It's the Big Government, Stupid

New York Post ^ | 08/22/2009 | Matt Welch

[fiscon1]

It's been a hilarious August, watching media supporters of President Obama's health care package puzzle over the obscure motivations of the noncompliant Americans rallying against it.

[Harry Wurzbach]

One of the big problems for the left is that everyone over 30 years of age grew up in the age of Reagan and remembers most of the 1980s and the 1990s. That taste of economic expansion and (relatively) limited government is hard for the left to overcome. We remember what it was like to live in a two superpower world and the jubilation we saw when heaven on earth socialist states imploded. We saw what can happen when entrepreneurs are free to pursue wealth. That genie is out of the bottle.

And yes, while we faced plenty of leftist nonsense in the schools we attended and in the media, it’s nothing like today. Who can escape it? It’s everywhere, and the internet makes sure nobody ever escapes it. I think it’s grown by leaps and bounds over the last 20 years. Children today are exposed to it all the time.

If you’re over 30, there’s a good chance your parents and your grandparents, if not your great-grandparents too were around to make clear to you the importance of faith, family, freedom, and personal responsibility. When you heard how they made it through hard times by themselves. Even then you sensed that something had changed, that the great federal leviathan and the pall of left-liberalism had started to suck the life out of a vibrant and free society.

It’s hopeless for many under 30. Maybe a few will eventually discover the truth and figure out why so many of us older bastards are up at arms about this expansionist government. But there are plenty others who will march on through life and vote as they have been programmed to do so during their school days.

[backhoe]

Your contributions:

Your retirement check: