Something dawned on me the other day. I was talking with a friend last night and brought this up, and when I’d explained my point, he said that he’d never thought of things in that way before, and it was an idea that explained a lot. Now I’d like to share it with you.
Few people are alive today that are old enough to remember what life was like in America before Progressivism changed our country, and therefore it’s difficult to appreciate the difference in the way things were before, say 1920, and now.
Think about that for a minute. I was born in the late 50s, and grew up in the 60s and 70s. I have never known a time when Senators were appointed by State legislatures. I’ve never known a time without the IRS. As long as I’ve been politically aware, we’ve had Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, et cetera. In short, every year I’ve lived on this Earth, the United States has existed under a Federal government that is perceived as all-powerful, with the perception that the States report to/work for the Feds, and the people essentially work for the government.
Talk about bassakwards.
If you actually go back and read the Constitution, you’ll learn a couple of things. Not only did the Founders try to keep any one branch of the government (Executive, Legislative, Judicial) from becoming too powerful, they also tried to set things up whereby the States would, collectively, balance the Federal government’s powers, to keep them from running amok and becoming too powerful.
In the beginning, each colony was essentially it’s own country. They banded together first as a “Confederation of States.” When that proved to be unworkable (because the centralized Federal government was too weak), the Founders replaced the Articles of Confederation with the U.S. Constitution, which did its best to affect a delicate balance between a government with enough power to be effective, but not one power more.
Since that time, the Federal government has grown, both in size and power. It’s not been a pretty picture. Today, the ObamaNation has us rushing headlong into the arms of Socialism – or worse – because Progressives believe that an all-powerful Federal government is essential to our country’s health.
I disagree.
But today, I realize why more people aren’t alarmed. It’s because they’ve never known anything else. It’s like the story of the frog in the pot. Put a frog in cold water and turn up the heat gradually, and he’ll be cooked before he realizes what’s happening. Put him in a pot of hot water, and he’ll jump out before he’s cooked. The reason so many people today are up in arms is that Obama has turned the heat up too fast, and the frogs (us) have noticed. Trouble is, we don’t appreciate just how far away we’ve come from the original intent of the Founders – because it’s happened over the last 80 years or so.
There’s only one cure for this problem. Education. And when I say “education,” I don’t mean the kind of crap I learned in High School, apologies to Paul Simon. I mean that you need to get to the bookstore, bu books that speak the truth, and raise your own consciousness. Unless you see what freedoms we’ve lost, you can’t appreciate the danger we’re in – nor can you hope to get back the freedoms we’ve lost.
As Joe Bob Briggs (Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas) says, “Without eternal vigilance, it can happen here.”
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