Along with our entering this presidential election
year there comes a recent Gallup poll that makes it very obvious how it is the
most Americans feel toward their government.
You see, it’s this poll that reveals how a majority of Americans, 69
percent of us in fact, think that big government is now “the biggest threat to
the country in the future.” Those taking
part in the poll were asked to choose among big government, big labor and big
business, that Americans overwhelmingly named big government as being the
biggest threat to the country in the future.
And I am quite sure that it comes as no surprise to
find out how it was that things broke down by party affiliation. According to Gallup almost nine in 10
Republicans (88%) said big government is the biggest threat to the future of
the country. Meanwhile, it was 53% of
Democrats and 67% of independents who said the same. While I’m not surprised that 88 percent of
Republicans feel this way, I have to say that I’m a little shocked that 53
percent of Democrats actually feel that way and mildly surprised that 67
percent of Independents also feel that way.
And I think it safe to say that this poll makes it
pretty clear why it is that those Republican candidates often considered as
being part of the ‘GOP Establishment”, aka the RINOs, are doing so poorly in
our current presidential contest. After
all, when a substantial percentage of voters view certain candidates as having,
for a good part of their political career, extolled the virtues conservatism
while at the same time working very hard to undermine or circumvent the tenets
of said conservatism at every opportunity, they tend to be reluctant to support
those candidates.
I think we can all pretty much agree that we’ve now
gotten to the point in this country where ‘government’, at least as it is
currently comprised, actually feels that it has the right, even the duty, to
grow and to provide all manner of ‘benefits’ to those whom it deems as having
been treated ‘unfairly’. Our supposed
‘leaders’, on both sides of the aisle, have become so out of touch with the
people that we have become barely more than an afterthought as we are forced to
cover the ever-increasing cost of their rapidly ballooning largesse in their
effort to buy votes.
Instead it’s the professional lobbyists who, day in
and day out, have the ear of the incumbents and the newly elected that the
incumbents lord over. The only time we
ever hear from any of our ‘elected leaders’ is around election time when they
are out doing their best to blow smoke up our collective ass. And sadly, you would think that by now such a
tactic would no longer work so well, but between the politicians getting much
more skillful at lying so convincingly and the public being even more gullible
or, dare I say, more ignorant, the ploy continues works rather well.
And I don’t suppose that there is cause for much surprise
in the results of this poll. After all,
let’s not forget that it was Ronald Reagan who said over 35 years ago that,
"GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM, NOT THE SOLUTION". But corrupt, unaccountable government at the
local, state, and especially the federal level, continues to demand more for
itself in the form of salary and benefits while providing less and less in the
form of actual services. There was a
recent article at American Thinker, about this very issue. The article is
titled "When the Takers Make More than the Makers".
What needs to take place, and it would be nice if we
could begin the process by putting a Republican in the White House, is for
there to a be a significant reduction in the size of our government, back at
least to where things were when Ronald Reagan first came into office back in
1980. But to have any hope of being able
to succeed in such an endeavor would require the very active participation of
individuals from all across the political spectrum, not just the 88 percent of
Republicans who say that it’s government that threatens the future. But I fear not enough people are interested.
As it is, we are now rapidly approaching what can
safely be referred to as being that point of no return, which we may have already
crossed moved well beyond. That point
where all hope of ever being able to rein in our government is simply lost forever. The time has come for ‘We the People’ to
reassert ourselves, not as Republican or Democrats, but as Americans. To make clear
to those whom we have put into power that they are only there because we have consented
to put them there. To remind them that
they work for us, it’s not the other way around.
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