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re: Solutions

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Today’s the traditional day for New Year’s “Resolutions,” but instead of resolutions, how about some solutions?

Sure, Thomas Sowell has sagely reminded: there are no solutions in social life, only trade-offs.

But, utopian perfection aside, let’s agree that some changes would be better than others, and, let us resolve to solve some nagging problems — or at least trade up. And since the really nagging problems are political . . .

For Republicans: this could be the year to give up on government as society’s chief moral agent, empowered to regulate everybody’s medicine cabinets and bloodstreams. End the failed War on Drugs, with legalizing marijuana the simplest first step. Vice will continue, as it always has. But it’s another kind of vice to think that force, policing and imprisoning folks, will “solve” the problem. Much less even reduce the availability of drugs.

For Democrats: this could be the year to give up on government as micromanager of markets — and people’s marketplace choices. Face it: folks will make decisions that liberals don’t like. They’ll eat at McDonalds and buy large sodas — and the wrong stocks. And guns! But adding to the mass of regulations doesn’t make consumers choose better, it makes stuff more expensive and business less open to competition. Indeed, almost all the regulations designed to help “the little guy” backfire, helping big business by hobbling their upstart competitors.

Our leaders, at present, cannot even balance budgets. They are addicted to debt. To pretend we must have more and more government to prevent our addictions or save us from personal debt is ludicrous.

Can we resolve to stop pretending that bigger government is always the solution?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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3 replies on “re: Solutions”

You left out the costliest and deadliest malfunction of our government, mamely its warfare operations around the world. As a result of its interventions, our politicians have made enemies of a majorityof the world and forced we citizens to life in a police state. We are no longer a free people.

here we go again. history shows one thing clearly, that people get the government they deserve. from the Greeks to the Romans to the bible to the constitution bill of rights, learned elders have tried again and again to convey that message, both as a hope and a warning. 
when society loses its values. its morals, and becomes dumbed down as they seek the comfortable life, they lose what makes them valuable. life is a struggle, it is supposed to be that way. problems are always solved by those used to hard work, thrift, family, structure, and learning. take away the husband wife duo it takes to really raise a family and the structure breaks down. go in that direction for more than a few years and society goes downhill fast. after 40 years or so the society declines to where in another 50 years it fails completely. lack of values leads to slovenly and lazy people, too dependent on the easy life and devices that ease the struggle. over time this also wears away the toughness that leads to greatness. is it any wonder today’s military no longer turns out a Chesty Puller or George Patton. the final nail in the coffin in the loss of religion, more importantly the belief in God. once this happens a vacuum forms in people that must be filled. some fill it with drugs or alcohol, illicit sex, homosexuality, other vices. in all of history whenever this occurs it is almost 100 per cent certain that nation, especially if it is a large, influential nation, collapses from both within and without, although the collapse usually starts from within first. nations or belief systems on the rise always surge forward to absorb such a civilization. the most successful force of all time at doing so, at least for the last 1400 years, has been Islam. this force may go dormant a few hundred years here and there but once its resurgence begins, huge territories are gobbled up. today the nations of Europe are the next block to fall. after that it will be the turn of the Americas. have no doubt, once Islam becomes energized to the point where the imams call for jihad, this immovable force will sweep forward and overrun any society not tough enough to fight and win. now that Islam has the one weapon needed to gain parity on the battlefield they are ready. the western leaders know this is going to happen so they have spent billions from the tax base to protect themselves and their families when the time comes. alas, the average American is a sitting duck and will die in huge numbers as the missiles rain down on our heads. Afterwards, the swarms of Muslims, Chinese, and whatever other nations that seek to pull down what is left on the continent will come in and take over. maybe one day in the distant future America will be talked about the way we talk about Atlantis today.  

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