I attended Rep. Rob Bishop’s town hall meeting recently in Brigham City. Good for him for doing them despite some not-so-polite attendees.
His response, and especially the response of the crowd to one of the questions, makes me wonder if this country will survive as originally conceived. The question was, “Will you vote to diminish Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits?” He hesitated and seemed uncomfortable, then said, “No.” The audience cheer was the loudest of the evening.
This country was founded on small, limited government to protect basic rights, relying on individualist morality, people who took care of themselves, not government taking care of people. This form of government is unique and has produced and exported more liberty and prosperity than any other.
It’s one thing to have the more naïve younger generation be swayed by left-leaning media and even our schools toward “fundamentally transforming the United States” (President Obama). One hopes they will grow out of it as they get wiser with age. But to have an older audience, who should be more wise and insightful, so enthusiastically endorse dependency is frightening.
One of the negative aspects of human nature is to be lazy, and dependency is a form of laziness. An individually moral person fights against these negative aspects. So here we are, a room full of mature (by age) people cheering enthusiastically in favor of continued dependency on federal government entitlements. And their representative (who probably knows he is abandoning his principles) without the courage to call them out on their character immaturity, and the associated dangers to our society.
A 19th century Scottish historian said, “A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”
Let’s hope we are not irreversibly down that road.
David Spackman
Tremonton