I've seen a couple of very thoughtful pieces on the the power of government in the last couple of days. Via Instapundit we have this post entitled "Put Down the Political Pom-Poms" by Scott Stein, a writer I don't recall having seen before, writing at When Falls the Coliseum. Talking about how one end of the political spectrum would get upset about how they perceived the other end to be abusing power when in charge and vice versa he has this advice:
It’s time to stop cheering for a team, to put down the political pom-poms and to allow the government, when it is your party in office, to only have as much power as you would be comfortable with it having if the other side were in power. Because at some point it will be the other side in power. And if you were cheering for one side to have that power, most likely you won’t be happy about how that power is used when the other side has it (even when both parties take us in the same direction).
I think this is the discipline that the Tea Partiers, a movement that includes Democrats as well as Republicans, are trying to impose on both parties. Call it American's innate common sense starting to assert itself. It's excellent advice.
The other piece that I would recommend reading is by Victor Davis Hanson (OK, now I've given that away, how can I stop you from clicking over and reading it?), posting at Pajamas Media, called "Why Fear Big Government?" . He lists five reasons. I'm sure there are more but I think this line best sums up why big government is a problem:
But the larger the government, the more its power, and so the more its employees feel that they are royal and exempt from enforcement. In other words, big government creates millions who feel the law does not pertain to themselves. Ask Tom Daschle, Duke Cunningham, Chris Dodd, or Timothy Geithner. The result is an increasingly lawless society.
Read it all.
No comments:
Post a Comment