Take a moment to ponder the hypocrisy of the angry demonstrators who think they lost something big last week. The Constitution and our free society honor their right to protest. They have the freedom to voice dissatisfaction after losing a completely legitimate election. What doesn’t make sense is why they would use this freedom to demand reforms that will make them slaves to government.
Being free has a cost. It’s expensive for the individual. There is no such thing as a free country where everything is given away. When everything is free the government decides what we have.
That isn’t freedom. It’s the current twist to contemporary progressivism.
Angry demonstrators duped by empty promises
Anti-Trump demonstrators have only their own naiveté to blame. They confused creating a Shangri la where nothing has a cost with the oldest political scam of them all. They gave away their votes for promises that never made sense.
They lost.
After months of being beat over the head with what America should be we have a pretty accurate picture of a lefty U.S. Everything is free to those without money: health care, college, even a middle class income courtesy of federal wage laws. Loans are forgiven, citizenship is granted for a pittance, and prison sentences are reconsidered or thrown out altogether. Even money has no cost in the new America that never happened. It comes from people who have too much, don’t deserve what they earn, and won’t miss it.
Anyone who has raised children knows how this works. When people get tired of all the free stuff they are going to want more. When they don’t get it, we’ll be right back where we started: angry demonstrators who don’t think they have been given enough.
Protesters in our big cities have convinced themselves that they are idealists with a cause. They are too naïve to recognize that what they want is just a pipe dream created for the sake of winning political office.
Government disagrees on free cash
Instead of heeding their activist handlers, demonstrators should listen to the Congressional Budget Office. The agency has a less coercive opinion on how much free money is lying around Capitol Hill:
In fiscal year 2016, which ended on September 30, the federal budget deficit totaled $587 billion— $148 billion more than the shortfall recorded in 2015. Measured as a share of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), the deficit increased to 3.2 percent in 2016, up from 2.5 percent in 2015.1
Giving up your freedom to let government call the shots is expensive. It already costs more than we can afford.
Sanders loses, fakes compromise
Claiming that Trump’s message reached the “declining middle class,”2 Bernie Sanders made a hollow attempt to find common ground the day after the big loss:
People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids – all while the very
rich become much richer.3
The senator can’t possibly believe that the new president is going to embrace the same progressive giveaway society that his acolytes are angry they lost out on. Still, we can give Sanders a smidgen of credit. His press release sounded a lot more open-minded than Harry Reid’s lashing out.
Reid opts for propaganda about hate
Reid decided to go the basket of deplorables route. He insulted Americans because of their vote:
The election of Donald Trump has emboldened the forces of hate and bigotry in America.4
and:
Watching white nationalists celebrate while innocent Americans cry tears of fear does not feel like America.5
When the senator’s post-election remarks talked of innocent Americans was he referring to illegal immigrants? He didn’t say and didn’t mention angry, violent leftist demonstrators either. He made a sweeping, inflammatory generalization because his party didn’t get what it wanted.
Dependent people can’t have a free country
While activists and Democrats work in the background to stir the pot and frighten the gullible, bolder leftists are demanding their due in the streets.
Like last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests these demonstrations will wane, fizzle, and go away long before Trump signs his first bill. What the demonstrators don’t understand is that by not getting what they want they will achieve the American dream of truly being free. They can find jobs, secure their own futures, and not depend on Washington to set their standard of living.
The American dream of a government that pays for everything can wait for another four years.