I'd like to preface this article with an acknowledgement -- there is no Statist canditate nor is there a "Statist" party running. That being said, the truth is that all of the Democrats in this campaign are basically fence-sitting Statists and the Republicans are basically Statists, too. Oh, I bet that stings. But let's talk about "real" Liberals, the type you read about and hear about and that are supposed to comprise the "core" of the Democratic party. You know, the ones O'Reilly and Rush are always bellyaching about.
There are four basic premise points to the theory of Statism.
The people cannot be trusted The state and it's totality is more important than the wishes of any one person or any one minority of people The state is there to be the check and balance to both the power of the mob and the tyranny of the elite. The state is absolute power, and requires complete transparency and the strongest controls possible Let's look at these one by one, as compared to liberals.
1. The people cannot be trusted with power
Raw democracy, where one person = one vote and all people have the power over the government, is inimical to Statism. Statism belives only certain people throughout history have demonstrated -- through success in business, or charisma and vision, or support from the military -- their ability to lead a nation. It is these people we need in power -- the rich, the CEO's, the elite, the scientists, the doctors, the mega ministers. The average person is concerned first with their own well-being, then about what they feel is important. The mob cannot be trusted, and in it's unreasoning thought is the drive that created the idea of racism, that some groups are better.
Liberalism, on it's surface, would decry this, and say everyone is equal. But if you look at liberal "policy", you will see that Liberals do not trust the people with power either. They tell the people that multiculturalism is somehow "as good as" American culture, that speaking other languages is okay, that the color of your skin means you deserve special slots in jobs, colleges, and in business dealings that whites don't get simply because of something that happened , at WORST, 50? years ago. They answer only with division and difference, never equality, and certainly never doing what the people want OR need, only what THEY -- the liberal elite -- THINK is best for the people.
Well, hell. How is that any different than a statist? At least we're HONEST about it when we tell you that we don't think you have enough sense to govern yoursevles properly.
Liberals do not trust the people with the power, they simply seek to keep everyone as divided and focused on their own wants and petty desires as possible. I'd never vote for Barack Obama. He's black, I'm black, and that's all we have in common. I vote on what is being said, and all I hear is a lot of talk about change, and a new direction, and nothing specific that will reduce the corruption and failure of this country.
A statist government would concentrate the power of the government in the hands of those who know how to use it, and would take actions designed to benefit all of society. Liberals concentrate the power of the government into that of slick-speaking hucksters who don't give the people any more power, don't solve their problems, but pay attention to them in the form of broken quotas, broken promises, and broken government programs.
2. The state and it's totality is more important than the wishes of any one person or any one minority of people
A statist believes the nation as whole matters more than the sum of it's parts, be that the various states that comprise it, or the minorities that make up it's population, or the religous beliefs that make it up, or what have you. The statist would regulate the economy both to ensure that private enterprise would be able to make a profit AND to keep the markets balanced, safe, and fair. The statist sees fair trade as a gimmick when other nations are tarrifing the hell out of us, ane we would not stand for it. The statist sees the world as a whole, and isolationism is the stupidest possible action -- every SINGLE time we've isolated ourselves, we've gotten in trouble or had to fix things. (Remember Pearl Harbor?) And above all, statists do not give certain segments of the population advantages not offered to others, it just creates discontent and hate.
Liberals would say the government is there to protect the people and provide a safety net. But that's only half the real answer. Government is ALSO there to protect and enhance our corporations and businesses so they can compete. It's there to support our industries so they don't have to deal with unfair competition overseas. And if world treaties threaten our industries, it's the government's job to go out there and work to change the policies, or make sure the business of America isn't hampered.
A liberal doesn't care about business, he cares about what makes him seem to be "for the people". The Welfare and Nanny state is NOT a statist idea -- a statist would demand people work ,and welfare would be a government jobs program. If you didn't work, you got no benefits, and the state would jail you and put you to work there. A free ride benefits no one.
Liberals also don't care about the nation as a whole. They don't care about the cuts in national defense they would have to pay for their social programs with, or their damage to our economy by their short-sighted eco-friendly approaches would have on our industries.
Even statists wouldn't go so far as to put forth programs which mostl help a demographic of people who blatantly refuse to work and are never going to be of any productive use simply so we can feel like we helped someone "down on their luck". Liberals do this so they can gather votes -- they don't provide assistance that's worth anything, and they don't help the country as a whole.
3. The state is there to be the check and balance to both the power of the mob and the tyranny of the elite.
A statist sees government as empowering everyone. It controls,regulates, and enhances our lives. It is a meta-constuct over and around and throughout society -- inhibiting crime, ensuring a free flow of resources and stopping injustice and radicalism.
The state is therefore not only the champion of the people, but of the elite. It is there to support the common man and the billionare. They both pay taxes to it, they should both get benefits from it.
Liberals seem to think the government is there to simply tax people as heavily as possible and redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor, without actually providing jobs, or keeping our economy strong. We endured eight years of the Clintons, and the fact that the economy was good can be laid at the fact that he didn't do anything tremendously stupid, like, say, implement a 300 billion dollar war, or suggest we move to a trillion-dollar expense national health plan.
In other words, we dodged a bullet. A liberal thinks the government is basically his wallet, and he will be happy to suggest pork and "welfare assistance" and support for "alternative lifestyles" and all other kinds of mess -- but what does he do for business? What benefits do those men and women who've busted their ass to make a lot of money get?
WHY would anyone with more than a couple of million dollars to their name even want to live in this country under liberal rule? The government does nothing but hand your money off to any one asking for it, then has the unmitigated gall to disrupt the military, engage in unwise fiscal adventures, denegrate industry by heaping "environmental controls" on them, and imply that the rich are somehow evil for having money.
Folks, if I seem to be repeating myself here, it's because no matter what part of government we talk about, the liberal answer is "tax and spend, tax and spend, down with the rich, give it to the poor". I grew UP poor. I don't plan to be poor again. But you know what? If I knew I could afford a nice house and a good car and all the food I needed, and I wouldn't have to work for that, do you think I would?
Maybe I would. I bet a lot of people wouldn't, becoming a drain on our economy -- and yet to listen to liberals, any actions against their plans would starve the homeless and condemn babies to death and all other sorts of tear-jerking gibberish.
And people say that Dr. Paul is outlandish?
4. The state is absolute power, and requires complete transparency and the strongest controls possible
A statist has no problem with privacy, public or private. I don't care if there are cameras at every street corner, or if I have a national ID, or if they have my DNA samples on file, or if they put a black box in my car to track my driving habits. You know why? Because I don't do anything wrong. If the invasion is there to make me safer then I'm happy for it. Liberty does not help me when I get put out of a store because I'm black, liberty does not help me when my house is broken into and the cops can't find who did it because we don't have neighborhood monitoring, liberty doesn't help me when my friend is killed and they can't match DNA evidence to anyone because we don't have a national DNA database.
Privacy is the past. Liberals claim they are for privacy. And they are, if it's something like gays or transsexuals or whatever the freak of the week is they're championing. They're for privacy if you want to smoke weed (or snort cocaine for that matter), they're for privacy if you want to worship Satan.
Oddly enough, though, they don't like the idea of privacy of business. They want all that to be transparent, and? have created great reams of crap so the SEC can spent time hassling business owners to produce huge piles of unread documents and so that everyone can know they are "safe" from "another Enron scandal".
They are also not much for privacy when it comes to the rights of people to own guns , I've noticed. Or run their business how they like in terms of smoking.
And yet, then AGAIN -- they aren't for transparancy in government. So I'm confused. They seem to want privacy for what they approve of, but not what they oppose -- and they don't like opening up about their own issues. (Remember Whitewater?)
The upshot of all of this is that liberals come off sounding like hypocrites to me when it comes to privacy and the role of government in a person's life. It's NOT okay for the government to say you can't have an abortion, but it IS okay for them to hassle you about guns. They can't tell you that , as gays, you can't get married, but they CAN tell you, as a business owner, that you aren't ADA compliant and make you install ramps into your skydiving shop on the OFF CHANCE a guy in a wheel chair wants to skydive.
All in all, liberals piss me off. They are , at best, oppportunists, using the discontent of the people and promising them all they want in return for votes. Clinton wasn't any better than Reagan or Bush, nothing changed, nothing got better, but somehow I'm supposed to see him as a guy who helped me?
Liberalism is the idea that everyone is equal , but liberals really mean "everyone is equally not as good as we are, and we need to tell you how to live, speak, talk, and act'. If you comment on that, you're a racist or a sexist pig or bigoted or something. If you point out that all they do is drive out corporations and businesses and the rich from America with their stupidly high taxes, they say the people have a right to be supported.
If Libertarians are stuck in their idealized version of a magical past where old documents can ensure freedom and happiness, then liberals are cold, cynical manipulators, using the wishes of the downtrodden, the mistakes of the past, and the tensions of the present to keep America divided, distrustful and despairing. They offer a lot of buzzwords like "change", "hope", and talk about the future, but nothing will change. If a Democrat wins, we'll still have an ineffectual Congress without the power to make the laws they need to, a broken Supreme Court acting beyond it's powers, a weak executive office, and a bunch of squabbling states, and nothing will be "better" except we may have a black or a woman president and we can tell ourselves that means we've made progress.
Spare me.