One good result from the debt limit debate debacle and the Left’s ridiculous reactions is the understanding of how messy democracy can be when one political group will not give up on their failed fantasies. As the nation turns away from endless, incompetent government solutions to all problems big and small, the left in DC has been bitterly and angrily trying to hold onto to the fantasy that government is all knowing and better than the private sector.

The left has had to hide behind false statements for decades to try and salvage the socialist state programs they enacted. But the truth is these programs are failures. The war on poverty has failed – we now have more people on food stamps than ever before, along with ‘entitlement’ programs that are out of control and spending us into oblivion. The left-wing experiment to loosen mortgage lending requirements – to enable anyone who can fog a mirror to own a home – brought on the worst economic crash in living memory. That one ill-thought-out experiment wiped out the life’s work of tens of millions of Americans. Even the effort to raise the African-American community has failed – mainly because they remain stuck in victim status and have not lifted themselves up as strong individuals (the only way a community can rise). They are trapped by leaders who require their fealty more than their individual freedom. The left wing controlled public school system is such a failure we now see massive test score cheating spreading across the country to hide the disaster from scrutiny and accountability (see here and here) – not to mention to line the wallets of those who pretend to be succeeding.

The nation’s response to this sea of wasted money is not surprising. End the knee-jerk spending, stop trying to solve every program with a government study doomed to fail and cut government back to its minimum size and scope. But the left wing in DC, ensconced in the Democrat Party of Big Government, are ignoring the will of the people to the point they will do anything to save their precious socialist programs – no matter how bad the results.

This is well captured by Janet Daley from London, an American who has lived in the heart of European socialism since the 1960’s. One can only say ‘well spotted’ as you read through her assessment of what we are living through at this moment in history:

The truly fundamental question that is at the heart of the disaster toward which we are racing is being debated only in America: is it possible for a free market economy to support a democratic socialist society?

…

This was the heaven on earth for which liberal democracy had been striving: a system of wealth redistribution that was merciful but not Marxist, and a guarantee of lifelong economic and social security for everyone that did not involve totalitarian government. This was the ideal the European Union was designed to entrench. It was the dream of Blairism, which adopted it as a replacement for the state socialism of Old Labour. And it is the aspiration of President Obama and his liberal Democrats, who want the United States to become a European-style social democracy.

Ms. Daley sets up the debate quite well, but not perfectly. The question is really about what is the better path to redistribution – raising the individual up based on their talents and vision (free market capitalism) or by bringing down those who succeed and stripping them of their rewards (socialist confiscation). It is clear the left wants to be Robin Hood, a mythical character who fights obvious evil and oppression. But today’s left has no evil Prince John (i.e., government oppression) so creates a fantasy about private sector success which is just plain silly. In America, the individual has infinite choices for career and success, all they have to do is stay off the government dole and work hard. Only those on the dole long term fail. Only those who fail to reach beyond the public school education (or drop out) fail to succeed. Only those who demand from others fail to learn to make for themselves.

Microsoft and Apple Computers are probably the best examples of America’s open wealth creation system. Gates, I believe, never finished college. Both groups sprung out of garage-engineered ideas that were timely and visionary. Neither group would have received a dime of federal funding because their ideas were too radical, too much against the ‘conventional wisdom’ of the day. Government does not take a lot of risks basically the bureaucrats fear “on the edge” innovation and resist change at all levels. They are the antithesis of the risk taking entrepreneur.

It is only the rare external threat that creates an opening for innovation. A prime example of this was the Able Danger program for sifting through public records to try and identify terrorists threats. It was in the research stage years prior to 9-11, but was being resisted because it opened up questions about political leaders and their ties to foreign nations (the Clintons and China to be specific). The results was the program was disbanded to protect political leaders over the nation’s general protection.

I could spend years cataloging all the advances of humankind that arrived without or in spite of government assistance. Government jumps on bandwagons (see Al Gore and the Internet) only after they are built and running successfully.

But let’s get back to the battle at hand:

Contrary to what the Obama Democrats claimed, the face-off in Congress did not mean that the nation’s politics were “dysfunctional”. The politics of the US were functioning precisely as the Founding Fathers intended: the legislature was acting as a check on the power of the executive.

And the morons on the left had the gall to call those applying the checks terrorists, with one lame Senator (Kerry- Dumb MA) actually calling for the free speech of the libertarians to be gagged. You know they have lost it when their solution to their problem is government censorship.

The Tea Party faction within the Republican party was demanding that, before any further steps were taken, there must be a debate about where all this was going. They had seen the future toward which they were being pushed, and it didn’t work. They were convinced that the entitlement culture and benefits programmes which the Democrats were determined to preserve and extend with tax rises could only lead to the diminution of that robust economic freedom that had created the American historical miracle.

This is not a belief of just the Tea Party – who are among the most vocal proponents of this call for sanity. This view is held by libertarians and independents as well. The fact is, there is never enough money for bottomless social spending. There has to be a limit, yet the DC spenders are so addicted they cannot find it. So we sent a historic number of new faces to DC to change direction – and the old tired left resisted with all their might. And gave us a national credit downgrade. If the left thinks they are winning they are nuts, but so far nothing indicates much rationality or sanity on their side of the debate. They are losing support and distilling down to the rabid die-hards.

And, again contrary to prevailing wisdom, their view is not naive and parochial: it is corroborated by the European experience. By rights, it should be Europe that is immersed in this debate, but its leaders are so steeped in the sacred texts of social democracy that they cannot admit the force of the contradictions which they are now hopelessly trying to evade.

Well at least the Democrats have succeeded in bring a version of European stubborn political ignorance to America. Of all the great gifts and talents Europeans have to offer, we picked this one. Read the entire article because it is a crystal clear synopsis of what is happening in America, and soon will be happening in the EU as its socialist society collapses under its mountain of debt, built on naive good intentions.

We can delay this no longer. It is time to readjust the role of government, and remind everyone that it is not superior to the private sector on numerous fronts. It needs to be limited to a role that protects our nation and society, yet does not consume it like a cancer of over indulgence, waste and fraud. The debate for 2012 is not only teed up, it is probably also over. The debt ceiling wrangling produced no substantial change in our deficit spending trajectory, just a well deserved downgrade. Just one more failed liberal approach backfired.

We can stop beating our heads against the left hand wall any time now.