Pearls: It might be time for change
EDITORIAL MUG: Matt Pearl
We are too extreme in our expectations at times.
We don’t just expect laws and court rulings to go our way, but we expect everyone to agree with our viewpoints once the decisions have been made in our favor.
We expect the unconditional surrender of our political foes when the day is done, as all the while we forget that tomorrow is another day for strife.
Age has taught me something important about my own life: I don’t need to live in a country that believes what I believe all the time. I don’t need my neighbor to vote like me, to think like me or to see the world as I see it.
What I really need is to live with freedom to do the right thing – the right thing by my standards. And if I want that freedom for me, then I have to at accept (if not champion) the fact that you live in the same liberty.
What I don’t want is a country that is overregulated. Most folks on the conservative side, where I admittedly often fall, want that to mean that we have a minimum of laws restricting free trade. Fair enough. I agree with that.
But I also don’t want society to be morally regulated. What if high-minded folks with morals opposing my own get their way? We set ourselves upon these moral crusades, and when we get our way, we consider our efforts a success. But we also set the precedent that a political majority can decide what is morally right (or wrong) for everyone.
This is why I suppose you could label me a classical conservative: I like government best which governs least. Most least, meaning that only the laws with which I agree are passed; but least, meaning we only enact laws necessary to promote the cause of our free people to prosper – morally, ethically, economically and otherwise – in the way they choose to prosper.
In other words, I have greater fear that our national temptation will be to over-decide things than under-decide them – and in the process, the ability for me to act, to worship and to stand for my principles as I choose will be compromised.
I feel like it’s the most under-discussed aspect of government: the overreach of laws. The reason for that is fairly obvious: people who believe like me, in generally limited government, get swallowed up by mainstream conservative news, which in my observation wants big government just as much as the left – they just want the big government to rule on their side with greater frequency.
Just about everyone wants more government, and that’s my frustration. If you want government to be the weapon with which you fight the other side of the political aisle, you are not a conservative, at least not a conservative in any classical sense. If there were any notable contingent of real conservatives in Washington, there would also not be a $30 trillion national debt right now – we would also not have out-of-control inflation and over $4 gas.
A congressional session should be downright boring most years. Congress should be an easy gig, except in times of crisis, where to keep the peace and promote the general welfare, our best and brightest on Capitol Hill should work tirelessly on our behalf.
But instead, we choose big-government leftists and big-government rightists to fight over money we don’t have, to spend on things the government shouldn’t buy, for a body of people who don’t benefit from their spending, because it inflates the dollar and restricts their freedoms. Everyone loses. Let’s all enjoy our inflation: a tax no one voted for, but everyone pays. Then listen to the two parties blame one another for gas prices and the unavailability of infant formula.
It might be time for change, folks: either elect some new people, or demand some reform from the people we have already put into power.
Matt Pearl owns and operates newspapers in King City, Albany and Grant City.
