It seems to me that certain extreme parts of the political Left are not particularly interested in facts or truth. By this I mean that for the Left, it appears that the only goal is furthering the agenda by any means possible. Pretty much anything goes to achieve that goal.
Case in point, the debate between Tom Burnett and his detractors. It is clear that Tom is a political target. Politics is a dirty business, so it is no surprise that his opponents are looking for opportunities. The problem is, Tom is a man of integrity and principle. Also, one thing the Left abhors is an unapologetic conservative.
Even worse, he is religious. And he homeschooled his kids for a few years. That clearly makes him an extremist kook. But worst of all, he is a self-made man. Through working 70 hour weeks, scrimping and saving and doing without, he was able to put together a successful business.
He sold that business after 5 particularly good years, and is now retired. Tom has lived the quintessential American dream but is now in the crosshairs of those who believe that successful people could have only acquired that success by cheating, stealing, and exploiting people.
How do I know all of this? Well, I actually called him and asked, which no one else has done. No one. His detractors, content to work off of talking points and hearsay, are off to the races without a single phone call.
Interestingly, the first issue they raised didn’t hold water, so in typical leftist fashion they made no retraction, no apology, they simply repeated the original charge as if nothing had happened, along with an inelegant morph to yet another charge. This kind of strategy, repeating a charge against an adversary as if yesterday didn’t happen, is frequently used by the Left.
The latest leftist talking point is that no one is self made, no one has really pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and no one can really claim credit for their success. They claim that since government has supplied the programs, infrastructure, and legal environment to succeed, government made possible the American success stories.
This sort of thinking is premised on the idea that government is the source of everything, that the universe revolves around the next great government program. By contrast, we conservatives apparently believe in no government. This is another charge that is repeated ad nauseum. They say that conservatives ought to really love Somalia, a “small government paradise.”
This is rhetorical nonsense. Somalia is not built on the ideals of liberty, free enterprise, and limited government. Conservatives believe in constitutionally limited government, not no government. So there is no contradiction when conservatives recognize government’s authority to engage in constitutionally permitted activities.
But more to the point, government really deserves no credit for the success of people like Tom. Government’s job is to provide its constitutional duties, to prosecute lawbreakers, and to protect us from aggressors, foreign and domestic. Beyond that, government should get out of the way of the private, legal activities of its citizens. But instead, government place arbitrary obstacles in the way, government makes it hard to succeed and even harder to stay successful.
This is the kind of government we have now; this kind of government has reduced peoples’ prosperity. Government has left a wake of destruction both here and abroad that is unequaled in history. Crime, poverty, and discrimination have not been solved by leftist utopian initiatives. If government is to take credit for peoples’ success, it must also take blame for the fallout from its interventionist policies.
Clearly, government deserves no credit for Tom’s success, but it does deserve blame for rampant spending, favoritism, and allowing itself to be corrupted by big moneyed interests.
This is the fruit of big government. This is why conservatives want to restore the environment of liberty, free choice, and self determination that is unencumbered by interventionist government. It’s a recipe for success.
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