Our Way Of Life

At the Cato Institute Blog I read a post talking about our response to the terror threat. It rips on government agencies for using "chicken-little" alarmist scare tactics to promote policy.

1. Senator Kit Bond, at Dennis Blair’s confirmation hearing as Director of
National Intelligence, said the following:

Our entire way of life is just a few moments away from annihilation if
terrorists succeed in obtaining a weapon of mass destruction.


Nonsense. Our way of life survived various wars, the virtual destruction of
a large swath of New Orleans, and other disasters. It would survive even nuclear
terrorism. Incidents of chemical or biological terrorism are unlikely to cause
mass casualties, although they could, and will not collapse our institutions.
The danger to American values comes more from our reaction to terrorism than the
thing itself. What’s more, these sorts of incidents are not nearly as likely as you generally
hear.

It got me to thinking about our way of life. I really think it is in jeopardy. Not due to the terror possibilities, but by our government's reaction to them, and to any type of bump in the road (ie this whole financial mess).

Stephen Moore (an economist) in talking with Glenn Beck Put it this way:

What everything the government is doing right now is exactly the wrong thing. It's exactly the wrong thing. I really believe, Glenn, if the government would just stop doing anything, if congress would just stop passing laws, no new bailouts, no new stimulus plan, no more debt, no more money creation, I believe within nine months or so we could get out of this, the weak would die, the strong would survive, the process, but then we would go back to growth. But they are not going to let that happen, Glenn.

That is has to happen. Let the weak die and the strong survive. Economic Darwinism! The government can't let that happen. After all it is their constituents. It may sound harsh and that I don't care about the "little guy", I am the little guy. I could very well fail if the government did nothing. What would I do then? Same thing people have done for centuries, pick up the pieces and start over. Besides I really don't think the way things are going look any better.

The light at the end of this tunnel is bigger and bigger government and more and more taxes. Just look at what happened with gas/oil for an example of how government reacts.

Through out the 90's gas was in the $1.00-$1.50 / gallon range. And even through most of the 2000's. Then with the Iraq/Afghanistan wars it shoots up to $2.00, $3.00, even $5.00/gallon. Outrage ensued, government wanted a gas tax holiday. But now that gas is back down to $1.50/gallon, the government can't seem to deal with the lower tax revenue, and wants to raise the gas tax to pay for roads. How was it that road maintenance was just fine for the last 30 years, but now we can't afford to replace a manhole cover???