ISSUES IN FOCUS

November 1, 2000

 

AND THE LOSER IS: FREEDOM


There is no need to wait for the results of the elections.  The polls tell it all: statists will be the big winners.  And the loser will be freedom.

This election will be a mirror of virtually every election held in the last 100 years.   And it will be a preview of what is coming, four years from now, in the next presidential election—unless those who value their freedom begin voting for freedom.   Currently, most of these individuals are voting for their would-be destroyers who are posing as their defenders.

For those who value their freedom, Democrats and Republicans have foisted upon them a "good cop, bad cop" racket that ensures these voters will support statism’s continued advance.  To such voters, the Democrats are the "bad cop" and the Republicans pose as the "good cop."  And the results are always the same: no matter who wins, statism continues to grow and freedom continues to decline.  They get you either way.

Suppose you have a friend who is dying because he is eating poisonous mushrooms.   Some of the mushrooms are fast acting, while others are slow acting, but it matters not: your friend will eventually die if he continues consuming the mushrooms.

Now, what advice would you give your friend?  What would you tell him he needs to do in order to save his life?  Would you tell him to continue eating the mushrooms but to just eat the slower acting variety?  Clearly, you would not since such action would bring about his death.  Instead, you would give him the only advice that will save his life: stop eating the mushrooms.

For decades, Americans have been consuming the intellectual and political equivalent of poisonous mushrooms: statism, which—like a deadly microbe—attacks and destroys freedom.  And like your friend, if they continue to consume this garbage, America’s freedom will eventually die.

As Democrats and Republicans engage in a superficial tug of war, Democrats keep lurching to the left, pulling Republicans with them, making each generation of Republican politicians more and more statist.  Today, Republicans are advocating government intrusions into health care and education (as well as other areas) that Republicans of 20 years ago would have firmly opposed.  But no longer.

In their deadly dance, Democrats and Republicans, hand in hand, take two steps to the left, then an occasional step back, but the forward motion is always the same: more statism and less freedom.  Together, they are taking American down a road whose ultimate end is some sort of totalitarian rule.

In what has become a never-ending, vicious circle and statism’s winning formula, each election cycle offers up the spectacle of most voters opting for one of two varieties of statism: the Democratic kind or the Republican kind.  Some sell their vote to the highest bidder (Democrats), others to the lower bidder (Republicans).  Both of these parties agree freedom is to be dismantled, but only haggle over petty details and how quickly it is to be accomplished.

Democrats attempt to woo voters with sweet nothings, promising more regulation and more stolen money forcibly taken from your pocket.  Republicans, like some young girl toying with her boyfriend, say, half-heartedly, "No, no."  But their actions—and even their words—signal, "Yes, yes!"  Except, in this case, it is you, if you are productive, who ends up getting screwed.

After the election, no matter who wins, nothing will change.  The decades-long decline of freedom will continue.  Statism’s stranglehold on this country will be safe.

If you continue to support those who are picking your pocket, they will continue to pick your pocket.  If you continue to vote for those who are shrinking your freedom, they will continue to shrink your freedom.

You cannot defeat statism by voting for it.  You cannot defeat your would-be destroyers by supporting them.  If you are going to have any chance of victory, you must vote for freedom and against statism.

If you value your freedom, but continue to vote for statists, your freedom will keep evaporating.  Heads or tails: it is still the same statist coin of destruction—freedom’s destruction.

What America desperately needs is for those who believe they have a right to their life and to their money, to vote their principles.  Then—and only then—will we see the beginning of a major political movement for freedom, a movement that will begin to educate others and set the stage for the expansion of personal liberty.

In the 1957 movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai, British soldiers are in a WW II, Japanese POW camp.  The ranking British officer (Alec Guinness) offers, in return for better living conditions and treatment, to build the bridge over the Kwai river that the Japanese, in their incompetence, could not build for themselves.  Toward the end of the movie, Guinness suddenly realizes the folly of helping the Japanese and exclaims: "My God, what have I done!?"

Hopefully, before it is too late, those who have been voting for statists will have a similar awakening and realize what they have done.

Fulton Huxtable
November 1, 2000

P.S.: Here is the party I'm voting for and why.

 

© Copyright 2000 Fulton Huxtable
http://www.fatalblindness.com

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