Not a Dime’s Worth of Difference

What if all the remaining presidential candidates really want the same things? What if they all offer essentially the same ideas couched in different words? What if these primary races have become beauty pageants largely based on personality and advertising?

What if our system of governance is so deep into the fabric of big government in the second decade of the 21st century that all the presidential candidates really believe that most voters actually want the government to care for them?

What if all major candidates in both major political parties promise a federal government that can right any wrong, regulate any behavior, tax any event, solve any problem and borrow unlimited amounts of money?

What if all the candidates for president favor the government using torture, detaining persons without trial, continuous surveillance of all the telephone calls, emails, and text messages of all persons in America — even though these behaviors are profoundly unconstitutional, morally un-American, uniquely destructive of personal liberty in a free society and fail to enhance public safety?

What if all these candidates — in differing degrees — reject the concept of limited government? What if they all want to bribe the rich with bailouts and the middle class with tax breaks and the poor with welfare? What if these candidates and their supporters and their attitudes about the role of government in our lives have reduced government at this sad time in our history to a game whereby everyone tries to live at someone else’s expense?

What if none of the candidates recognizes that government is an artificial creation based on force and ought to be exercised minimally? What if none of them understands that prosperity comes from the free choices of investors, workers, and consumers, and not from the decisions of the federal government’s central planners?

What if none of these current candidates acknowledges that individuals are sovereign, our rights are inalienable, our property belongs to us, our souls are immortal, and that the government works for us — not the other way around?

What ever happened to the right to be left alone? Where is a candidate who will defend it? What are lovers of liberty to do?

Reprinted with the author’s permission.

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