Halfway to Socialism
By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano
Does the government work for us or do we work for the government? With so many candidates running for the Republican nomination for president, what should we look for in a candidate? Tonight, the presidency and the status quo.Liberals long for a government that can care for them from cradle to grave, and history is littered with governments that failed at trying to do that. Eastern Europe, the old Soviet Union, and Communist China are just a few examples. Some of the lessons of these failed experiments are obvious and some are subtle. The most obvious is that they don’t work.
As the great former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said, the problem with socialism is that sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money. A less subtle lesson is that the more the government gives away to some, the more it takes from others.
In America today, for example, and I am rounding out these numbers, half the country pays taxes that the government distributes to the other half.
In Ayn Rand’s remarkable and famous novel, “Atlas Shrugged”, the producers of wealth got so sick and tired of the government taking their wealth that they stopped producing. What would the government do then?
The least apparent lesson from the cradle to grave ideology is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Everything must be paid for. And I am not just talking about paying in high taxes. I am talking about paying in the loss of freedom.
We know, not just from observing the failed socialists states of the last century, but from observing our own government, that government goodies come with strings attached. At one end of that string is the government, and at the other end is the recipient. In other words, we pay a price for this cradle to grave utopia not only in lost money, but also in lost freedom.
Big Government has mastered the art of staying in power by subtly and increasingly creating dependence upon the government by ever growing numbers of persons in America. So, the loss of freedom is instilled in those who rely on the government for their subsistence. Stated differently, when half the people are bribed with the money of the other half, they will vote to keep in power only those who will keep bribing them. This was recognized by the Framers when they wrote the Constitution. Even opposites and mortal enemies agreed on this.
Alexander Hamilton, who is the father of Big Government, and Thomas Jefferson, who believed that the best government governs the least, both argued that if the public treasury becomes a public trough, the people will send to Washington only those who will give away the store. And so they wrote a Constitution that was intended to limit--rather than to unleash--the government.
Giving away the store is where we find ourselves today. Today, we have a government in Washington that has us half way to socialism. Today, we have a government that borrows more than it collects in taxes.
Today, we have worthless money chasing goods in stores with the prices skyrocketing. This didn’t happen overnight. It began with Wilson and was ratcheted up with FDR; and every modern President since FDR has taxed more, spent more, borrowed more, and given away more that his predecessors.
Now back to our question about Republican candidates for president. Most of them are Democrat light. Most of them believe in spending more than they collect in taxes; in letting the FBI spy on you without warrants from judges; in money that is worthless; and in a government that can right any wrong, regulate any behavior, tax any event, and fight any war the President chooses.
They might not right as many wrongs or regulate as much behavior or tax as high as the Democrats, and some have recently argued that we must bring the troops home, but they generally see no moral or constitutional impediments to Washington doing whatever it wants. Only Governor Gary Johnson and Congressman Ron Paul have consistently argued that the status quo must go; that the people are entitled to a government that stays within the confines of the Constitution; and that the Constitution should keep the government off the people’s backs. Perhaps some of the other candidates will pick up these arguments.
But, as time goes by, as the campaign proceeds, as we get closer to the primaries themselves, ask yourself who will continue the long march to government control of everything, and who will make a U-turn and bring us back to freedom? Who will utterly reject the status quo? With every speech and debate and op-ed and blog, the answer will become obvious.
From New York, defending freedom; so-long, America.
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