Threat Assessment

Here is a Gallup poll that bodes well for the future of libertarianism.

Seventy-two percent of Americans say big government is a greater threat to the U.S. in the future than is big business or big labor, a record high in the nearly 50-year history of this question. The prior high for big government was 65% in 1999 and 2000. Big government has always topped big business and big labor, including in the initial asking in 1965, but just 35% named it at that time.

Well that is interesting. I do have a question though. If big government was always at the top of the list why do people keep voting for it? Maybe voters don’t actually vote their preference. Or maybe no party has ever done more than mouth the words in the modern era. Eisenhower did say a few words on the subject.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex.

And:

In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.

He did imagine that the elite could get captured by government. That you could pay to get the results you wanted. And computer models that only gave the “correct” results. Reality be damned. He anticipated the global warming scares by a few decades.

I grew up in the Eisenhower era. Everybody said it was boring. It was boring. Maybe the real deal is that Americans don’t like boring. After Eisenhower we did get Jack Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis. That was exciting. For about ten days we were sure we were all going to die in a nuclear war. I knew a girl who got married because she wanted to have sex before she died. Well that was before the culture went to hell. And a few years later I went to hell with it. My attitude these days? The hell with it. I’m too old to be too careful or keep too many secrets.

But I’d still like to see smaller government. And to see the global warming catastrophists get their just deserts. An era of ice. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you. We are already getting ice storms in the Midwest. I’m staying home. If I can help it.

H/T Commentary Magazine – The Discrediting of Government Continues.