McCain has Joe the Plummer. Obama has Peggy Joseph. Interviewed after an Obama campaign event in Sarasota, Florida, Peggy emotionally summarized what it means to her for Barack Obama to be president: "It was the most memorable time of my life. It was a touching moment, because I never thought this day would happen. I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage. You know, if I, if I help him [Barack], he’s gonna help me!"
If that doesn’t send fears down your spine, ponder the words of the Scottish jurist and historian, Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler. Over 200 years ago, he provided a chilling observation on the fall of the Athenian Republic. America has been a beacon of liberty and hope for our citizens and the world for over 230 years. But Tytler warned of the natural rise and fall of every democracy:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence; from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again into bondage."
Our next president will set America's course for the next decade. We’re running deficits in Washington and most of our major states. The growing costs for Medicare, employee pensions, and social security are out of control, and there's no political consensus or will to deal with these runaway entitlements. We vote to approve bonds that don’t raise taxes now but pass more debt on to future generations.
In America today, it's hard to win elections by talking about cutting government spending—saying "no" to anything or anyone at election time is a sure way of losing votes. As a result, too many Americans are becoming addicted to government saving them from their own failure to live within their means. Democrats play the enabler! Capitalizing on that addiction, Democrats promise more if Americans just give them full control in Washington.
Starting during President Johnson's term, our country tried spending our way to becoming a very compassionate country. Over three decades, our government invested 5.4 trillion dollars in welfare payments in our "War on Poverty." The investment would have been worth it, if it had worked, but it didn't eliminate poverty.
In fact, the results of this type of government-run compassion have been devastating, creating a debilitating dependence on the very programs that were designed to help. Ronald Reagan said it well: "Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence."
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