It will take a burning platform before people will change

By David Coughlin —— Bio and Archives June 4, 2013

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Authors James Bennett and Michael Lotus described in their book America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21^st Century, how America's growth is marked by periods of calm and periods of transition. America (1.0) was originally created based on small farmers, Yankee ingenuity, and almost nonexistent national government that prevailed for the first century of our nation's existence.

The initial hallmarks were self-reliance, localism, and free markets. As the country began to grow and prosper, calls for reform based on centralization, technocratic / bureaucratic oversight, and economies of scale were put in place to strive for more safety and stability. The Square Deal, New Deal, and the Great Society were all big government expansions in their time. In 1965, the communist goals were uncovered to undermine the nation's culture, economy, and policies to incrementally implement socialism and communism. America 2.0 brought its own set of problems: too-big-to-fail businesses and too-big-to-succeed government. Barack Obama's Fundamental Transformation is only the latest progressive government expansion. Now it is time learn from our latest experiences and reboot America (3.0) to return to smaller government, nimbler organizations, and living within our means.

The Democrat expansion of the federal government was slow and gradual in the 20^th century, since immediate radical change would have been rejected. Rahm Emanuel remarked "never want a serious crisis to go to waste" because it is "an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. Democrats resorted to the Cloward-Piven tactic to overwhelm the public with a series of manufactured crises to both obscure the overall strategy and distract from the cumulative impacts. This incrementalism strategy was the political manifestation of the boiled frog analogy with each small increase in heat "inconsequential" but eventually the temperature was deadly. In retrospect we see a radical expansion of government scope and reach, a radical centralization of the economy, and the undermining of the American culture with each change contributing to the overall fundamental transformation of America into a socialist society and economy ruled by political elites. Socialism incrementalism is the political manifestation of the Chinese torture of "death by a thousand cuts." It is sad that this incremental change has been going on for so long that everyone now accepts big government as normal, since no one is alive who remembers our nation not being strangled by the encroachment of socialism. In the last century, Republican compromises enabled a series of incremental changes to be implemented advancing this country on the path to socialism. After each major Democrat government expansion, Republican leaders (Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan) were elected President on a platform to rollback some of these destructive policies. Laissez Faire, New Federalism, and Supply Side Economics were all approaches to return to our conservative roots, but they were unable to stem the tide. The American people have become comfortable with the big government status quo and fear the radical change necessary to reverse the damage already done. The only chance we have as a nation is that the American people will wake up soon and see that the Democrat alternatives will only make conditions even and opt for the painful changes necessary to return to a smaller, more responsive government. The appropriate analogy is why you would you ever leap off a burning platform into freezing water? The answer is only if you determine that remaining on the platform is certain death, and your choice to leap into the water at least gives you a chance to survive. Continuing on the path of "Fundamental Transformation" leads insolvency, bankruptcy, and runaway inflation all on the path to socialism, which has eventually failed wherever it has been tried. Here in America, looming insolvency, bankruptcy, and runaway inflation all seem to be in our future, so when will the American people see a failed economy or a nation under attack as worse than continuing on our incremental self-destruction? It is clear that Progressives are willing to risk America's economic collapse by embracing failed ideas of the past to create a future based on their socialist vision. Will economic collapse be the burning platform necessary for Americans to realize the disaster they have fostered and wake up to radical change necessary to recover from this failed ideological experiment? Once America collapses there will be a window of opportunity for meaningful change as people leap willingly from the burning platform in the hope of a better future. Returning to American originalism will be a stark contrast re-emphasizing strong individual liberty, personal responsibility, federalism, and limited government. Republicans must begin now to educate the low information voters on the better alternative of freedom and prosperity. There is no doubt that economic collapse is coming, so no doubt that America will face a burning platform of its own and a choice whether to continue the transformation to socialism or begin the painful journey to dismantle the socialist damage done over the last 100 years.