Posted on 08/18/2015 5:55:14 AM PDT by Kaslin
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders represent two sides of the same coin. Both men have tapped into a deep anger -- a discontent -- in the public mood. Little seems to be going right. America appears in decline under a disengaged president. We can't seem to win wars, or know why we are fighting them. People are afraid of losing their jobs or unable to find one. While the treasury takes in record amounts of money from working people, it outspends its income. Sanders and Hillary Clinton want to spend (and borrow) even more.
Why the anger? Is it justified and more importantly, is anger a winning strategy?
Our anger should be directed less at politicians (although many are deservedly targets) and more at ourselves for expecting more from government than it can deliver. When the Founders pursued liberty, their intention was not only liberation from an oppressive English monarchy, but liberty for themselves and their posterity. With liberty comes responsibility. John Adams warned: "Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation, to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it."
We have not made good use of it, but we are blaming the wrong people. The politicians care mostly about their careers. They will increasingly provide "benefits" in exchange for votes. Republicans, who promised to end the gravy train, or at a minimum slow it down, have done little to reduce the spending spree. And so voters are angry at Republicans.
Democrats have not reduced poverty or elevated the middle class, despite record amounts of spending on "anti-poverty" programs and empty promises to support those who languish between wealth and poverty. And so Bernie Sanders and his growing number of followers are angry at them.
Where is the politician who will say "enough"? Where is the politician who will tell voters, "We can't do more for you than you can do for yourself"? Character doesn't come from Washington; it comes from within each individual. That is a message that might still resonate in a country where the Puritan ethic runs deep in its DNA.
In sports, boundaries determine the limits of a playing field and rules define how the game is played. The Constitution was written to put boundaries on government and provide the maximum amount of liberty under the law to its citizens. Thomas Jefferson made that point in 1801 when he said, "...a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned -- this is the sum of good government."
Government has become dysfunctional because it has exceeded its constitutional boundaries. That's why liberals and conservatives are discontented, though for different reasons. The left wants more of what's not working, and the right wants less, but because of its timidity hasn't made its case.
Perhaps that's why a proposal for an "Article 5" constitutional convention to put government back within its constitutional boundaries appears to be gaining momentum. According to the Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force, which tracks petitions, 27 states have filed active petitions with Congress. Seven more are needed.
Franklin Roosevelt, who more than any other U.S. president expanded the power and cost of government, said in 1938: "...let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a president and senators and congressmen and government officials but the voters of this country."
So, if you are discontented with government, look in the mirror and discover the person most responsible for expecting too much from government and too little from yourself.
I’ve been on FR for several years now predicting a populist explosion just in time for the 2016 race.
Now is the summer of our discontent made glorious spring by this son of New York, Donald Trump?!
I would say it’s our six-plus years of discontent. Or six-plus years of misery!
Obama is not “disengaged” Cal. Shame on you for that lie.
You and those like you wonder why people are rejecting your message. you lie! And you propagandize. And you insult our intelligence. A And we don’t trust the entire lot of you anymore.
Thomas questions whether our anger is properly focused, and says that it isn’t. However, he never answered his own questions, namely: Why the anger? Is it justified and more importantly, is anger a winning strategy?
OK, he sort of answered the “why the anger?” question - people expect too much of government and politicians. A proper conservative analysis, with a proper conservative response: shrink government.
HOWEVER, he never answered the “is anger is a winning strategy?” question. The answer is “YES!” Why? because only anger will enable a sweeping away of the current power structure, with the resultant big changes in the way that government works (at least for a while). He’s big on blaming us voters for putting in corrupt politicians (which is not an entirely incorrect assessment), but what about the corrupt media and lobbying groups that enable the pols to ignore us and then cover up their misdeeds, misdeeds that once upon a time led to resignations or prison...but no longer. The accountability of the political class has been eliminated - BY THE POLITICAL CLASS. There is simply nothing that can be done about it without a huge and dramatic switch in the power structure, which can ONLY be brought about by anger that motivates a lot of non-voters to actually get out there and vote once again - because the lack of accountability, and the lack of change despite surface-level power shifts in 2010 and 2014, has given millions every reason to sit home because “my vote doesn’t matter any more, if it ever did.”
Cal, anger is now the ONLY solution...and Trump, Cruz and Carson are the agents of that anger and the solutions that it will bring. If they lose, if the voice of the tens of millions that they represent is shut out by TPTB, then the Republican Party is dead, and with it any chance of restraining the socialist Dems...IOW, if this righteous anger is not allowed to change the political calculus in this country in this election cycle, then America is over.
What does this mean, that the politicians in Washington are robots and are exempt from demonstrating character?
-PJ
The key word here is "appears," because while it appears that America is in decline, and while it appears under a disengaged President, neither of these is true.
First, it appears that America is in decline, but the appearance is not truth. America is in danger of a decline, but danger is not the same as actuality. America is in a crisis--in the strict meaning of the word, "a stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events, especially for better or for worse, is determined; turning point." America appeared to be in decline in the 1930s, but perceptive people knew better: no country was in a better position to soar, and all it will take now is to align the laws and the government to allow it to soar, both economically and morally. We can decline and fall if we choose badly, but we do not have to. That is one reason why the 2016 election is so essential to the future of the nation.
Moreover, the President is not 'disengaged,' except perhaps in the sense that he is a shill for those forces that would want nothing better than for the nation to go into decline and fall. He may or may not be disengaged, but those forces are not disengaged, and as they guide and/or control him, he acts to the detriment of the nation.
The supporters of Trump and Cruz, and the supporters of Sanders and Warren, are alike in one sense: they both desire the United States of America to fulfill its ideals. The vehement disagreement is on just what those "ideals" are: are they Locke's natural rights of equal opportunity to life, liberty, property, or the Fabian socialist ideal of equal success obtained through government manipulation? Is the American ideal to be isolated from the world or engaged in it? Do all lives matter, or the lives of one's own group? Is militant Islam an enemy to be defeated, or a misunderstood minority to be dialogued with?
The point here is that America is still a nation inhabited by idealists, whose love for their country is based, not on the existence of the country, but on what they perceive as the ideals of the country. If we are to get America through the crisis into the greatest success we have ever experienced, we have to realize that our ideals must prevail, and their ideals must be defeated. Cruz definitely understands this, as to some extent do Walker, Carson, Huckabee, even Fiorina; Trump, in his own not-always-thought-through way, also understands this. So do Sanders, the Clintons, and the handlers of Obama--and that is why we may appear to be in decline, but in fact we are at a crisis, and the future of the world as well as the future of America are at stake.
I'm running off to a meeting :-) so I'll give a short answer. The two main thinkers affecting people around the time of the Founders were Locke and Hobbes. Locke, whom our Founders believed, said that ethical individuals come together to form societies with limited governments that promote natural rights and then lets the people control themselves. Hobbes, whom the tyrants believed, said that people were inherently unethical and needed a ruling government to make them do what they knew they should do, but couldn't make themselves do.
Conservatives follow Locke; progressives follow Hobbes. One quick example: conservatives support private charity so that ethical individuals join together voluntarily to help the poor and destitute; progressives support government welfare so that people will be forced to support the poor, which they know they're supposed to do but won't because they're too selfish and uncaring.
What Cal Thomas means here is that the government isn't what makes you ethical, as Hobbes would assert, but it comes from your own working at virtue, as Locke would assert.
What does “TPTB” stand for. Thank-you!
I find populism tiresome.
Four years ago many here were swearing that Palin would be the nominee, Perry and Bachmann had taken turns being up in the Republican polls,...
They call it the silly summer.
“I am madder than hell and only Trump has the guts and $$ to kick butts”
Oh, him and Sanders, Sanders ALWAYS sounds madder than hell.
TPTB = The powers that be.
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