Liberty Maven

Ron Paul is doing his best Paul Revere impression galloping around on the media horse yelling “Socialism is coming! Socialism is coming!” Is anyone listening or are his words echoing around in the cavernous minds of the “oh woe is me, it’s the government’s responsibility” crowd?

I’m reminded of a story I first heard in church during my Catholic school tutelage. Here I will recap that story as I remember it.

A devout Christian man and his family find out that a hurricane is coming to their area. A bus drives up to his house and he is asked to evacuate, but he replies, “No, God will save us” and he keeps his family in his house. The hurricane comes and the flood waters start to rise. He takes his family up to the roof of his house to escape the rising water. A rescue team on a boat float by and tell the man and his family to hop in. The man replies, “No, God will save us”. Now the water is rising above the roof of the house. A rescue helicopter flies overhead and a rope is dropped for the man and his family. The man waves the helicopter away yelling, “No thank you, God will save us”. The water rises above his entire family and they drown. The man angrily confronts God and asks, “Why didn’t you save us?” God answers, “I tried to save you three times. I sent you a bus, a boat, and a helicopter.”

Today I apply this story to our economic “crisis”, but perhaps in a way that is not obvious. The family represents the American people having blind faith in their savior “god government”. At first thought the three attempts at rescue may be thought of as representing the bailout and stimulus plans from the government. This would be true only if the family actually listened to the rescue attempts. No, the rescue attempts in the story are representative of Ron Paul’s words of warning over the years and today. Lastly, the rising water is the socialism slowly overtaking America. Unless we recognize the problem and start acting accordingly the country formerly known as the United States will drown and transform into the U.S.S.A.. That is, The United Socialist States of America.

Today there is another move toward an economic stimulus bill. It is being backed by Fed chairman Bernanke and now President Bush is also open to the idea. The Bloomberg article about this new stimulus program is titled, “U.S. Moves Toward Stimulus as Bernanke, Bush Shift“. It might as well read, “U.S. Moves Toward Socialism as Bernanke, Bush Shift”. In fact when I first glanced at the headline that is what I thought I read.

The article includes the following excerpt:

Momentum for fresh measures built after an earlier stimulus package failed to prevent a jump in the unemployment rate to a six-year high and the longest slump in retail sales since at least 1992.

Yes, by all means keep repeating efforts that have proven not to work in the past.

Toward the end of the article there is a quote that unintentionally sums up all the problems with the attitude we have toward our recent economic woes. From California Democratic Representative Xavier Beccera:

“We have to make room for the discussion. Everything should be on the table. We won’t put the `Mission Accomplished‘ sign up until everyone is back to work and their 401(k)s are doing well.”

So now failure is not an option. The ever expanding responsibility of the government now includes giving everyone a job and meddling in the market so that everyone’s retirement funds are constantly showing increasing returns. Eliminating failure eliminates lessons that sometimes need to be learned. Apparently, we learned nothing from the Great Depression and we may be doomed to repeat it.

Ron Paul “Revere” is still out there championing the free market and denouncing socialism to anyone who will listen. The waters of socialism are rising. Will you get in Ron Paul’s bus, boat, or helicopter before it is too late?