Reich: Hating Government is now unpatriotic!

 I was slumming over at HuffPo and found this gem from Robert Reich's blog post on June 26. In it, Reich cleverly pens a new moniker for conservatives, he now calls us Regressives (the opposite of Progressive I suppose). Anyway, one paragraph just stunned me because he is not even pretending anymore concerning the role of government in American's lives. Here it is and I will break it down sentence by sentence to show just what's in store for us if we give Obama another term :

True patriots don't hate the government of the United States. They're proud of it. Generations of Americans have risked their lives to preserve it. They may not like everything it does, and they justifiably worry when special interests gain too much power over it. But true patriots work to improve the U.S. government, not destroy it.

First Sentence: So it's now unpatriotic to hate the government and by extinction a true patriot is one who loves the government? Could this be any more Orwellian. What's next, mandatory 2 minutes of hate each day? Mandatory love letters to Dear Leader? Sorry Robert bu the Government works for the people NOT the other way around.

Second Sentence: Patriots are proud of government? No Robert, patriots are NOT proud of government per se, patriots are proud of America and the leading role we play in creating wealth through equal opportunity. Hate to break it to you sir but government does none of those things. In fact in every single instance where the government sticks its nose in the market they invariably create unequal opportunity and inefficiencies - just take a gander at ANY green jobs initiatives the Obama administration has endeavored to force down the taxpayer's throats subsidize.

Third Sentence: Our men and women in uniform risked their lives for Government? Really? I mean just Really? You know way back in the 80s when I was in uniform I'm pretty sure that I wasn't serving it to save the government. If I remember correctly I was there to uphold the Constitution of the United States and everything it stands for - boiled down to one work - FREEDOM.

Forth Sentence: Special interest groups you say Robert? Yeah we regressives worry about special interest groups like the greenies, and both the Public and Private Sector Unions. Yeah there's a good patriot.

Fifth Sentence: Patriots work to improve the U.S. Government. Sorry Robert but true patriots do NOT work to improve government and to do so suggests servitude - rater true patriots work to improve themselves but unfortunately your brand of 'patriots' are making it harder and harder to do as the government has increasingly butted into our lives through regulation and executive fiat.

Look, our founding fathers were fearful of government's overreach and specifically designed the constitution to limit the role government can (and should) play in our lives. For evidence, look no further than the preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It clearly states in the first three words that the power of this constitution starts and stops with THE PEOPLE.

But Reich is not finished, his next paragraph tries to paint conservatives regressives as unpatriotic because we - wait for it - 'loath' government.

But regressive Republicans loathe the government -- and are doing everything they can to paralyze it, starve it, and make the public so cynical about it that it's no longer capable of doing much of anything. Tea Partiers are out to gut it entirely. Norquist says he wants to shrink it down to a size it can be "drowned in a bathtub."

Um, golly that does sound unpatriotic - I mean who wouldn't want the government to take care of all of us and essentially making us 'equal' (not to mention completely depended upon Uncle Sam)? What Reich and his ilk fail to realize is that it is essential that every American have equal opportunity. What each of us make of that opportunity is our business NOT the federal government's. To quote Ronald Reagan:

"I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts."

I think that about sums up the counter argument pretty well. Reich sees government as the be all and end all. Conservatives Regressives see government as a necessary evil much as the founding fathers did. 

Unfortunately we are now at a cross roads in our history. We are about to tip over the abyss where there is no turning back. In November we have the choice to say no to the ever insatiable government or we ride straight into the abyss never to return.