American politics has taken some weird turns in the past several years. The two dominant parties, once defined by clear core principles, have now become defined by their reigning personalities. Whenever it gets brought up around my oh-so-tolerant entertainment industry colleagues that I'm a Republican the first thing I usually hear is, "So you like George Bush?!?" As if that's all that being a Republican is about.
By my non-scientific method of calculation, one out of about every fifty liberals actually believes in the First Amendment and will engage me in a reasonable, adult political discussion. The rest tend to be of the "Bush lied, people died!" toddler thinking variety. As long as they can finish a sentence with "...for the children," they fancy themselves intellectuals.
When I do meet the reasonable people, it reminds me of why I used to enjoy politics so much. We get to discuss why we believe what we believe. I have an overriding belief about the role of government which has guided my voting choices since I was young. This belief will keep me from ever being a Democrat but it's also made me disillusioned with many post-1994 Republican leaders. Here it is:
Even if I believed that the federal government should be involved in curing social ills (which I don't), I don't believe it can.
Here's something I remember my very Republican mother telling me when I was young regarding the government and its funding of various things: "There is no such thing as 'the government'. It's our money."
She's right, of course. Unless the government extorts money from its citizenry, it can't scrape together enough to buy a Happy Meal, let alone pay for every kid in America to go to college (Shout out to Fluffy Edwards!).
While most on the left view the government as a benevolent cash-spewing angel here to right every wrong, I tend to see it as a bloated, inefficient monster that screws up everything it touches.
My image of it is something like this: every tax dollar that's sent to Washington to help someone gets touched by so many filthy hands that it becomes disease ridden and shrinks down to about a dime by the time it gets back to do all that helping.
I don't blame Republicans or Democrats for this, I blame the nature of bureaucracy itself. Like a marathon runner who keeps putting on fat, the larger a centralized government grows, the more impossible it becomes to achieve its initial goals. The Catch-22 with a centralized power structure is this: it can't possibly achieve all of its goals unless it grows larger.
Thomas Jefferson, a quotable fave for the Democrats when speaking about organized religion, said this about federal "helping": "I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive." (Italics mine)
A rather curious sentiment for the man most Democrats view as their ideological father, wouldn't you say?
Now, let us imagine a group of bloated, centralized and hyperactive governments getting together to form an even bigger bloated, centralized and hyperactive government. You're right, we don't need to imagine, the European Union is already here. Today's Wall Street Journal Opinion page has this concise piece about what happens when this kind of bureaucratic circle-jerk breaks out. It's a nice little holiday story about fraudulent accounting, incompetence and wasteful spending.
In short, it's everything I expect from "a very energetic government" and the people who would run it.
Naturally, if you say that "the government" shouldn't attempt to right a wrong, you're told by the modern American liberal that you're personally against righting wrongs. I say the government doesn't do a good job with public schools so I'm told that I'm against education.
Nope. I'm against a bloated federal government giving me a financial colonoscopy every April for its own amusement. Always have been. Always will be. Don't care who the president is.
Sorry about all this serious adult stuff, I'll get back to being infantile as soon as I can.
Cross posted at Grizzly Groundswell and Real Clear Politics (Vote!)
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