Mark Steyn's Pre-Election Thoughts

All this week, in the run-up to what many consider to be the most important election in America in many years, Mark Steyn shares much brilliant, eloquent wisdom. Remember though, if you agree with him, even a little, then realize that Barack Obama & his comrades on the Left have repeatedly declared you to be: A Hater, A Bigot, Ignorant, Selfish, A Nazi, and Likely Mentally Ill. For what it's worth, I now wear such labels as a badge of honour!

• Driving America Over a Cliff
  In a two-party system, you have to work with what’s available. In America, one party is openly committed to driving the nation off the cliff, and the other party is full of guys content to go along for the ride as long as we shift down to third gear. That’s no longer enough of a choice. If your candidate isn’t committed to fewer government agencies with fewer employees on lower rates of pay, he’s part of the problem. This is the last chance for the GOP to restore its credentials. If it blows it, all bets are off for 2012.
  
  
• Endless Government and the Great Divide Between Public & Private Workers
  The new class war in the western world is between “public servants” and the rest of us. In Washington, the marching bureaucrats are telling us government doesn’t suck. But in Greece, the bloated public service has sucked so much out of the economy there’s nothing left.
  
  
• Public Sector Bureaucrats vs. The People of America
  When the law says that it’s illegal for a storekeeper to offer his customer a cup of coffee, you should be proud to be in non-compliance. What the hell did you guys bother holding a revolution for? ... This is the reality of small business in America today. You don’t make the rules, you don’t vote for people who make the rules. But you have to work harder, pay more taxes, buy more permits, fill in more paperwork, contribute to the growth of an ever less favorable business environment and prostrate yourself before the Commissar of Community Services – all for the privilege of taking home less and less money.
  
  
• The Bigger the Government, The Smaller the Citizen
  Bazillionaire senators will always have workarounds – for their land, for their yachts, for their health care. You won’t. Meanwhile, they’re relaxed about cities and states going broke - because it’s a great pretext for propelling government ever upward. When California goes bankrupt, the Golden State’s woes will be nationalized and shared with the nation at large. As with everything from mortgages to credit cards, so it goes for states: the feckless must have their pathologies rewarded and the prudent get stuck with the tab. Passing Sacramento’s buck to Washington accelerates the centralizing pull in American politics and eventually eliminates any advantage to voting with your feet. It will be as if California and New York have burst their bodices like two corpulent gin-soaked trollops and rolled over the fruited plain to rub bellies at the Mississippi. If you’re underneath, it’s not going to be fun.
  


• Americans: A Sovereign People No More?
  What Judge Bolton in Arizona and Judge Walker in California have in common and share with Mayor Bloomberg’s observations on opposition to the Ground Zero mosque is a contempt for the people. The rationale for reversing the popular will in all three cases is that the sovereign people are bigots. In Arizona, they’re xenophobic. In California, they’re homophobic. In New York, they’re Islamophobic. Popular sovereignty may be fine in theory but not when the people are so obviously in need of “re-education” by their betters. Over in London, the transportation department has a bureaucrat whose very title sums up our rulers’ general disposition toward us: “Head of Behavior Change.”