Replies

Read one of my earlier threads, wherein I note that I do NOT support the government either subsidizing abortion or enforcing the ban thereof. Again, government has no business telling women what to do or what not to do with regards to abortion.

Myopia seems to rule the day. Our history is replete with examples of how righteous zeal has been utilized to further

In the 1860’s, it was the crusade “to make Men free” that fired the imagination. The result was a massive growth in federal power, hundreds of thousands dead, the creation of the income tax, the deployment of worthless fiat money (the so-called greenbacks), the suspension of Habeas Corpus, etc. All of this was enacted to force one section of the country (the “Confederacy”) to submit to the abolitionist prejudices of the North. Whatever else you may think of slavery (a deep evil, in my view), we are still dealing with the consequences of that moral crusade.

Let’s not forget the “White Man’s Burden”, that singular doctrine that led us to war with Spain and the growth of empire. Or the Progressive era, which saw the institution of the permanent income tax, the Federal Reserve, onerous labor laws — all for a “good cause”. Let’s also not forget the “War To End All Wars”, which ushered in the creation of manifold government boards and agencies, coordination of agriculture and industry by federal fiat, and the advent of so-called “War Socialism”. To round out the early 20th century, we have the cause of Prohibition, that teetotaler utopia which nurtured disrespect for the law, government corruption, and the growth of organized crime.

The New Deal, enacted to help the poor and needy (again, a good cause) resulted in all of manner of unconstitutional infringements. Who can forget the “War on Poverty”? Who remembers anymore that you could once pick up your relatives at the airport by walking directly to the gate?

All the things that conservatives now despise were brought to life through some moral crusade. No one in 1862 foresaw the Pandora’s box that would be opened through the laying of an income tax, that their descendants would work for the federal government for almost half the year in an enslavement that would horrify the Founding Fathers. Yet, that tax was created and enforced for a “good cause” (to “make Men free”) and made permanent for another “good cause” (so the rich would “pay their fair share”). No one foresaw the day when the federal government would take upon itself the authority to tell a farmer what to grow, when to grow it, and in what amounts — all under penalty of law.

Beware of what you seek, friends. What may appear today to be a “good” may turn out in the future to be an evil you cannot now foresee. Harnessing the power of government to institute that “good” today may only make that future evil more dastardly and greater in magnitude than anything you can imagine. The Founding Fathers knew whereof they spoke when they warned us to guard our liberties from a government hungry to enslave us.