What Voters Want Voters Never Get

There was a somewhat insightful opinion post on the Baltimore Sun site after the election that I gleaned from a friend on Facebook. In it, the author accurately points out the unrealistic expectations of what we expect our government to provide us.

An excerpt:

After devoting long minutes to careful analysis of Tuesday night's election returns, I now know what Americans want:

We want roads and bridges that are always in good condition but do not require tax money for upkeep.

We want world class schools with teachers who are so dedicated that they will work for minimum wage. (Note: the best one should be in my neighborhood)

We want 60-inch plasma TVs that cost $200 and are produced by workers in Ohio making at least $30 per hour.

We want our military to win every war, every heart and every mind, everywhere, at no cost in lives or money.

He then goes on to site another half dozen or so similar points. Curiously, there is an obvious topic missing: healthcare. No where does he mention something about how we want world-class healthcare and we want it for free. Ask an American how much he spent on his flat screen and he will gladly brag about it. Yet that same soul will complain to no end if he has to spend a dime of his own money on his own well-being.

...but I digress.

I give kudos to the author for recognizing how out of whack our expectations are of what government can "provide". Yet he seems to ignore the possibility that maybe government shouldn't be providing any of these things.

Americans have lost the realization that our government was not created to "provide" for us. It was created to protect us so that we may actively pursue providing for ourselves. Instead, we have been conditioned to believe that our right to vote gives us license to steal from each other, ignoring that no matter how just we see the cause we vote for, stealing is still stealing. We take turns at the government trough, thinking that a 51% majority gives us the right to steal from the other 49%. We look to government to "provide" us all our wants and needs, then get mad at "the other side" when they do the same thing.

It brings to mind the old quote,

"Democracy is nothing more than two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner."

And although I can agree with Mr. Nachlas when he says:

Personally, I want leaders who will tell us frankly that all these things are not possible, that the blessings of infrastructure and education given us by our fathers are wearing out.[...]I want leaders who will tell the truth: that there is no free lunch.

I have to respectfully disagree when he says:

I want thinkers who can paint a picture of a greater America that could exist in 50 or 100 years, and then unite us with a roadmap to get there. I want America to have a shared vision and an understanding that we all benefit when we all contribute, and that we all suffer when we demand only for ourselves.

The simplistic notion that we can elect "thinkers" who can plan our future is exactly what got us here in the first place.

Let's do a quick thought exercise. Think back one hundred years -- no let's just do fifty -- say 1960. What "thinker" could have painted the world we live in now? I cannot even begin to touch on the millions of social changes, innovations and conflicts that have complicated our world since 1960. Who then would have accurately envisioned the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, the attacks of 9/11 and how that completely changed our world view, the rise of the personal computer, smart phones, the Internet, Google, Intel chips, flat screen TVs, Oprah? No one.

Our world is too complicated to be centrally planned. When we expect our government to "deliver all these things", we can only expect -- no, do I dare say -- we only deserve what we get.

When we expect the government to "provide" for us, we get stupid things like governments declaring Happy Meals are illegal. Then we are surprised when our elected officials think they have the right to decide who can marry who, or what consenting adults can do, or what plants people can cultivate. Indeed, the list of their involvement in our lives becomes endless. And we give it to them every time we vote for them to "provide" for us. As Americans we used to be productive, innovative, independent. Now we have become a nation of leeches taking turns sucking off the government teet.

Again, I end with a quote from the great French "thinker" Frederic Bastiat:

"Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter -- by peaceful or revolutionary means -- into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it."

We have obviously chosen to share in it.

I want America to have a shared vision and an understanding that we all benefit when we all take responsibility for ourselves and stop trying to use the voting box as a way to enrich ourselves. We need to stop participating in legal plunder. Until then, we all suffer when one side wins an election -- and it doesn't matter which side that is.