Today’s quadrupled burden of “rendering to Caesar” is the worst cause of democratic dysfunction in our once lightly-governed republic. Pumping unhealthy amounts of money and power through government, as we now do, inevitably corrupts public life – even as it saps private initiative and enervates personal virtue.
This column was going to be about some bad bills in the Colorado legislature that would dump the Electoral College, monkey with campaign spending, and collectivize the workplace. I was also readying choice words for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s power play on pharmaceuticals, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s socialized medicine scheme, Colorado Gov. Ritter’s plan to rig the energy market, and the strange passion of my state's business leaders for higher taxes.
The SUV saga overtook all of those. But each is a symptom of the national malady I’ve diagnosed here. Collectivism and over-government are choking our sweet land of liberty. No exaggeration, they are. What’s the cure, short of a smashup and a new start from the ruins? Reagan would say we’d better start asking ourselves.