While the emphasis where is is from is about the TEA Party perHAPS! cooling off.
The opposition’s message, every cycle, is essentially, “Vote for us for free ice cream.” The fiscally conservative message is, “there is no more free ice cream, and in fact the ice cream has never been free.” If selling that message were easy, we would never have gotten into this mess.
In effect, this has been the message forEVAH! from those that desire power: what we offer is FREE! Power is to the Political Class as crack cocaine is to the junkie. With Democrats / Progressives (that includes some Republicans like Charlie Bass as well!), some power is not ever enough and that craving is more and more and more powerful the more that they wield that Political Power Scepter. They believe that THEY (and they alone) have the answers that can fix society and that THEY should have the ability and the power to have Government modify YOUR behavior to suit THEIR ideas of how people should live. And we all know how addictive crack can be – for some, there is a never ending case of going for more.
But there is another form of crack – unlike the Political Class Power-Crack, they peddle another "softer" form of crack to the rest of us – Entitlements. Von Bismark, as he rolled up the German states in the 1800s into a single unified Germany, understood that clearly;…
… in order to give up their freedom as he did, he had to bribe the population with goodies – like pensions and health care and free education. Sound familiar?
Don’t get me wrong, nice things – but all things come with a price: TANSTAAFL (There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) that the Progressives never mention cost with their policies. Problem is that the Progressives took that German philosophy and planted it here in the 1880s, convinced that the Founding Fathers’ bedrock principles of our Republic were Individual Freedom and Liberty was out of date and unobtainable for the masses, have tried ever since to undermine that undergirding philosophy. The Industrial Revolution, (then in full swing) they surmised (or at least made it their excuse) made life too hard, too complicated, and too inscrutable for the average person to make "good" decisions for society as a whole or themselves.
In short, they believe the rest of us are too dumb to figure it out – they have to lead us. My question is for them "er, and what made YOU so much better than the rest of us to be doing that"? Never seem to get a great answer, or even a half-way one that make any kind of sense….
Back to the ice cream….
Cycle after cycle, the Democrats / Progressives (and Republicans) treat the majority of us as children: "here, have some free ice cream. Oh, ok, it isn’t free, but it really costs very little. It’s only a single vote, and look at what we’ll give you – we’re the Gubmint and we can multiply all those dollars for lots of things! All you have to do is follow the rules".
The rules. Whose rules? My rules? Your rules? Your wishes? Hardly.
The TEA Party has realized that it is now TANSTAAFL time – the ice cream that looks so good in the picture, that cone that looks so wonderful when first placed in your hands, is melting. Our fiscal ice cream is dripping onto the floor – and fast. Free ice cream is great when you are a kid, but adults know (or should know) that too much is not good. It takes a mature attitude to say no, no mas, to the continual offers of the ice cream just from a waistline perspective. And now that we are broke, we’ve also got the financial aspect to worry about.
The unions, the professional gimme class? They are all still craving that free ice cream – the entitlement mentality / temper tantrum of "how DARE you not give it to me!" attitude. We have seen it in WI, and we see it now here in NH. Running a billion dollar deficit? No problem – go borrow the money for more ice cream! Like whiney little kids, they only want the instant self-gratification of the now; consequences to those around them play no role in their cravings for that which is paid by those others.
It is the "Me Generation" on steroids – behavior that they wouldn’t tolerate from their own kids yammering for money when the ice cream truck rings by with the "happy song", they’ll put on with a roar tomorrow in Concord, NH.
(H/T: The Campaign Spot)
