Change We Can Believe In 
By Tom Wilson

Sooner or later reality will demand: What change? What are we talking about? What are the details of this noble revolution? 

Political change is OK, firmly reasoned, freely debated, fully disclosed, and carefully deliberated. But that's not what we're getting. We're getting Government Gobble; take-over, not make-over; Orwellian prescriptions of usurpation from the same old greedy debt pushers, same old power junkies, same old federal fanatics; and stealth socialism pored over us like syrup. This ignoble, and quite un-American, second Revolution is just the collapse of the first, a star imploding to a black hole. 

Revolution for the sake of revolution is a brainless idea. William Ayers of 60's Weatherman 
fame, was fond of pithy dictums like "Kill your parents!" One wonders what he offers now to his children: "Kill someone else's parents"? Che Guevara, now with his statue in Central Park (along with Balto, who at least accomplished something), got his jollies from summary executions, spattering the brains of his prisoners with his revolver. How romantic. 

It's great fun to play Robin Hood (who actually stole from the ruling elite), especially with other people's money, heady O.P.M. But most revolutions begin with contrivance, and end, kind of like pulling the trigger on an atom bomb, with far more mess than they bargained for. However nobly Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Castro, and Uncle Ho may have started as model "agrarians," they became butchers of their own countrymen, managing to murder their own citizenry in greater numbers than all the soldiers killed in the 20^th century. That great champion of social justice, Pol Pot, Cleanser of the Cambodians, killed anyone who wore glasses or carried a ballpoint. What these execrables had in common was this: they were all messianic visionaries, self appointed social engineers: they could spend our money and our life better than we can. 

Mottos inspire: Equality, Liberty, Fraternity!, Workers of the World, Unite!, Power to the People! But "Utopia," quite literally, means: "not a place." No Kidding. It never happens. 

The first American Revolution was absolutely unique: it is the only revolution in history where political and economic power was actually taken from the few and disbursed to the many, taken from the British elite and disbursed to the American commoner. That act of power disbursement by the Founders was an unselfish act of incredible goodwill: they were freedom and prosperity makers, not freedom and prosperity takers. Such largesse of liberty multiplied power into a phenomenal opportunity for a responsible citizenry. It worked because the Founders were of a profound character and spirit: they were free thinking Judeo-Christian capitalists. One cannot duplicate the quality of that noble revolution without the quality of the Founders' character. 

George Washington distrusted government: "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." Of course, now we're all so much smarter than old George, and our paragon politicians, on the left or on the right, have now been magically morphed by media into ... a change we can believe in? Right. 

Tom Wilson is an Advisory Board member of the Defender’s Council of Vermont