Hope is in the air

WE HAVE ARRIVED

I love it: The Gravy Train has literally and officially pulled into Washington D.C., taking the same route to the Capital as former President Lincoln. Watching every Celebrity known to man descend on our nation's capital and watching the festivities of Inauguration Day 2009, it seems appropriate to look at the cargo (i.e. message) that arrived earlier this week. I am sure that today we are in store for a speech filled with soaring rhetoric, unable to inspire only the most cynical among us. The President-elect is certainly capable of delivering some of the more poetic speeches. Perhaps the most common theme espoused by the President-elect is that of Hope.

I like hope. When things are at their worst, Hope always gives us something to look forward to. It's almost necessary in certain circumstances. Consider the cycle of negativity we're currently in: doubt about the economy lead to fear about where things are headed, which leads to negative growth in business by shrinking investment, which leads to more layoffs, which leads to more fear, and so on and so forth, feeding the cycle.

However, Hope is also one of the more ingenious political narratives, enabling it's master to encourage the best in all of us, while riding the wave of positive emotion onto victory without getting heavy on policy specifics.

Along the way, or at least at some point, we really need to start asking what we're all Hoping for. Are we hoping in the policies the politician is promising, or are we hoping in the politician? Are the policies worth hoping in, or should we be more wary? Whenever things get tough, everyone wants something to believe in. Mike Tomlin, coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, said "Barack Obama is selling Hope. I'm buying."

When you get down to it, what does that even mean? Hope should be rooted in something tangible, something that inspires a reason to hope. Otherwise, we aren't so much hoping as much as blindly following. I would love to avoid being the country that elects itself a leader that changes it's core principles so greatly, that it only vaguely resembles the country at it's origin. That is a story written in many different languages, all throughout history, by a great many hurting citizens who were hoping for what was promised, only to be delivered heartbreak. When you don't look at the core principles of the one promising hope, and only focus on what he/she promises to deliver, only negative things can happen.

Obama's campaign posters of Hope and Change resemble posters used by Lenin or Mao. That isn't to suggests that the President-elect will pursue policies similar to those two, but rather to suggest that those posters were used to inspire the same reaction among the citizenry: inspiration. Our hope cannot just be in an individual, but in the foundational principles he/she builds upon. And if those principles are misguided, only more heartache will follow. What our elected leaders believe about the role of government is critically important to how they will govern, and I believe our public servants should have similar governmental theories as those held by our Founders: small, local government.

So in the end, what IS the President-elect 'selling'?

GOVERNMENT, GOVERNMENT, AND SOME MORE GOVERNMENT

Recently the President-elect, perhaps the President when I finish this post, was quoted as saying that the only force strong enough to get us out of our current economic situation is the government. He is leveraging hundreds of billions of dollars not to free up credit institutions, but to create millions of new jobs, with the government as the primary employer.

If the man Barack Obama believes the only the government can solve our problems, how will that influence how the President Barack Obama will function while in office? What happens when our problem becomes identity theft? How will someone who believes that government deserves that large of a role ensure that no one's identity can be stolen? (http://www.verichipcorp.com/).

Once establishing that the government is responsible for ensuring our financial stability, how will the presidents who follow Obama use that power now that it has been established?

CONCLUSION

It is more important to know where the politician stands on the role of government than it is to know what their policies are. After all, the President-elect has been on record supporting Gay marriage before he went on record being against it. He has been on record supporting gun ownership restrictions, before he went on record saying he isn't for gun ownership restrictions. He is also on record saying that he believes the great failure of the Civil Rights movement, and the Constitution of the United States, is that it doesn't give the Fed the power to redistribute wealth among the population.

We don't need to be paying as much attention to what they are saying, as much as we need to be paying attention to WHY they are saying it. What good is it to know they are promising us wealth, only to realize that they intend to invade another country and take theirs?

I hope the policies of the Obama Administration are successful, but if in being successful we need to betray our founding principles, I do take issue with that. Supposing we're successful at turning things around economically, but give government control over our financial institutions, the power to borrow against the future, and expansion of power in ways we haven't thought about, will it be worth it? Or will the United States forever be a different nation? Is that the change we want?

Do the ends justify the means?