Reading Hayek

     I am currently re-reading F.A. Hayek's A Road to Serfdom. I first read this work when I was about fifteen years old (I had picked up the Reader's Digest condensed books version thinking it was about the beginning of feudalism) and it shattered the "central-planning is what everybody needs" propaganda that I had been receiving from my school teachers. The University of Chicago Press version is the complete version with a ton of extra notes and corrections. While reading it I am constantly struck by the thought that the current denizens of D.C. are doing so as well, except they are doing exactly everything that Hayek cautions against. The creeping socialsim and ever-growing power of the state in every aspect of our lives heads directly toward totalitarianism.

     Think for a minute, what part of your life is not directly impacted by insidious reach of governmental rules and regulations. Observe your surroundings, is there anything that is not, in some way, controlled, regulated or taxed by the power of the state? The strangulation of personal freedom and economic life by the powers that sit inside the Beltway is incessant and grows ever more powerful. The move toward socialism demands that we surrender more and more of our personal initiative to the central planners so that they can more "efficiently" deliver the services that they have decided that we need.

     The question is this; Why do we tolerate such things? Has the goverment ever shown the ability to actually succeed at anything? The War on Poverty has cost trillions and continues to be an abysmal failure, The War on Drugs saw us give up liberties to allow the government to "protect" our children from drugs (another failure), The War on Terror has cost billions of dollars and further liberties and has been successful largely due to the staggering incompetence of the enemy. Now we face the War on The Reccession, this has already cost trillions and promises to double or triple in cost before it ends or blows up in our faces. The cheerful arrogance of the government in its demands for more and more power to deliver fewer and fewer services is galling, they show no shame at doubling or tripling the national debt while providing a less secure and sane world.

     Far better it would be to starve the beast, transfer the few needed functions to state and local levels and keep the Federal government within the Constitutional limits set forth by the Founding Fathers. Bigger does not mean better, it just means harder to control and support.