Posted on 06/08/2011 5:50:52 AM PDT by shibumi
When Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States in 1980, I was 32 years old. I was frustrated with my initial experiences in the world of business, not in small measure because of the previous four years of The Carter Malaise and the sense that my first hand experience of the political perfidy that pervaded the end of The VietNam War had somehow become part and parcel of American foreign policy and military strategy. To be a cog in the machine of the late 70’s economy was to be constantly in motion, always under pressure and sorely lacking in lubrication.
Within a few short years, my whole perspective changed. Ronald Reagan did not govern without error nor did he as one man embody the essence of good government. And I will never suggest that politicians should, or could, be the prime movers in the quest for prosperity. I do believe however that Ronald Reagan actualized one time-tested and proven economic principle. Government works best as a facilitator when it gets out of the way.
As life has gone on it’s blinding fast forward through the ensuing thirty odd years since Reagan’s election the American Culture has been reshaped and reformed either with legislation or through judicial fiat. Hundreds of new “rights” have emerged ensuring the free practice of every conceivable form of perversion, slothful lifestyle and pseudo-religious worship. Our nation has abided the deification of pop culture, thuggery, avarice, racism (so long as it’s not “white” racism) and that all important measure of well being and intelligence - “self esteem.”
Brushed aside in this frenzy to codify the profane as sacrosanct is the most fundamental freedom of all - the freedom to engage in honest commerce, unfettered. The engine of America is, and always has been, the small business. The guy who during the Reagan years could rest assured that the ominous burden of regulation and taxes, while maybe not shrinking, was at least having it’s hormonal growth spurt curtailed, now faces a monolith of bloated leech bureaucrats hell bent on micro managing the number of bathroom breaks his employees get. (And they better damn well be unisex handicapped accessible hypoallergenic bathrooms with minimal environmental impact, low water toilets and CFC light bulbs.) And that’s before he gets to deal with the federal agency designated to confiscate his profits and give them to those without the gumption to get off their dead butts and try to make fix or sell something. (Think Joe the Plumber being told by a then candidate that he should have his earnings “redistributed.”)
While the American small business entrepreneur can deal with a lot of flack thrown his way there is a further dimension to the spirit of the times that is causing the “Malaise Redux” we are living through today. Part of the self image that is the “can do!” American exceptionalism which made US the economic powerhouse of the world for two centuries was the assurance of our military might. Scrupulously using our military only when provoked we maintained a world reputation for not only having a nation secure unto itself, but one which could be counted on by allies for the preservation of their own national identity and sovereignty.
The eighties saw the use of this power in stark contrast to the prolonged agony of the VietNam War. Our attacks on Grenada, Lybia and the various covert operations were specific, direct and successful. The combined might of our military buildup along with the strength of the revived economy brought the demise of the Soviet Bloc and the waning of the Communist sphere of influence.
The spirit of optimism and the underlying notion that there is actually a future worth building for shore up the confident risk taking that was the impetus of the small business based economic boom. Whatever the Liberal pundits may claim to the contrary, the fact is that this boom continued for years afterward despite the Clinton Administration’s best efforts to kill it.
We find ourselves now in a slump of epic proportions. Whether it is the “Communism sold by the drink” (P.J. O’Rourke’s description of Socialism) that is the favorite of the US Congress or the outright Communism favored by the Executive Branch’s Secretaries and Czars, “redistribution” is the name of the game. We are literally on the verge of being a nation where the only citizens who are legally entitled to any property or payments are those who did nothing to earn them.
The potential entrepreneur today not only sees the certainty that he will have to have extraordinary luck along with competence and skill to start and grow his business, but also that he will have to be even more skillful in trying to keep any of what he might be lucky and skillful enough to earn. That wheezing noise you hear is your economy gasping through a bureaucratically inflicted case of COPD.
More than anything else, the decisions coming our way in the next year and a half will be about giving real Americans room to breathe in both economic and personal freedom (for in truth, you can’t have one without the other) or whether we let the looters and their cohorts in social engineering regulate (both figuratively and literally) the very air.
The future is one which can again be the realization of the American Dream by a whole new generation of risk takers and job creators, or that future will see the further contraction of opportunity as those who could bring about that reality spend their creativity circumventing The State rather than expanding the horizon. The ingenuity spent on evading for survival is rarely recouped in the form of real production and economic progress.
The next few years will see yet another reaffirmation of that indomitable American Spirit which has asserted itself in generations past, or the creation of yet another (and perhaps final?) “Alphabet Generation” whose genius if frittered away mass producing the economic junk food of pop culture, purloined wealth and pernicious bureaucracy.
Great essay.
Your lips to God’s ear.
Great work, Shibumi!
Thank you, very much.
Excellent essay, shibumi.
*In God we trust* and thank you for including me in your ping, my dear friend. You’re truly a talented writer. I’m bookmarking now for safekeeping! Hugs and Prayers Always.
In God we ~do~ trust, which is why they’re so busy erasing Him from the public record. He doesn’t hold with bureaucratic prevarication.
When Ronald Reagan was elected president I was still a little over a month away from birth. As a child I knew my parents liked him, but that was the only perspective I had on that time in our country’s history.
As I got older, and more informed, and better acquainted with who President Reagan was I began to appreciate him immensely, probably because to me he is more of a legend. It helps that I’ve been to his presidential library a few times (and it’s awesome, if you haven’t been there put it on your bucket list).
I was too young to watch, much less understand, speeches like the one where he demands Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” I can’t view it now without getting chills.
What I wouldn’t give to have such leadership in my lifetime. Leadership that doesn’t just inspire us to be better, but makes us feel compelled to be better.
I would give even more to have a leader again who finds success by seeking God...and not after the whole world has sniffed him out to be either Muslim or atheist like a certain sitting POSOTUS (not a typo, think about it).
Thank you for sharing this with us Shibumi. I share the sentiments of praise you’re receiving for this piece. I loved it too. :-)
Great post sir- this tepid environment for entrepreneurs is what makes socialist Europe feel so stale economically, there’s simply not all that much new going on... be it retail, net startups, what have you
Great job!!! (as always).
It’s funny, but when Reagan was in office he was chastised as a poor leader. Looking back, he is now held in high esteem as one of the greats.
Twenty years from now, how will we view Obama? Will the next President lead the nation from it’s current turmoil, only to have Obama credited as being the one to start the wheels in motion?
I think history teaches us a lesson, and as we move intot he future, we should be careful how we write that history.
The Liberals (Communists) never miss a chance to rewrite the history books.
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