Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom Read Online Free PDF Page A

personal liberty and private property. The tragedy is these bad policies have had strong bipartisan support. There has been no real opposition to the steady increase in the size and scope of government. Democrats are largely and openly for government expansion, and if we were to judge the Republicans by their actions and not their rhetoric, we would come to pretty much the same conclusion about them. When the ideas of both parties are bad, there is really only one hope: that they will continue fighting and not pass any new legislation. Gridlock can be the friend of liberty.
    Some argue that what I say can’t be true because Republicans are fighting with Democrats all the time, and legislation still gets passed. True, but all the fighting, despite the rhetoric, is only over which faction will control the power to pass out the benefits. The scramble to serve various special interests is real. Yet when it comes to any significant differences on foreign policy, economic intervention, the Federal Reserve, a strong executive branch, or welfarism mixed with corporatism, both parties are very much alike.
    The major arguments and “hotly contested” presidential races are mostly for public consumption, to convince the people they actually have a choice. Republicans have been great at expanding the welfare state and running up the deficit despite their campaign promises. Democrats remain champions of foreign adventurism despite their effort to portray themselves as the peace party.
    We have had way too much bipartisanship that promotes an agenda that has ignored constitutional restraints and free market principles. Many Republicans will argue that they stood strong against Obama’s expansion of government-run medical care. It is true that they did, and that helped perpetuate the belief that the two parties are radically different. But we must remember that when Republicans were in charge just a few years ago, the government still expanded its role in medical care, and in very similar ways. The biggest difference is that the Republicans didn’t advertise it.
    So-called moderate politicians who compromise and seek bipartisanship are the most dangerous among the entire crew in Washington. Compromise is too often synonymous with “selling out,” but it sounds a lot better. Honest politicians whostate that their goal is total socialized medicine (or education, etc.) are met with a greater resistance; while people who favor the same thing but sell it as moderate bipartisanism slip by unnoticed. They are the ones who destroy our liberties incrementally, in the name of compromise and civility.
    Incrementalism can only be justified if we regain some of our liberties and if the size and scope of government shrinks. The medical care debate of 2010 concluded with the radicals being held in check by the moderates who got them to back off from a single-payer system—i.e., socialized medicine. Yet the result was that we again moved significantly closer to that position. President Obama and the Congress agreed on a tax bill in late 2010 that retained some existing tax laws plus expanded unemployment insurance so that people could continue to stay off the labor rolls—and this was sold as a bipartisan “tax cut”!
    Moderates are somehow convinced that they are the saviors of the country, rescuing us all from the effects of philosophical differences. In fact, philosophical differences are healthy because they lead to the clarification of principles. Genuine progress is going to require more confrontation, partisanship, and serious and honest discussion of the truth about government, the economy, and every sector of American life. It also needs politicians who can hold strong to their beliefs and do not compromise their core values. How sad a state we are in when it seems like such a stretch to expect that from a politician! We need to bring back some understanding of the idea of liberty and what it means. Bipartisanship will not help that