By Bob McClure, JMI President & CEO
The French philosopher Frederic Bastiat wrote in his classic book about the requirements of a just society: “If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind.”
Nearly 160 years later the eerie relevance of Bastiat’s words cast a massive shadow. We are being told today that the government “has no interest” in running private enterprise and yet the list of industries under attack by an overzealous federal government are too numerous to name here.
The natural outgrowth of watching central command governmental officials at all levels try to become more and more involved in our daily lives has been the nature of the various tea parties and townhall meetings. These are not organized groups set to favor one party over another. Instead they are citizens of all ages, races and parties who have simply had enough. By commanding majorities, the American people oppose an overreaching, arrogant government seeking to run their lives.
If you see nothing else in this our new website and now our new blog, I hope you will see optimism. Thousands of Floridians across the state as well as the state’s oldest and largest think tank, The James Madison Institute, are working tirelessly to defend liberty. More importantly, these efforts are making a genuine difference when weeks ago, it seemed stark. Don’t give up and don’t stop fighting.
Visit us often. Contribute to this blog in the name of liberty … and let us go forward together in defense of the freedoms that have made this country the greatest nation on earth.
Bastiat’s words ring true. Although we tend to place politicians on a pedestal as our elected officials, we must remember that they, too, are only human. They do not have all the answers, though they like to intimidate us with their rhetoric and pretend that they know the solutions to every issue, whether or not their involvement is justified. We give them far too much credit and power than they deserve. Because of this, the government has bloated and wormed its way into every aspect of our lives, discarding the Constitution along the way. As citizens, we have the responsibility to object to this government intrusion and to bring America back to the tradition of liberty.
“Too numerous to name here?” …oh I don’t think an additional paragraph or two would have compromised your brevity all that much.
“All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.”
-James Madison
May we continue to preform our civic duty by frequently questioning our own government in order to protect our freedoms and uphold the concept of liberty that this nation was founded upon.
The politicians of today have forgotten the values our country was founded upon. They have increasingly intervened in industries that the politicians do not understand, and should have no business interfering with. A failing corporation should not constitute the necessity of government aid; the failing corporation should be allowed to fight their way back into the market unaided, as their decisions put them in the situation. This would be true market competition.
Propping up failing businesses rarely ever saves them; instead, it perverts the process of the market and only prolongs the inevitable. If the market is not allowed to make its corrections, then this only extends the length of the deleterious economic conditions that these failing businesses cause.