Recently our local paper (Lebanon Daily News) published a letter referring to Republicans as naive because we are fighting against government regulation and controls in big business. His ideas were that strong government regulations and controls will protect us from the greedy "robber-barons" that have run the industries of banking, credit, health care, and automobiles. His suggestion was that, like firefighting, police and roadwork, government should take over these industries and thus ensure that we will no longer be victims of these abuses. Just who is naive?
Government has long been the stronghold of the "robber-barons". Ever heard of pork barrel spending? That is a greedy politician more interested in maintaining his office than exercising the common good of the citizenry. Although my friend wished to make this a Republican versus Democrat debate, the fact is that our debate is really "Big Government" versus "Limited Government" and in the eyes of any true patriot, the Republicans are just as guilty as the Democrats in wasteful spending and irresponsible governing. It is not naive to assume that a reduction in government controls and regulation is the true way to resolve our current economic problems.
For instance, consider the banking industry - banking regulations have been used to protect investors for years - that was the goal. The government stepped into private industry to ensure that hardworking people did not lose their hard-earned dollars. Regulation created a bureaucracy and bureaucracy searched for loopholes and loopholes created opportunity for "industrious" individuals to make money while protecting someone else's money. Sounds great, everyone gets a piece of the pie and the investors are happy with some gain knowing that even though others are eating the pie, their capital is sound. Then came further regulation, when BIG GOVERNMENT decided to force the banking industry to make allowances for those with little or no capital to invest. What we now call "bad loans" - wait, we always called them that until Uncle Sam changed the rules. As a result, capital is not being ensured, investors are not being protected and our economic system is collapsing. This may be a simplistic view of the problem but nevertheless it works. So what was the solution? remove the regulation and restore what was working? No. Rather, let's increase regulation, bailout the losers we created and hope it all fixes itself. Is the problem greedy, rich "robber-barons" or elected, greedy, rich "robber-barons"?
This same scenario is being repeated in Environmental Issues, Education Issues,Health care, the Auto Industry, Banking, Real Estate, Wall Street, Utilities, and on, and on, and on. Once again, who is really naive? Socialism and its near relatives, communism and Marxism lead only one direction - TYRANNY. The only ones who are truly naive are those that believe that thousands of years of history will somehow change, that human nature will somehow reverse itself and socialism will finally lead to a Utopian society. Our Founding Fathers had it right the problem is that we have ceased to hear them, see them or know them. Freedom must be the driving force of our society and Liberty must always be bounded by responsibility. Government regulation and socialized ideals will only lead to destruction.
