No house divided

U.S. Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln asserted in his now-famous "House Divided" speech that the United States could not "endure, permanently, half slave and half free." Lincoln believed that the forces behind abolition and those pushing for the expansion of slavery were too powerful and too dynamic to be confined by state borders or latitudinal lines. While we take Lincoln's words for granted today, the prevailing wisdom for generations had been that the states could remain divided over the slave question.

Senator Marco Rubio made an analogous assertion on Senate floor just after that body had voted to raise the debt ceiling. Rubio, who had given several powerful speeches throughout the debate, had saved his most profound sentiments for last. He painted a picture of two Americas. One of a powerful, effectively limitless welfare state where the government acts as guarantor of prosperity and driver of the economy. The other of an America where government is a protector of rights and thereby allows the opportunity-seeking citizenry to create prosperity and drive the economy.

These visions have wrestled for control for roughly 80 years. The recent acceleration toward a "government of guarantees" is why the Tea Party exists. The Tea Party is a national reawakening to the fact that America can become "all one thing," or unfortunately "all the other." In our modern politics it is stylish to suggest that both visions can coexist indefinitely. Most notably, President Obama rose to power on the platitudinal idea of "red" and "blue" state unity. Rubio resists this notion.

These are two very different version of America and two very different types of solutions. And ultimately we may find that between these two points, there may not be a middle ground. And that in fact as a nation and as a people we must decide what we want the role of government to be in America. Like Lincoln, Rubio recognizes the incompatibility of the competing visions of government. (condensed from an article in the American Thinker by Joseph Ashby, 8-8-11)

Learn from Europe, America.

Words worthy of thoughtful consideration from Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic:

Europeans today prefer leisure to performance, security to risk-taking, paternalism to free markets, collectivism and group entitlements to individualism. They have always been more risk-averse than Americans, but the difference continues to grow. Economic freedom has a very low priority here. It seems that Europeans are not interested in capitalism and free markets and do not understand that their current behavior undermines the very institutions that made their past success possible. They are eager to defend their non-economic freedoms—the easiness, looseness, laxity and permissiveness of modern or post-modern European society—but when it comes to their economic freedoms, they are quite indifferent.

The critical situation in Europe today is visible to everybody. It is not possible to hide it. I had believed that this spectacle would be a help to the cause of political and economic freedom in Europe, but this is not proving to be the case. Of course, with the way your American government has been going, you might be able to catch up with us—in terms of our problems—very soon. But you are not as far along yet. So maybe seeing Europe’s crisis today will at least help you in America turn back toward freedom.