Liberty Safes Jefferson
Liberty Safes Jefferson
when did we get all these new rights?
tell me when we got all these new rights / was it when we lost all the others? I don’t remember voting to trade the bill of rights or constitution for a health care ,welfare,medicare,social security,or a “safer world”. Does anyone remember doing this? Didn’t Jefferson say if you trade liberty for safety you shall have neither? (paraphrase)
Actually, B Franklin said you DESERVE neither.
The country has been in a downward spiral of partisan politics since John Adams took the office of President. While the Southern States wanted to expand the territory and take over territories to the West as well as the islands in the Caribbean the Northern States felt it would erode their influence in the Senate to add more states that didn’t do or think as they did. An attitude that many blue bloods in New England still have.
When the Great Depression happened the people were pissed off and voted for “change” in the arms of F.D. Roosevelt. As part of his New Deal that was passed by Congress we enacted certain payments for those who had fallen into a state of despair. What few people realize about these acts nearly a century ago is that they had “Sunset Clauses” in them. That means they were meant to be a temporary fix to stimulate the economy and get us working again. Unfortunately – in a Democratic Society, (we are supposed to be a Republic but we seem to be losing our focus) once you give a large group something for nothing it becomes very difficult to later stop giving it to them without extreme political fallout. Thus, many in Congress wanted to keep their cushy jobs and many in the new government agencies created liked civil service so rather than their programs sunsetting as were intended they instead grew much larger. With each successive economic crisis we found ourselves enlarging the programs that had helped pull us out of the previous debacle.
The next thing you know there are very few people alive who remember a time when the people of the United States didn’t vote for their US Senators (we’ve only been doing popular vote for Senators for less than 100 years) and just as few who remember a time when the government wasn’t there to hold our hands or pay our bills – that’s what family and community did.
So we are in a situation today where people expect and in fact believe they deserve government hand outs of other people’s money. Of course, eventually we will run out of other people’s money to give out and then people will have to come to terms with the fact that earning $45k a year does not mean you can afford a $60k Escalade and provide cell phones to each of your 5 children.
We are not supposed to be in a police state. We are not supposed to rely on government for our paycheck – this includes most civil service positions as well as welfare/social security. America was founded as a nation of resilient people who didn’t want the hand of government on our shoulder holding back progress while guarantying minimum income standards for all.
Until we trade in the unions that tell us a janitor deserves more money than a college educated school teacher or inner-city police officer and do away with politicians buying votes with welfare and “free” government money we will find ourselves slipping quite fast down a slippery slope of government debt that will one day overwhelm us.