Now, in just four short, but alienating years, they have lost it.  Probably for a long time.  And with good reason.  After years and years of arguing for limited government, individual rights, free enterprise, and a strong national defense, they swept into decisive control of Congress in 1994 in a record-setting repudiation of a new President.

 
Then they promptly turned their collective backs to the voters who finally had believed their message.

First, they backed down in the 1995 budget battle, enabling a thoroughly-discredited Bill Clinton to win a second term.  Then they adopted the re-election guaranteeing practice of pork-barrel budgeting patented by the Democrats, and over the next ten years increased federal spending 500 percent faster than the growth in population.  They inaugurated the largest new federal spending program in forty years (Medicare Part D).  They let the Federal Register to continue to add an average of 200 pages PER DAY of new regulations which further hampered the ability of individuals and business to manage their own lives.  They artificially recharged the building of an economic house of cards with record deficit spending which, in turn, created a national security threat of foreign control of our dollar.  Finally, even in the face of a new era of international terrorism, they ignored a massive foreign invasion across our borders and instead focused on monitoring our telephone calls. 

It was hardly a recipe for Republicans to keep the respect and support of their own voters, who had high hopes when Bush II was elected, let alone gain new ones. 

Now they’ve been spanked. 

With Democrats in control of Congress, you will now see a full-scale assault on the White House.  They will likely send up legislation for all sorts of new programs, including Medicare-for-all national healthcare.  After decades of incremental growth of government, the Democrats will now swing for the fences.  President Bush, assuming he withstands the inevitable calls for his impeachment, will probably be forced into finally exercising his veto power.  This, however, will only serve to set the stage for 2008.  The Democrats will be able to point to Bush’s roadblock to their heartfelt efforts to save the nation, and the obvious answer will be to reward them by turning over the Presidency to their stewardship as well.

 Does any of this matter?  On a practical level, probably not.  Both parties have now proved to be equally keen on Big Government solutions.  This is why Republicans will be on the sidelines for the foreseeable future–they either abandoned their own long-espoused philosophy as soon as they got into power or else they just flat out lied to their supporters all along.  It will take a long time to repair that party. 

“Big Government” is the American political euphemism for socialism.  After fighting it worldwide for the better part of the last century, we are now rushing hand-in-hand to embrace it.

Elections reveal that we characterize most people or groups today by their view towards government either and by the type or the amount of power they feel government should wield.  It’s impossible to pick up a newspaper or watch the evening news on television without seeing or hearing all kinds of references to “liberals” and “conservatives,” or to a “right wing” and a “left wing.”  From such labels we’re supposed to get the impression that the terms are used to describe opposite sides of an issue or opposite ends of some spectrum of political philosophy, with “moderates” and “centrists” in the middle. 

From another perspective, however, such a spectrum not only doesn’t really provide a very useful description of these groups it actually ignores or obscures what’s really going on.  Forget Democrats versus Republicans, left versus right, liberals versus conservatives, fascists versus communists, or revolutionaries versus reactionaries.  To bring things into the proper focus, we need to rearrange the political spectrum into a more realistic representation: 

 On one end is the individual, making his own choices and decisions about his personal life and property; on the other end is the state, or government, where a relatively small number of people are able to make everyone else act in ways they might not otherwise have chosen, usually by wielding or threatening the use of some kind of force or other penalty for not complying.  
 

The extremes of this more logical political spectrum would be total anarchy on one end versus rigid totalitarian dictatorship on the other.  If you arbitrarily drew a line and placed totalitarianism on the left end and anarchy on the right then, yes, traditional Democrats/liberals would fall more to the left of Republicans/conservatives but the distance between the two groups is not as great as it once was and certainly do not represent the extremes.  Both major parties in the country have moved inexorably to the left, when measured by their actions and policies and not merely by their rhetoric (this concept was explored in depth by David Boaz in his book, Libertarianism: A Primer).

This spectrum is a pretty useful tool for understanding politics.  All political philosophies, from individualists to Marxist-Leninists, fit along this new line.  On one end is the individual; on the other is the state.  Every philosophy just varies in its degree of an individual’s control over himself versus state control over the individual.  For example, it doesn’t really matter whether Medicare policies are set by Republicans or Democrats; the important thing is whether seniors are individually afforded the opportunity to determine for themselves the nature of their health plan or if the government makes enrollment in their plan mandatory. 

Liberty versus Power.  It is never a surprise, of course, that power is always more appealing to those who have it than to those who don’t.  While the nature of power has taken many forms in history, there has always been a single recurring theme:  The will of some is coercively forced upon others.   

Power fuels man’s ambition to rule others by providing the ability to impose one’s will on another.  And with the imposition of will comes the likelihood that someone will take exception to it.  And then you have conflict.  Conflict leads to disharmony, disruption, and possibly destruction.
 

It seems to me that if government is the organized imposition of will by some over others, and that the imposition of will leads to conflict, then we ought, therefore, to enjoy more peace and prosperity in proportion to the degree we limit the power of government.
 

Do men have to be governed?  Or do they just have to be restrained?
 

10. The Constitution is the law of the land.
9.   Politicians are public “servants” looking out for the best interests of the voters.
8.   We don’t have to worry about our national debt because we just owe it to ourselves.
7.   The Great Depression was caused by greedy capitalists.
6.   Democracy protects the rights of everyone.
5.   Environmentalists just want to protect the environment.
4.   The government can create jobs.
3.   In order for the poor to have more we have to take it from the rich.
2.   Democrat politicians and Republican politicians have different goals.

 
 And the NUMBER ONE Myth Ordinary Joe believes about America

 
 1.   “We’re from the government and we’re here to help!”

 
And the NUMBER ONE Quote Ordinary Joe should know about politics:

 
1.   “Yes, everyone is free to speak their minds.  We will simply arrest anyone who listens!” – El Capitan Esteban, Zorro, the Gay Blade

The nasty is here.

The lazy days of summer gave way not to leaf-watching and fall football, but instead to another of those gawdawful, interminable, mud-slinging, truth-trampling, intelligence-insulting marathons we call campaign season.  Whereas autumns are fondly remembered for their brilliant displays of foliage colors, crisp nights, and cool rains, campaign seasons are anticipated with loathing, endured with cynicism, and notable only for the increasing intensity of nastiness embraced by dueling campaigns.

No sane person can stand it.  Liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, seasoned citizens and Generation Xers alike, we’re all disgusted.  Most of us still haven’t recovered from 2004—MoveOn.org vs. SwiftBoat Vets; Bush-haters and Kerry-bashers—and they’re already lining up to duke it out in ‘08.  Last time we even went into extra innings in an unprecedented and unparalleled transformation of our democracy into some kind of perverse street brawl.  Is anybody not cringing?

What has happened to our genteel society, our respectful disagreements, and our traditional encouragement of diverse opinions? 

The goal of our Founding Fathers was “to secure our blessings for ourselves and our posterity” so they created a Constitution that established America as a nation which would be governed by the “rule of law” and not the rule of men, providing a lasting security for our rights and liberty not subject to the vagaries and avarice of individual personalities.

However, the Constitution has gradually been interpreted in such an expansive and imaginative way that there are no restraints on what our elected representatives may do.  It has been transformed into a historical whimsy.

Accordingly, there is an ever-increasing percentage of the population who seek—and expect—benefits from the government in the form of such things as tax breaks, contracts, competitive protection, subsidies, retirement income, healthcare, job training, housing, cash, and all manner of other goodies. 

As a result we have fostered highly-divisive conflicts among us:  Class wars, racial wars, gender wars, culture wars, and generational wars.  We now resemble a very unsophisticated democracy:  Two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for lunch. 

Instead of the envisioned nobility of a representational republic we are today ruled by executive order, public opinion polls, focus groups, and special interests.  With the power completely in the hands of elected officials, and no controls on how that power is used, elections become prizes of unimaginable magnitude for each side.  Hence, the terrible campaign battles we now must endure to see who gets the prize. 

The voting record of our populace is schizophrenic as it careens from one extreme to the other in search of the most satisfying benefactors.  As a result, the economy bounces up and down as businesses and investors are unable to rely on a stable set of rules.  We cannot let society be at the anarchistic mercy of every individual, but unbridled majority rule is incapable of safeguarding the rights of the minority.  The proper balance can only be found in a strict interpretation of the Constitution. 

Peace and prosperity are best achieved through personal liberty and the voluntary associations and interchange that we call the free market and civil society.  We need a government, therefore, that will provide a secure environment for our individual “pursuit of happiness” and safeguard the integrity of the marketplace.  Beyond that citizens must resume taking responsibility for their own lives and be accountable for their own actions.  When they do, our elected representatives need only be good caretakers of the contract.  Personalities become less relevant; elections become less important. 

The wolves are in a frenzy, and as long as they have the power to impose their will on the sheep, the sheep is destined for a messy end.