Government Regulation Got Us into This Mess

Obama, McCain, Palin, and Biden all agree. In a massive display of bi-partisanship, all four candidates and every Republican and Democrat mugging for cameras are chanting for more government regulation of Wall Street in unison.

As they vilify the greed and evil of investors and corporate executives they ignore the truth and refuse to tell the American people the facts about the genesis of the current economic crisis.

It was government regulation that planted the seeds of this debacle, and now they propose swinging the same regulatory club to crush the skull of the American private enterprise like some fur trader battering a baby seal.

Ugly metaphor? Our liberty and the free market are helpless, and the politicians are drumming up blood lust in main street America to empower the government to crush it and take over.

In 1977 the passage of the Community Reinvestment Act initiated a government compulsion for banks to begin lending money that could never be paid back. It was all as lovely and well intentioned as unicorns and rainbows. It wasn't a chicken in every pot, it was a roof over every head. Who could argue with a regulation that forced banks to give loans to enable people who otherwise would have to work twenty or so years and save their money to buy a house right here, right now?

God forbid people have to do what our parents did to get a house: save money and live within and even below their means for years, even decades. That's just awful. CRA solved the horrific problem of some people having to rent houses or even (I cringe in horror at the thought) rent an apartment.

The crafting of that regulation, and it's subsequent strengthening over the years has allowed community activist organizations to blackmail lending institutions into contributions. It has led to the weaknesses greedy and evil people exploited to profit obscenely at the expense of the general public. Politicians on both sides of the aisle knew what was going on.

Some politicians called for more regulations earlier than now, but none called for abolishing the act that created the problem. They knew the cause, but their proposed solution belied their nature: those in power never respond to a problem by relinquishing power. They use problems as excuses to acquire more power.

The so-called 'victims' were just folks who were too damn stupid to figure out they were living beyond their means when they applied for and received loans they could never repay.

Government regulation, designed to provide opportunity for advancement, resulted only in opportunity for stupid people to do stupid things on a larger scale, and for corrupt people to do corrupt things on a larger scale.

Opportunity to succeed with dignity and honor doesn't come from regulation, it comes from freedom.

Regulation, by its very definition, is removal of freedom.

The great founders of this country fought a bloody revolution against a tyrant for freedom. Today our top politicians cry for regulation (AKA removal of freedom) and the people cheer. That is simply perverse.

Fellow Americans, I implore you to consider this as you prepare to cast your vote: The vast majority of our politicians, Republican and Democrat, are corrupt. They are drunk with power, and though they fight each other like poisonous snakes in a heated pit, they will band together to sacrifice the liberty of the American people and bring about the demise of our free industries to consolidate and ensure their control. THAT is the only bi-partisanship you can count on.

Sure, I'll admit that the Republicans are a little better. Casting a vote for McCain/Palin will lead our liberties to ruin at 99 miles per hour instead of the 100 miles per hour to the same destination on the Obama/Biden bus. It ain't a bridge to nowhere...it's a highway to hell.

I know many Americans would love to see a third party take charge but they won't vote for one because they presume it would be a wasted vote. I wonder if Obama winning this election would be such a bad thing since the resulting four years of indescribable disaster would teach us such a lesson in hard knocks that no liberal would get elected for another 40 years.

But the Republicans just aren't much better.

The GOP will not change it's ways until it is handed a resounding defeat that it knows came from votes cast for a third party. As long as they think their base will always vote for them out of fear of Democrat control they will never reform. The only thing that will turn the Republican party back to its conservative roots is a defeat decidedly caused by the massive siphoning of votes in a major election to a conservative third party.

The Libertarians cannot win this election, but they can be the tool that starts the reform of the Republican party and possibly breaks the stranglehold of our de facto two-party system

Help me send a message to these parties that we are not going to continue to allow them to take their place in the people's government for granted. Listen to Twisted Sister's 'We're Not Gonna Take It' for twenty-four hours straight before you go to the polls if you need to fortify your resolve, but do the right thing instead of the less evil thing for once in an American presidential election.

Both these parties have been parasites drinking your family's blood for decades, neither deserves your vote.