There seems to be a powerful correlation between economic strength and national safety.
During the Depression of the 30s, America was seen as disabled by the global community, and Nazism and fascism expanded unchecked. It was our factories which fueled the strength we exhibited in WWII. Later, the Iran hostage crisis plagued us during a troubled economy in the late 70's. The Berlin Wall came down in the 80s and we enjoyed peace simply because the world was keenly aware of our overpowering economy.Peace and prosperity go hand-in-hand. Individual liberty is enhanced by free market principles which level the playing field and defy the buildup of a class-based society.
Which is why we should be intently focused on building the private economy and avoiding any complicity in fattening the public sector. Our safety may depend on it.
3 comments:
The constitution should win as it has faithfully provided unprecedented levels of individual freedom. Historically, attempts to "plan" have been fairly disasterous.
I'm not sure where the idea that liberal or progressive politics somehow reduces individual freedom. Liberal democracy was born of people freeing themselves from the overlords, kings, tyrants and religious persecutions. They did that by banding together, forming new kinds of societies and writing and enforcing new kinds of laws; laws whose main purpose is to restrict and regulate the power of the elite. Our society is now moving in the opposite direction; impoverishing the majority of the society for the sake of the elite and dramatically restricting political choices to those who are in service to that same very small group. A society that worships corporate profits above all else, that sacrifices more than half of its wealth to the military and fighting wars, that ignores the education of its young people and the health of its elderly, and that is structured to channel as much of the wealth of the nation to the very few, will not be free for long.
The verbiage of conservatives is all about personal freedom, but the politics of the conservative seems to be about making sure only the very rich have access to that freedom. The rest? Minimum pay, minimum benefits, declining quality of life, fewer opportunities…how Orwellian is it when that is called “freedom?”
Oh, and the Constitution? Your wife, my daughters, (particularly my bi-racial daughter) and our grandkids would not find much personal freedom living under the Constitution as it was written. The women were granted no political power, the kids would likely spend their lives (and some of them lose their lives) in sweat shops, and my bi-racial daughter and her daughter would be subject to being sold as slaves.
That the T-party and the Conservatives want some kind of “Constitutional Purity” is a indication of their true political goals, goals that have nothing at all to do with personal freedom.
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