy - war.
Limited Government existed from the founding of the United States, and continued until the United States entered the 2nd World War. During that time, fueled by private sector inovation and industry, the United States grew to be an economic giant. The engagement of the United States in World War II required an enormous expansion of Government. That expansion has never been reversed, and has continued save and except for the brief period of time known as the Reagan adminstration. The justification for such a massive government has typically been a "war". Usually not a real war, but a metaphoical war.
A decade after the end of World War II, the country was eager to return to the pre-war status quo that existed prior to the war. A young and inspiring conservative leader emerged who captured the theme of limited government and promised to dismantle the "War Machine", lower taxes, and get the country back to the business of peacetime prosperity. John Kennedy managed to lower taxes, but his efforts to begin thinning the bloated government machine were thwarted by an assasin's bullet.
Enter Lyndon Johnson, and the first "Metaphor War". It was reasoned that the huge Federal government needed to be intact, not to fight a shooting war; but to battle poverty. Thus the Federal government entered the "War on Poverty." This lead to an increase of the Government Sector rather than a decrease. When the Poverty war began to lose traction, we entered the "War on Drugs". This was an equally useless excercise. Its only real effect was to justify the continued increase of the Government sector.
Oddly, George Bush's "War on Terror" was originally widely supported by most Liberals. They envisioned massive government expansion. They dreamed of scenarios such as thousands of government employees watching hapless shoeless travelers shuffling through an airport security line. While those dreams came true, it was the Democrats that first experienced shock and awe when they realized that President Bush actually intended there to be a military aspect to this war.
We now face the greatest and perhaps final metaphorical war. It is the "War on Climate Change." (Previously known as Global Warming - until the globe stopped warming) It is from this war, that it may be impossible to recover. The fix appears to be in. Even the Republican President nominee wants to "cap and trade" carbon credits.
They goal is to quantify and monetize the production of carbon dioxide. This effectively places a government authority in charge of every productive activity in the economy. Perhaps even breathing. Liberty, individual rights, property rights, all become secondary in a war on climate change. Most discouraging of all, is the fact that enormous wealth will be expended, and absolutely no tangible effect will occur. In all the previous metaphor wars, at least some measureable progress could be achieved.
For example:
We don't have starving people in the U.S. (The biggest health concern of our poverty class is obesity). Drugs are expensive and somewhat difficult to obtain. We haven't had a terrorist attack in the U.S. since 2001. We have achieved at least something, even if horribly disproportionate to the cost, for our expense during previous metaphorical wars. The unparrelled expansion in Government authority, and the devestating drain on the productive wealth of the private sector will yield exactly NOTHING.
How can one be so sure? While the proof is demonstrable in many ways (see a previous blog post for the %'s of man made carbon dioxide), consider this undeniable and indisputable truth:
The entire human population of the earth, placed heel to toe - shoulder to shoulder, could fit in a land mass about half the size of Travis County Texas. Now, picture the globe, then try to focus in on the size of a single county in a single state. With a letter sized world map image, a mark showing that size is virtually invisible. Consider that spec of inconsequential living being of which we belong, and think once again how we are going to change the climate of the earth.