What's happening with the American way?
I would like to answer a few of the points Barb Kromphardt made in her commentary.
The following guest editorial exceeds the BCR's 500-word policy, therefore the BCR will extend the same opportunity to someone with an opposing point of view. Call BCR Editor Terri Simon at (815) 875-4461, ext. 229.
⇒ See Barb Kromphardt's commentary.
Every citizen should be aware The Bill of Rights is to be cherished and preserved. When it was written, every line and every word was carefully considered, thought out, debated and challenged before being written down. It was written by people who knew all too well the transgressions an uncontrolled and tyrannical government was capable of. It was intended to protect the people and their rights from the government and to limit the power of the government.
While Franklin Roosevelt’s “rights,” are moral ideals, in the end they were only his opinions. Efforts to implement these ideals have given this nation what? Social Security, the funds for which were long since raided and is now in danger of going broke.
Lyndon Johnson’s “great society" has cost trillions of dollars and has accomplished little, other than giving us numerous failed social entitlement programs.
I believe you confuse fairness with equal outcome, not equal opportunity. Equal opportunity comes with freedom, not government over site. Equal opportunity has existed in the past — Abraham Lincoln, who was said to sometimes have done his school work on the back of a shovel by firelight, became president of the United States.
Equal opportunity exists today — Barack Obama, a young black man who rose from humble beginnings to become president of the United States.
If this is not equal opportunity, then it has never existed, does not exist and will never exist.
Stories of success from little or nothing are the rule, not the exception, in every field of endeavor in our nation because of freedom.
Freedom also means freedom to fail. Failure is an important freedom. Failure teaches us; we learn from our mistakes far more than any other source as a people, as a nation and as a world. We need to learn from the mistakes of the past.
You are right, Barb. “It is not a zero sum game.” Prosperity cannot come from government, Government can only confiscate wealth. We must understand prosperity for all people can only come from people. People who are not only willing to take risks, to work hard and to continue building the future of our nation and our world, but are free to do so and free to reap the rewards of their labor.
It is not out of fairness, but out of morality that provisions be made for the sick, hurt or just plain old. But not in the hurtful and miserly ways that today’s politicians use such programs to buy votes.
Today, our politicians seem bent upon a grand social experiment they like to call “health care.” With this writing, there are at least five separate versions of it. Each so long and complicated that it is doubtful that anyone actually knows what is in them or what they will cost.
Eighty-five percent of the American people say they are happy with their present health care, and yet the politicians are going full speed ahead.
The American people already know what it will cost and what it will do. Like every government program, it will cost more than the politicians say and will give the politicians more control over your life.
As Winston Churchill said, “The main vice of capitalism is the uneven distribution of prosperity. The main vice of socialism is the even distribution of misery.”
Truly the bullies of tomorrow will not wear brown shirts, arm bands or carry clubs. The bullies of tomorrow will wear business suits and carry briefcases. They will arrive at your door or your business, demanding their due in taxes and fees with the full weight of state and federal government behind them.
Is this to be the American way?
Gary Forristall
Princeton
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