More on Pragmatists vs Idealists

Looking back at the political discourse over the past few decades, much emphasis has been placed on who is elected president in relationship to how well our country is likely to fare -- there appears to be much false hope placed on the office of President, with little realistic evaluation of the direction in which our country is headed. Of course, each president promises a better course for the future, but the same old system stays in place -- many of the same congress members and basically the same bureacrats hunkered down in their positions.

Unfortunately, our Constitution lacked the safeguards necessary to maintain limited government -- and once the 16th Amendment became a reality, the shackles were off for government to finance all sorts of foreign intervention and statist plans at home. Unless we create strict limits on government power, it won't significantly matter who's elected as president. The pragmatists have accepted our present system and have settled for governing within the system for marginal improvements at best. This will fail to resonate with an electorate becoming increasingly fed up with government over-reach. The division between progressives committed to State management of the private sector and the growing number of citizens who want to return power to the private sector by limiting government power will likely become more pronounced as the public gains more knowledge and the realization of statist consequences sinks in. The idealist resistance to progressivism is a more inspirational position which speaks to our early beginning as a nation.

The question remains how many American citizens have become so dependent on entitlements that they will trade freedom for security. Any opposition to progressivism can't simply leave the issue to a choice between statism and the "jungle" of a free market - this false choice is what set up our present dilemma. Since the pragmatists lack the ability, willingness and vision to articulate how the private sector can create freedom and relative security, it's left up to the idealists to develope a viable alternative to statism. Now is the time for innovative, bright thinkers to emerge with a revitalized American vision. Paul Ryan has lately shown signs of being such a visionary, and this is the type of representative we need in government -- many of them -- brave, courageous, smart and humble enough to understand that our complex society requires freedom of choice guided by good common sense and compassion. As a society we've seen the dead-end of enforced morality -- morality must be freely chosen and moral dilemmas worked out in the free market of ideas.

Independents have an important choice to make in the coming elections -- continue down the path of statist, nanny/technocrat control, or the path of limited government and the empowerment of an innovative private sector. Choose wisely -- president is not as important as who represents our interests and who sits on the courts to protect us from statism.