The Dangers Of Democracy
Cutting through all the head scratching, number crunching, moaning, groaning and gnashing of teeth coming from the GOP trying to figure out what went wrong at the polls this week, Ron Paul cuts to the chase and puts it in stark perspective. This from his interview with Bloomberg TV:
“If you look at the numbers and the way pure democracy works, pure democracy is dangerous. The majority dictates against the minority. Right now the majority are receiving a check. That’s why people were sort of surprised with these conditions that this president could get reelected. But that is a bad sign, in that there are more on the receiving end.
“People don’t want anything cut. They want all the bailouts to come. They want the Fed to keep printing money. They don’t believe we have gone off the cliff or are close to going off the cliff. They think we can patch it over, that we can somehow come up with a magic solution. But you can’t have a budgetary solution if you don’t change what the role of government should be. As long as you think we have to police the world and run this welfare state, all we’re going to argue about is who is going to get the loot, who gets the money.”
That’s it in a nutshell and offers the most plausible explanation for why, when both pre- and post-election polls show the economy was a top issue for voters, a large enough chunk of those same voters picked an incumbent president who has dramatically increased the size, scope and cost of entitlement spending and debt and deficit, all while overseeing a stagnant economy with grossly high unemployment. This from John Hinderaker at PowerLine:
So with the economy the dominant issue in the campaign, why did that consensus not assure a Romney victory? Because a great many people live outside the real, competitive economy. Over 100 million receive means tested benefits from the federal government, many more from the states. And, of course, a great many more are public employees. To many millions of Americans, the economy is mostly an abstraction.
Then there is the fact that relatively few Americans actually pay for the government they consume. To a greater extent than any other developed nation, we rely on upper-income people to finance our federal government. When that is combined with the fact that around 40% of our federal spending isn’t paid for at all–it is borrowed–it is small wonder that many self-interested voters are happy to vote themselves more government. Mitt Romney proclaimed that Barack Obama was the candidate of “free stuff,” and voters took him at his word.
At which point we return to Ron Paul with a look at what lurks around the corner for a nation seemingly content to roll in free goodies, as Congress faces the abyss of a fiscal cliff:
“They say all we need is a little compromise. Nobody expects that because they don’t admit the truth. The truth is that we are broke. How do you compromise? They only way you are going to compromise if you agree on what to cut. Instead they’re trying to find out how they’re going to agree on what they’ll protect. I don’t think I have heard the answer. They talk about this fiscal cliff, but in my mind I work with the assumption we are already over the cliff, we’re just wondering how we’re going to land … It’s unsolvable because you have to cut spending … We’re broke.”
…
“We’re so far gone. We’re over the cliff. We can’t get enough people in congress in the next five, ten years who will do the wise things. We have to prepare for having already fallen off the fiscal cliff. It’s like what’s going on in Greece. Every day you hear of a solution and things pop up, but they are in debt and spend too much money and then the people go out in the street and demonstrate. Romney was hit because he was opposed, one issue he was correct on, he was opposed the bailouts, and the people in the Midwest voted against him – ‘Oh, we have to be taken care of!’ So that vote was sort of like what we are laughing at in Greece. Those 80,000 people out, they don’t want anything cut, they won’t compromise. It’s the people that are that way. That’s why our revolution is significant. We’re trying to change people’s minds. That’s why changing the minds of young people is so important.”
…
“My goal has always been to change people’s minds because as long as people demand more government, they will get it. Government reflects the people. That’s why I am excited to go to college campuses and I will continue to do that. That’s where I will get a lot of support and they’re saying, ‘I agree with you, we don’t need more government, we want more freedom and we want to be able to keep our own money. We want sound money.’ If you have sound money, you don’t have deficits because you can’t print money.”
Meanwhile, there’s this from CNSNews:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on Wednesday that if the $16.394 trillion current legal limit on the federal government’s debt must be raised in the next few months by another $2.4 trillion, “We’ll raise it.”
That would set the debt limit at $18.794 trillion.
…
On Aug. 2, 2011, Congress and President Barack Obama reached a deal to raise the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion. Now, after only 15 months, almost all of that additional borrowing authority has been exhausted, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
CNSNews.com reported that Treasury quietly announced a week ago that it expects the federal government to hit its legal debt limit before the end of this year.
Fully expect things to get much worse before they get any better.
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