The growing divide between political ideologies are hard to miss in the 24-hour news cycle these days. Despite this, even Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump can find common ground on one topic of discussion: the size of the government. Although both, and others, want to use the government to tackle vastly different problems, the expansion of powers and responsibilities of the government over the past two decades has been staggering. It is guaranteed that whoever takes office in this coming election will expand it further and this should worry all Americans.
As Ronald Reagan famously said in 1986, “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” With every passing expansion of the government, parts of the natural, God-given rights granted to citizens are infringed upon. In some cases, most of us would consider that this is the price we pay to live in a civilized world; we pay taxes to pave roads and fund public enterprises, like parks and schools. Even Reagan recognized the value of government intervention to raise the drinking age to 21 to preserve life from DUIs. However, our country was founded on the ideals of freedom and individuality, and we should hold them closer than ever. The Constitution is the foundational document on which all of our laws are based. Whether we are restricting free speech for teenagers, Morse v. Frederick, or banning certain parts of guns from being sold together, NY SAFE Act, the distortion of the law by a large government that can enforce it is inevitably what leads to the ideological pendulum swing we see in this election.
Traditional conservatives, like Mitt Romney and Nelson Rockefeller, have an ideology based on the fundamental principle that the government is not the answer to every national problem. Conservatives should have praised Barack Obama’s executive order protecting state law from federal agencies as much as they should have condemned Trump’s outright violation of the Second Amendment in banning bump stocks. But conservatism is changing in America for the worse. Today, the core arguments of the parties, both Republican and Democratic, now revolve around how to use a big government, instead of whether or not the government can or should get involved. Politicians are bending the phrasing of the Constitution to their ideology to expand the powers of the government, instead of using it as it was intended for the protection of American liberties.
Trump’s brand of conservatism has swung the pendulum to the right and now leading democrats want to use this big government momentum to swing it to the left. Moderate, small government candidates are being bullied into the corner, because proponents of a large government feel that the office ethically demands the intervention into everyday life, that poor people or people in difficult situations are unable to help themselves or that the state and local governments cannot help them effectively. Sometimes that is the case, undoubtedly, but not nearly to the extent Sanders or Trump would have you believe. It is incumbent upon everyone, regardless of ideology, to get to the polls and vote for what they believe in. But when you get into that voting booth, remind yourself of the pitfalls of a big government and what that could mean for you.
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