The Siren's Song | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    The Jig is up! The long seductive liberal dance toward socialism is coming to a crashing halt. We owe too much money to too many people and the Sirens are drawing us onto the rocks where we will surely sink. The Republicrats, Democans and "We the People" are largely to blame. "We the People" were told by the politicians, save a few, that the goodies would keep on coming if only we would give away a little of our individual liberties for the sake of the "collective". The progressive (Huh?) income tax, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, prescription drug coverage, bank and corporate mergers and crony capitalism have put American taxpayers on the verge of foreclosure and bankruptcy. Yes, American taxpayers because the government will always attempt to save itself at the expense of taxpayers.

    The socialist presidents and legislators of the last 100 years have expanded the above programs to buy votes. They have chosen to make these programs political footballs as a means to mollify the electorate in order to retain power. As Ernest Hemingway once said "demagogues and tyrants play on the patriotism of the people to mislead them into a belief in the great fallacy of war when all their vaunted reforms have failed to satisfy the people they mislead" Poor little "Julia" and Ms. Fluck are great examples of what happens to you when "IT Takes a Village" to raise you. We are all responsible for the pickle (sour) that we find ourselves in. We prized ease over hard work, we aspired to earn the quick buck, we spent money we didn't have, we used other peoples money to gain what we couldn't gain on our own, we let others do our figting for us. We let political types lie through their teeth and we reelected them anyway. Locally, we have let Rinos and recovering Democrats claim conservative status in order to retain and regain power. To achieve power with neither the intellect or moral courage to do the right thing is fraudulent.

    It is time to elect people who are reluctant to serve yet have the intellect and love of our founding documents to serve. We need leaders that are not cowards but who have the courage to tell ther truth and lead by example. We need leaders who do not see themselves as aristocrats. Rather, they need to be on the same footing as the people they serve. No special perks or benefits, No gifts from lobbyists, No insider trading deals. Our representatives are nothing special. They are merely servants of the people. They are merely a specks on the face of the earth as all of us are. Senator Richard Lugar epitomizes the arrogance of our current political class when he intimated that the Senate and the country could not get along without him. Power breeds egotism which breeds "hot air" and we need substance not "hot air".

    A fine football coach named Ed Henry (yes the one in the movie "Remember the Titans") once told me that when things weren't going well for his team, it was time to simplify. He reduced his playbook to 6 plays and ran them to the left and the right and executed flawlessly. We need to drastically simplify government and strip it of all but it's constitutionally mandated duties. Huge bureaucracies create sterility. They stifle creativity, individual initiative, motivation, personal responsibility and spiritually. We need huge doses of these eternal qualities.