Posted on 03/07/2008 8:47:48 PM PST by CreativePerspective
Nearly 16 years ago in these very pages, I wrote that "'one-size-fits all' rules for business ignore the reality of the market place." Today I'm watching some broad rules evolve on individual decisions that are even worse.
Under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating behavior. Much paternalist scrutiny has recently centered on personal economics, including calls to regulate subprime mortgages.
Health-care paternalism creates another problem that's rarely mentioned...
I've come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a healthy civil society.
Why do we think we are helping adult consumers by taking away their options? ... Everyone is exposed to economic risks of some kind. But we don't operate mindlessly in trying to smooth out every theoretical wrinkle in life.
The nature of freedom of choice is that some people will misuse their responsibility and hurt themselves in the process. We should do our best to educate them, but without diminishing choice for everyone else.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Goes to show you how far left today's Democrats have come, when McGovern is talking about personal resposibility and is speaking out against "paternalistic government" while today's Democrats think that the answer to everything is have government "take care of the people" and protect them from themselves, taking away their individual freedom of making their own decisions.
He slams the right as well as the left, and rightly so.
Well, blow me down and call me Shorty!
Only one possible explanation:
Alien Body Snatchers.
Actually he seems to really be libertarian in this piece. In fact I can't believe this is McGovern. It reads like something John Stossel would write.
“In fact I can’t believe this is McGovern.”
I had trouble believing it myself, my first thought is that it must be someone else with the same name, but the article specifically stated at the bottom:
“Mr. McGovern is a former senator from South Dakota and the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate.”
Check out the link. Either he came to his senses in his old age, or it shows how far Dems have gone to the left in the past 30+ years.
The prayers and condolences of the church of global warming be with George, now and forever and...may Algore bless him....anem...
With sadness,
Barak H. O'bama.
McGovern began to see the light (on some things) when he actually tried to run a business (I think it was a hotel or motel) after leaving the Senate. He encountered absurd regulations. In fact, they may have driven him out of business.
George was dead drunk when he wrote this.
I’m surprised to see that McGovern mentions a “baby,” but not in connection with “freedom of choice” to kill them.
Perhaps he was never as “ultraliberal” as he was made out to be.
McGovern sees the light! PING
A neo-conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged.
my business partner told me that getting into real estate would turn me libertarian, because of the absurd rules that makes anyone an outlaw just for trying to do things based on common sense. (but if we could go by common sense we wouldnt need laws to force it down peoples throats).
True, it’s a big surprise that McGovern wrote this.
What I find even more surprising and saddening, is that I haven’t heard or read any REPUBLICAN make these very good points. They all seem to be afraid that people will think they are “mean” for pointing out that the government should NOT be protecting people from every possible mistake they can make.
McGovern for McCain’s VP? (just kidding)
I may be the only person here who will admit being for McGovern in 1972. I’ve never really regretted that, and this article sounds like the common sense that I always thought he had.
Somebody get the Devil on the line. Perhaps Global Warming is working in reverse down below.
“Goes to show you how far left today’s Democrats have come, when McGovern is talking about personal resposibility and is speaking out against “paternalistic government” while today’s Democrats think that the answer to everything is have government “take care of the people” and protect them from themselves, taking away their individual freedom of making their own decisions.”
You conviently neglect to mention big govt “compassionate conservatism” and its main cheerleader George ‘if people hurt, the govt has to move” Bush. They’re just as guilty if not more so.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,109766,00.html
Too bad he didn't try that before he ran for office (BTW, I'm pretty sure it was a bed-and-breakfast in Vermont).
That may be why George McG said “right and left” (when really he meant “center and left”).
Q: How have your personal politics shifted or changed since 1972?A: I suppose that I haven't changed in a fundamental way since '72, but I do have greater tolerance for honest-to-goodness conservatives than I might have had at an earlier time in my life. For example, Bob Dole and I have become very good friends since both of us left politics. I'm not sure that would have been as easy to happen 35 years ago as it is today.
Q: Someone mentioned to me that you tried to open up a bed-and-breakfast, and you ran into a lot of rules and regulations that made being a small businessman difficult. Can you talk about that?
A: I had a 140-room hotel in Stamford, Connecticut, for about three years, and it just didn't work. You know, the hotel business may be the most difficult place in the world to make a living unless you happen to own the Waldorf-Astoria. It was not a success.
I got sued a couple times by people who had accidents, one out in the parking lot of the hotel and one leaving the restaurant. I saw all the difficulties -- record-keeping, keeping track of the tax applications, paying the help. It gave me a new appreciation for the problems of small businesses.
Q: Someone like me would argue that many of those problems are a result of too many government rules, regulations, mandates.
A: It's possible that small business should be exempted from some of those things. Who can be against anything called the Occupational Safety and Health Administration? But maybe some of the requirements should be eased off a little bit.
“If you are young and not Liberal, you have no heart. If you are old and not Conservative, you have no brain.” Attributed to Sir Winston Churchill.
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