Welcome to the State

March 22, 2010

"Those who are willing to trade government security and comfort for their own freedom and liberty deserve neither!" -- Thomas Jefferson.

Now that my blog hiatus has concluded, I have been convinced that sharing my thoughts of the day is something my adoring public is still clamoring for. So those of you who have sent me postcards by the hundreds of thousands indicating that my once-a-month column in our Security Technology Executive magazine simply was not enough, here we go.

As a member of the media, it is embarrassing to see how the reporting of news and events has evolved from a straightforward telling of the facts into opinionated commentaries slanted either towards the political leanings of the individual author or the organization for whom they work. Take your pick, CNN, Fox News, The New York Times, Washington Post, the Huffington Report -- it matters not.

So as the media pleaded its own case -- left or right -- regarding the birth and final delivery of the Obama administration's healthcare bill, only one thing was guaranteed American citizens, and unfortunately it was never the truth. It is just unconscionable that the most transformational piece of legislation proposed in the United States since's FDR's New Deal was never presented in a clear and concise manner to the public, much less read by our representatives. It was all about leverage and legacy.

What this "new deal" has demonstrated is that there is a new America. A place that hardly resembles the country my grandparents arrived in more than 70 years ago as immigrants -- legal ones at that -- from eastern Europe. For them, the only thing they were guaranteed was an opportunity to educate themselves, to make a decent living if they worked hard, to have some money in the bank if they chose to take responsibility to save it, and to provide their children the stars should they seek to reach for them. Because there were honest opportunities available if the efforts were made, there was also a deep and abiding respect for the country that provided it among it citizens.

I don't see that same energy today. The rhetoric-filled debates over healthcare has only magnified my deep malaise. We certainly have earned the government we deserve -- the government we now have. The credo of my grandparents which espoused a work ethic formed of habit and a dedication to country born of thanks has been supplanted by the credo of  new age secular intellectuals that breeds apathy, embraces dependency and a sense of entitlement. It replaces individualism for that of the greater good.

The genie is out of the bottle. The arguments regarding the deficit, increased taxes, the burden of debt to future generations and the diminished capacity to take care of our own matters little now. The people WE elected have made their choice our choice. But we are to blame. We set the wheels  in motion. We have made it all to obvious we are more interested in surrendering freedom for the warm security of the government bosom.

The bigger the government, the lesser the individual. Welcome to the State my friend.