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Title: Crisis Coddling - Even when big government has failed in a big way, the two big parties won't consider scaling back
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URL Source: http://www.fairfieldweekly.com/article.cfm?aid=12135
Published: Mar 19, 2009
Author: Phil Maymin
Post Date: 2009-03-21 14:46:14 by nooz
Keywords: None
Views: 154
Comments: 14
Big government has robbed us all of a cris-atunity! When Homer Simpson got banned from Moe's bar, Lisa tried to console him. "Look on the bright side, Dad," she said. "Did you know that the Chinese use the same word for 'crisis' as they do for 'opportunity?'" "Yes!" Homer exclaimed. "Cris-atunity!" Inspired, he sprinted off in search of a new bar. Lisa, usually so smart, was wrong. The Chinese word for crisis does not mean opportunity. That is an urban myth - repeated by John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Condoleeza Rice and Al Gore. The Chinese word weiji is a combination of wei, meaning danger, and ji, meaning crucial point (when something begins or changes). Actually, the etymology of the word crisis goes back to the Greek krisis, meaning "decision." Homer Simpson faced a turning point that required a decision. But we are not in Homer's shoes. Despite rising unemployment, massive layoffs and a stock market that has lost half of its value from its peak, we are not in a crisis. There is no banking crisis, no financial crisis, no economic crisis. Why not? Because we have no decision to make. A bad situation is only a crisis if making the wrong decision can be fatal, and there is a chance of making the right one. Surely, a recession is a bad situation, but where is the debate about possible decisions? There can be no crisis without even a possibility of massively shrinking government. Who is proposing less government involvement? Who is pointing out that the problems were caused by too much government, too many regulations, too burdensome taxes, too powerful federal agencies? We are seeing more of the same. A hundred years ago, a bank run came about as a consequence of the CEO of the United Copper Company and his brother trying to corner the market on their own stock. The short squeeze didn't work, and the banks who had lent money to the scheme saw their depositors rush to withdraw. That Panic of 1907 provided much of the impetus for the eventual formation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. That was quite possibly the last time our country faced a crisis. We could have decided to continue as free people, but we went the other way. That same year, the Sixteenth Amendment violated our Constitution, establishing a permanent federal income tax, and the Seventeenth Amendment made senators popularly elected, like House representatives, rather than appointed by state governments. Senators went from being the last protectors of states' rights to some of the loudest proponents for more centralized government. The cancer of big government grew slowly. At first the Fed did little and income taxes were miniscule. But then the stock market fell in 1929, perhaps as a result of Fed policies that encouraged - as they always do - debt upon debt upon debt.The Great Depression, the New Deal, the Great Society, and Compassionate Conservatism are all different labels for the same phenomenon: the growth of the cancer. Now we are at the point where we confuse our cancerous tumor for a vital limb. Many of us can't imagine living without the government hunch on our back. Who would build bridges and roads? And in a time when the big government policies have clearly been shown to fail, when the borrow, borrow, borrow and tax, tax, tax policies of Democrats and Republicans over the past century have left us twisted and deformed, when the only medical alternative left is aggressively attacking the malignant growth, we instead feed and caress it. We honor it with words like "sacrifice" and "the common good." For the cancer of big government, nothing is going to change in this "crisis." It will only continue to grow. Just as there are plenty of ways to treat even advanced cancer (surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapy, hormonal therapy), there are plenty of possible ways to reduce the government (abolish the Fed, repeal income taxes with an amendment, get out of Iraq, cancel all bailouts, close federal agencies), but our elected doctors refuse to even consider any of these treatments, let alone act on them. They kiss the tumor and call us greedy for wanting to walk tall.
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#1. To: nooz (#0)
As the rollingstone author started out - 'We're f##ked.'
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Thanks, I didn't realize that it was available. I heard him this past week on some gcn show talking about it.
I heard him this past week on some gcn show talking about it. You're welcome. Help spread the word. LEO's etc.
#7. To: nooz.all (#4)
A copy of Richard's book along with a DVD of the Obama Deception ought to rock their world.
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#2. To: lodwick (#1)
#3. To: nooz (#2)
#4. To: lodwick (#3)
Thanks, I didn't realize that it was available.
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