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Republicans and the Illusion of the "Friendly Giant"

03-24-2009

On a national level, Republicans still operate under the following misconception: "big government is bad when it's not on our side." As demonstrated by the profligate spending under the Bush administration when Republicans controlled both house of Congress, and continuing in spite of occasional opposition to high-profile plans of the Obama administration (i.e., in spite of the occasional show of rectitude when they know the world is watching), Republicans have not learned that big government is bad when it's on anyone's side, because it takes away personal responsibility and independence, it erodes states' rights, and it locks generations into servititude to nations who hold our national debt but reject our founding principles. It creates permanently dependent classes which, in turn, expand and perpetuate high taxes while shrinking the tax base - and high taxes dampen the incentive to produce real prosperity, thus leading to a decline in the national standard of living such as has befallen in Britain since World War II. Why create, why earn, why strive for excellence if the government is rewarding mediocrity and applying punitive taxes if you happen to succeed?

Furthermore, the weapons one gives the "friendly giant" when he is "on your side" will be the same ones used against you when the opposition party is at the reins. Imagine the infrastructure of the war on drugs put to use in a war on religion, or the machinery of the war on terror turned into a war on intolerance.

The Republicans have yet to understand that the bill of rights and man's fundamental economic liberties are intertwined and spring from a single concept of man's freedom to choose his own course, to spend his own energy and capital and willpower and talent and dreams to what end he will, without having to get the government to sign off on it in triplicate. Big organizations squash freedom - that is their the natural trade off for managing so many lives, so many incomes, so many social transactions at once. And in the process human lives become cogs and digits to be coddled and coerced and manipulated to achieve some grand vision that someone who does not know you dreamed up. And unless this grand vision is also at the center of your own life, it will necessarily exert itself to squash, sanitize, and suppress your personal perogative of what is best for the health, well-being, personal fulfillment and spiritual progress of yourself and your family.

Republicans who do not first and foremost embrace limited government and individual liberty are simply empowering a giant who is never on anyone's side but its own, one that will gladly consume the lives and productivity of your children, their children, and their great grandchildren. It can never have enough because it does not realize that the world can never be perfect; instead, it perceives your personal liberties as an impediment to the achievement of its dream of systematic "perfection."

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