Posted on 01/21/2009 8:08:56 PM PST by walkwu
Regardless about how you feel about Pres. Barack Hussein Obama, his foray into the presidential waters is historic as he is the first half-black man to become president. As such, we should be glad that anyone can become president no matter their walk of life, but Obama's presidency is also historic in the sense that it seems, at least with what was implied during his inaugural speech, he is about to embark on a process over the next four plus years to radically change many government policies that have been held sacred and good for the last 50 plus years.
During his speech, he said this:
"Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans.... What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works."
Prior presidents may have acted off of this premise, but not since FDR, I believe, has a president actively spoken that the scale of government and its programs cannot be limited to a set of core principles, only by necessity of a perceived situation.
This idea is dangerous on a whole range of levels, not the least of which is that if a government has the power to give you everything you've ever needed, it also has the power to take it away. And, rest assured, given that power, over the course of time, sometimes which is not very long, government will use power that it has been given in a negative way.
Another principle to keep in mind is that once a government gains a power, it is nigh near impossible to take that ability away from government without some form of a revolution.
Case in point is the patriot act which allows domestic espionage and is hundreds if not thousands of pages long in its entirety. For years, the Democrats have derided Bush and declared for the protection of individual privacy. But now that they have complete control over two branches of government, will they follow through with what they seemed to want and take that power away from government? I think not, but we'll see.
So, if the purpose of government is to do whatever is necessary to get the economy working, regardless of the size of government, where is the incentive to find a job on your own? Won't people all over this nation just wait for government to provide for their needs?
But even if the answer to the last question is a negative, a more insidious and fundamental problem looms with the seeming flippant attitude toward growing government bureaucracy wherever it is deemed necessary at the moment.
To be man is to err said the famous poet. What happens if a policy is implemented that is flawed? The consequences may not be felt for years, but they are felt eventually and it is all-to-often not pretty.
Case in point is the legislative committees who oversaw the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regulations. The committee was warned well over a year before their collapse that something was wrong, yet they chose to do nothing. Had they not erred in their judgment of the problem, the collapse may have been prevented and no bailout would have been called for.
The problem is that all government actions have consequences that don't fade easily and are sometimes not felt in complete force for many years. And there is a very real danger of wanting to grow government bureaucracy in whatever way is deemed necessary, especially when it is fraught with human error in judgment.
Besides, if one studies history, the nation that changes and adapts on the whim to every vicissitude of the economy, alliances abroad, or domestic concerns is not a government that protects freedom, but is an absolute dictatorship. Freedom cannot last with a government that is determined to solve all of society's ills from a larger bureaucracy.
Rightly did our first president, George Washington, say that society should use caution when changing fundamental government principles, no matter how pleasant sounding they are because changing a policy merely on a hypothesis, whim, or opinion creates a precedent of perpetual change and instability.
And to help determine whether a policy is good or not, Washington again shared his insight into human institutions and government in that it is experience and an understanding of history is the surest test of the tendency for good or ill of governmental principles.
In our government, thankfully, our policy leaders, Pres. Obama included, are ultimately beholden to the people and Deity for their actions, rather than having a carte blanche to do whatever they want. After all, it is the people who retain or give up power and authority to government as the people deem necessary and not the other way around. Government leadership is a trust that should be held sacred and its power should only be used with the greatest care.
It will be good to remember that the purpose of governments and the reason they were instituted was to protect people, not babysit them. Governments were designed to protect life, liberty, and property, not keep them in a perpetual childhood where they suffer no consequences or responsibility.
John Walker
It looks like Aericans have elected their Man On Horseback.
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Well, I guess we do want the trains to run on time.
I would be shocked if Obama made it to the fourth round.!!!
The presidency was bought by great wealth and a Trojan Horse installed. The financiers who orchestrated the circumstances surrounding Obama’s rise to the presidency are not friends of America.
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