People who know me know that I’m an advocate for limited government. There’s a reason for that. When government stretches itself too thing–particularly by extending itself beyond the scope of its delegated or enumerated powers–it fails.
We are seeing the failure of government right now.
Governments, domestic, national, and foreign, are simply flat-out failing to keep their citizens safe.
Look at New York City. Crime is at an all-time low. There is a complacency among our “betters” in City Hall. This complacency permits a community organizer like Bill de Blasio to put pet political issues over the police here in New York. What is the end result of this? Professional protesters spitting in the face of cops, throwing fake blood on the police commissioner, and an environment where cops are executed in broad daylight or are routinely shot at by criminals.
Why not? The mayor has the protesters back — he’s weak on crime and anti-police, right?
Who suffers? The people.
At the national level, government fails because it is spread so thin trying to be all things to all constituents. Instead of ensuring our armed forces is second to none–to protect us domestically–and caring for our veterans, our “betters” in Washington cut military spending (but not overseas engagement), spent trillions of dollars that we don’t have, including billions on cronyism and a government distortion of a market the likes of which the United States has never seen–the health care market. The end result? Higher costs, a weaker military, and a country that lets its own heroes die on waiting lists and then tries to cover it up.
Here and abroad, westerners are being targeted by Islamists on a semi-regular basis. ISIS has become a household name as they behead people in the Middle East and threaten to bring the fight to our shores. The Boston Marathon bomber is going to trial soon. A nutjob with a hatchet attacked NYPD officers in Queens. Cartoonists of the French satirical publication “Charlie Hebdo” were massacred in the name of Allah the Peaceful, Mohammed, and Islam.
I can’t begin to grasp the motivations of these pig-fucking Islamist thugs. (Yes, the salty language is absolutely necessary. To hell with your sensibilities). But I can tell you that a bully smells and thrives off of fear.
Our government officials are weak, or at a minimum they project an aura of weakness. The Islamists know and thrive off of this. This weakness is a major problem for the citizenry.
Paul Harvey said it best:
We sent men with rifles into Afghanistan and Iraq, and we kept our best weapons in their silos. Even now, we’re standing there dying, daring to do nothing decisive because we’ve declared ourselves to be better than our terrorist enemies, more moral, more civilized. Our image is at stake, we insist.
But we didn’t come this far because we are made of sugar candy. Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and into this continent by giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. Yes, that was biological warfare. And we used every other weapon we could get our hands on, to grab this land from whomever, and we grew prosperous. And yes, we greased the skids with the sweat of slaves.
And so it goes with most great nation-states, which feeling guilty about their savage pasts, eventually civilize themselves out of business, and wind up invaded and ultimately dominated by the lean, hungry, up-and-coming who are not made of sugar candy.
When we demand to be supported by the government, we are a sugar candy citizenry.
Maybe the blame lies with us, because we are so divided. Abe Lincoln once said “a house divided cannot stand.” A citizenry divided can most certainly be ruled, though.
Ruled, not governed. Our government fears offending people like these Islamists more than they fear the constituents. That’s a problem.
If we put our differences aside and all demand better from our government, maybe they’ll listen. Hopefully, it won’t be too late.