The Death of the American Idea An electorate living high off the entitlement hog.<snip>. Just under half the population will be, as
Daniel Henninger pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, on the dole.
By 2012, it will be more than half, and this will be an electorate where the majority of the electorate will be able to vote itself more
lollipops from the minority of their compatriots still dumb enough
to prioritize self-reliance, dynamism, and innovation over the
sedating cocoon of the nanny state. That is the death of the American
idea — which, after all, began as an economic argument: “No taxation
without representation" is a great rallying cry. “No representation
without taxation” has less mass appeal. For how do you tell an
electorate living high off the entitlement hog that it's
unsustainable and you've got to give some of it back?
At that point, America might as well apply for honorary membership in
the European Union. It will be a nation at odds with the spirit of its founding, and embarking on decline from which there are few escape routes. In 2012, the least we deserve is a choice between the collectivist assumptions of the Democrats, and a candidate who stands
for individual liberty — for economic dynamism not the sclerotic “managed capitalism” of Germany; for the First Amendment, not Canadian-style government regulation of approved opinion; for self-reliance and the Second Amendment, not the security state in which Britons are second only to North Koreans in the number of times
they're photographed by government cameras in the course of going about their daily business.
In Forbes this week, Claudia Rosett issued a stirring defense of individual liberty. That it should require a stirring defense at all is a melancholy reflection on this election season. Live free — or die from a thousand beguiling caresses of nanny-state sirens. "
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