Republicans Need to Get Rid of Collectivism

By Joshua Lipana

Investors Business Daily recently published an op-ed that captures why millions of Americans who brought the Republicans back to power are getting impatient. Excerpt:

"Congressional negotiators have trumpeted a "breakthrough" in budget talks that will yield $33 billion in spending cuts. Sorry, but we're not impressed.

We've done the math on this, and the $33 billion in cuts amounts to just 0.89% of expected spending of $3.7 trillion this year. It is just 2.2% of the deficit."

That's a "breakthrough"? Are you kidding me? Republicans have to do way better than this if they want to save America from disaster and keep the American people's support.

Republicans need to understand that every slash they successfully take against the welfare state, moves America away from economic collapse and towards prosperity. But it will take slashes, not scratches on the surface in order to reverse this economic hardship.

But unfortunately, scratches are all the Republicans seem to be capable of doing. Republicans, to a large extent, still do not grasp the justness of Individualism. And this is why they have failed to defeat Democrats when it comes to the political debate. They are still debating the Democrats on collectivist premises.

The Republicans aren't trumpeting individualism and calling for the complete abolition of socialistic polices. What the Republicans are doing is arguing on the extent of how much socialism should exist. What the Republicans need to understand is that a government's job is to protect its citizen's individual rights, and anything beyond that is a violation of the constitution and is harmful to Americans.

But this position can only be taken by basing your views on individualist premises. And this is why the GOP has failed so many times in actually reversing the government's unjust increase in size. As Craig Biddle, in an article in The Objective Standard entitled "The Republicans' Opportunity to Restore America . . . and Their Obstacle" writes:

...there is no point in Republicans planning to take political actions that they regard as immoral. As Republicans have amply demonstrated over decades, a person's or a Party's ethical views will trump his or its conflicting political goals every time.

Republicans don't have the moral certitude needed to face down and defeat the collectivist Democrats. Craig Biddle, in the same article, writes:

If Republicans want to do more than fecklessly chip away at America's rapidly expanding statism, if they want to reverse the statist tide and return America to a rights-respecting republic, then they must find the courage to do what it takes. They must recognize and embrace the principle that the proper purpose of government is to protect individual rights. And, in order to do that, they must recognize and embrace the principle on which that principle rests: that acting in one's rational self-interest-while leaving others free to do the same-is moral.

Collectivism, which both President Bush and President Obama advanced politically, is what brought America to its current crisis. Nothing less than rejecting it will get America out.