ROMNEY: A beatified Statist
As statists go, Sen. Mitt Romney is one of the better ones. He is ostensibly a Republican — a retiring member of a political party that has left him (behind). Like all statists — ranging from “Establishment Republicans” to “Radical Socialists” — Romney maintains a fundamental but erroneous belief that government (unrestrained and unlimited) can work efficiently and effectively — that the state (i.e. collective) can provide a certain “fix” for all societal ills.
It is this unfounded faith in the state, which is the problem. Our socio-political issues are unrelated to having the wrong person or party in a particular position at a given time. We have come to this point by demanding of government things, for which the institution is ill-suited and which are entirely contrary to the nature of the beast.
Government is, at best, a necessary evil. It is not an mechanism, which engenders cooperation, collaboration, compromise, or consensus. It is an instrument of brute force, whereby an electoral majority (or controlling voting bloc) seeks to impose its self-serving will upon a numerical minority (or other disfavored parties). Seldom, if ever, is there anything more moral or noble in the machinations of the state.
Romney is of a family and of a generation, which genuinely and sincerely believed in the power and purpose of government. Another political family with similar inclinations were the Bushes. Following the successes of two World Wars and basking in America’s economic Golden Age, government seemingly could do no wrong (if properly guided and managed).
Having some memory of failed collectivist experiments, Establishment Republicans are only slightly more reserved than the new generation of revolutionary neo-socialists, which is coming to predominate the Democratic Party. One may recall that before there was “Obamacare” there was “Romneycare.” Having embraced the dogma and adopted the faith, Romney cannot bring himself to acknowledge the obvious: Government is not the answer. It is not a messiah or savior. The state cannot provide (or impose) a one-size-fits-all solution to all individual and societal problems.
Romney and those of his ilk still believe, against all experience and evidence, that with the right people — nearly omniscient, perfectly wise, and unfalteringly altruistic — government can work. However, these mythological progeny of Cincinnatus are as much figments of imagination and delusion as unicorns, and the Utopia, which adherents seek to impose upon humanity (by force, if necessary), is entirely incompatible with the singular but imperfect reality, in which we must exist. They promise heaven on earth, but the future, which they offer, is decidedly dystopian.
It has been said:
Statism is the Utopian “ideal” that just the right amount of violence or oppression used by just the right people in just the right way can perfect society.
There can be no perfect society or perfect government, because both bodies are populated by exceedingly flawed human beings, who are most often motivated by the baser traits of our bestial species. That human nature is entrenched, if not immutable. In defining the state as inerrant and omnipotent, we assure that political minions, government technocrats, and the body politic will succumb to the inevitably corrupting influence of unrestrained power. Statism is tantamount to a theocracy, with the most flawed of all possible deities or supreme beings.
In allowing no alternative and providing insufficient guarantees of individual liberties and personal freedoms, we commit and condemn the collective, inclusive of all persons and parties, to the same disastrous fate. Ultimately, we may be more equal, but we are to be made more equal in loss, want, disappointment, and misery.
