Physics Lesson

There was a game we played as children called crack-the-whip.  Kids would line up, shoulder to shoulder, hold hands and run around the playground making sweeping turns.  Invariably, the inertia caused by the connection with rotation from the center outward, or centrifugal force, caused the kids on the end to be cast off.  Sometimes harmlessly, sometimes not.  Today, that game is being played out on a larger scale in party politics and with equally benign or disastrous results.  It all depends on your perspective.

On the Republican or conservative side of the aisle, the whip as it were, is embodied in the form of the Tea Party.  The Tea Party hopes to strengthen the conservative cause by helping to cast off the more moderate voices of the Republican party in favor of those with more intestinal fortitude for what lay ahead.  The Tea Party recognizes that to do otherwise will inevitably lead to more spending and more intrusiveness and government expansion.  So far its hapless victims, and otherwise decent folk, may include Florida's governor Charlie Crist, Arizona's senator John McCain, Texas senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Utah's senator Bob Bennett.  Many other politicians, both Republicans and Democrats alike, at every level of government, may be flung into the monkey bars as well.

President Clinton's declaration in 1996, that "the era of big government is over", albeit premature, will inevitably prevail.  Otherwise our future will be that of Greece's, Spain and Portugal.  These three countries are just the tip of the European welfare states' iceberg of debt.  Unless and until those in power recognize that the uncontrolled continuance of transfer payments, or the redistribution of wealth from those who produce to those who do not, will ultimately lead to financial collapse, then the attempted purge will undoubtedly roll on.  The all boats mentality, buoyed by an artificial tide, created by the gravitational pull of the welfare states' moon, will soon recede.  But it is important to remember, that unlike the sun, the moon does not generate its own light.  Real light and warmth comes from the sun.  Real strength and energy therefore is generated by oneself, not provided by others.  Temporary assistance may sometimes be required to regain our footing after a fall, but personal responsibility is the engine that propels us into the future.