President Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention was an adamant defense of his four years as America’s Commander in Chief. He discussed economic advances, educational reforms and renewable energy initiatives that have come about under his administration. He spoke of the killing of Osama Bin Laden, ending the war in Iraq, and securing freedom for our children. However, as I watched our nation’s President, I was reminded of a quotation by Daniel Webster. He said of leaders in government, “There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”
President Obama used the DNC as a platform to advocate for the federal government’s expansion since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, all under the pretense of improving the quality of life for Americans. He quipped, “We have been told by our opponents that bigger tax cuts and fewer regulations are the only way… If you can’t afford health insurance, hope that you don’t get sick… If you can’t afford to start a business or go to college, take my opponent’s advice and “borrow money from your parents.” Poking fun at the Republican recovery strategy he joked, “Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!” And about small businesses he said, “I don’t believe that rolling back regulations on Wall Street will help the small businesswoman expand, or the laid-off construction worker keep his home.”
I agree with President Obama’s opponents. I cannot fathom a United States in which it is the government’s responsibility to jump-start businesses or pay for higher education. I cannot imagine a society in which the responsibilities of individuals become the burden of the federal government. And I pray that my children will not grow up in a nation where the charitable duties of one man to another are replaced by the “Approval” stamp of a bureaucrat in Washington. In short, I do not see the rapid growth of a centralized federal government as the key to our nation’s success. The Founding Fathers would agree.
James Madison, the “Father of Our Constitution,” had this to say about the government’s intrusion into the welfare of our free society: “If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands… They may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit of the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare.”
The fathers of our country warned us of the pitfalls associated with a welfare state. They argued that dependence on the government for the basic provisions of life was the quickest path toward voluntary slavery and, inevitably, oppression by power-hungry tyrants. The president was right when he said that this election will affect the future of our children. When you vote this November, please vote for personal responsibility, individual liberty and restricted government.
