Give a golf club to Tiger Woods, and you know what to expect: Great golf.
Give the same club to Mr. Woods’s wife, and, well, you get something else again.
Give our politicians both a huge allowance and unlimited credit, and you get a batch of people unable to control their spending.
Expected, or unexpected?
Expected. Of course. We’ve come to expect this for a very long time. That’s why both the Federalists who wrote the Constitution, and the anti-Federalists who amended it, were obsessively concerned with checks and balances, with limitations on government.
Unfortunately, too often we speak of BIG government these days. But it’s not the size, as such, that is the problem. It’s the unlimited nature of it.
So when you have a chance to check government at the ballot box — say, in a state or local initiative or referendum — ask whether the measure limits government or unlimits it.
And, when considering a candidate, look for his or her promises about limits. If the candidate won’t limit spending in some very sure way, or the candidate’s own terms in office, then reject the candidate. Vote against. Go to the polls and write someone else’s name in, if that’s the only pro-limit, pro-liberty thing you can do.
We’ve got to put “limits” back into the conversation. Think constitutions. Think rule of law. Think liberty.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.