Anne Applebaum at the Washington Post writes:
If you don’t live in this country all of the time, and I don’t, here is what you notice when you come home: Americans — with their lawsuit culture, their safety obsession and, above all, their addiction to government spending programs — demand more from their government than just about anybody else in the world. They don’t simply want the government to keep the peace and create a level playing field. They want the government to ensure that every accident and every piece of bad luck is prevented, or that they are fully compensated in the event something goes wrong. And if the price of their house drops, they will hold the government responsible for that, too.
From this she concludes that Americans want Big Government. Since Big Government is the voter’s creation the Tea Party people ought to quit complaining. Americans bought it and they should learn to like it. She writes “Yet we not only demand ludicrous levels of personal and political safety, we also rant and rave against the vast bureaucracies we have created — democratically, constitutionally, openly — to deliver it.”
Two replies come to mind. One is “what do you mean we bought it kemo sabe?” and the other is “can I change my mind?” The reality is that not everybody wanted Big Government. Some people wanted it, others did not. The Constitution is scarred by track of people pulling political power back and forth. It’s not as if people wanted the roller coaster ride and now demand their money back. Besides that proof of nonunanimity, it seems somewhat unfair to ascribe to everyone what the progressivists, were things going better would be glad to take credit for. The gigantic state is only everyone’s fault when its defects are obvious. But it would surely be celebrated as the progressive achievement alone if its advantages were real.
Yet in a way she is correct. The electorate, for all it has done and all it has failed to do, has by commission or omission allowed itself to be pulled over the decades long tug of war into the mud. While in that sense everybody is responsible for where things stand it is somewhat insulting to imply: ‘you only got what you wanted’. The victims of the leftward ratchet having suffered the indignity of being stretched on the rack should at least be spared the insult of being told they really like it.
But even so, people can change their minds. As each step was yielded to parties who now seek to spread the onus for their manifest failures, they were hurried on by whispers of its inevitability. It’s always too late to “turn back the clock”. Pull. It’s always too late to “turn back the clock”. Pull.
Now with final ‘victory’ in sight, Applebaum’s argument is the final hustle. Now the mark is being told he must accept the swindle. He’s said he wants the watch and must take it, notwithstanding the fact he now sees its a fake Rolex. Well not while the mark still has power of resistance. But the last step is just the first. Too late to change your mind about that Rolex. Hand me the money. Applebaum argues that Americans were foolish to think they could choose a fate other than that which awaits everyone. That was just plain vanity. She writes:
Look around the world, and we don’t look as exceptional as we think. Chileans are willing to save for their own retirement. Most Europeans are reconciled to the idea that not everybody, at any age and in any condition, is entitled to the most expensive medical technology. A secretary of state or defense traveling with dozens of cars and armed security guards would seem absurd in many countries, as would the notion that the government provides a tax break if you buy a house or that schools should close if there is ice on the roads.
Oh so that’s what it was all about. No pensions. Medical rationing. A retreat from world power. The cell at the end of the corridor. Did you really believe all those promises we made? Did you believe in Santa Claus? Did you imagine the cell did not exist? But now that everybody knows it’s there maybe it’s not too late to struggle before the bars clang shut. Freedom after all, is another word for nothing left to lose.
