Gallup has a new poll out showing Americans fear big government more than anything else. Here’s the results:
Needless to say this poll is making its rounds on the right, but I would like to see a further breakdown of this poll, asking what fears.
It’s no secret that many people don’t know what laws and policies are passed until it affects them. Take the TSA body scanners. Most people believe that this is something instituted by President Obama. Little do they know this was a policy pushed through by the Bush Administration and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who profited big time from the plan.
Or how about recent news of drones being used for law enforcement here in the U.S.? Again, this was something pushed through under the Bush administration, but also continued by the Obama administration.
Or maybe it’s the fear of your medical information being shared. We heard a lot about this during the healthcare debates in 2009 and 2010. Many on the right claimed privacy, yet it was Bush in his first few months in office that said “hey they can share this information without your consent or knowledge“. He even loosened the rules so that your medical provider can share information on what drugs you take with big pharma. Now you know why you get all those little pamphlets in the mail.
Maybe there is fear of the plan going through Congress right now that would basically allow the military to incarcerate any American citizen for an unlimited time without trial? This is a plan written by both a Democrat and Republican and our only salvation right now if the fact that President Obama says it goes to far and would veto it.
Following 9/11 the Republicans in this country embraced big government. Freedoms meant nothing to them and even former Republican Senator Pat Roberts proudly declared “no civil liberties if you’re dead“, which was met by applause from the right.
I remember those days. I remember asking Republican friends and even on this blog how they would react if the policies they were promoting were at the disposal of a Democratic President. Many said it wouldn’t matter because it was “security”. Well here we are today. We have these policies and we have a Democratic President. But today we have these people ignoring what they said during the Bush years. Now they feel that the policies they championed only a few short years ago as signs of “big government”. That’s rather interesting considering there is still a threat of terrorism out there.
Big government is very much a part of the Republican ideology as it is the Democratic one. They both push for it but just sell it for different reasons. For the right they use “security”, rather from terrorists or that gay couple next door or even the abortion clinic. For the left they use big government as social safety nets and to ensure consumer, product and employee safety in the way of regulations.
Both parties are guilty of big government, so again, I would love to see what “big government” fears the people actually have.
For me I prefer the big government philosophies of the left. I would much rather have a government tell companies they can’t serve me tainted food or force employers to provide proper safety equipment than have a government tell me who I can marriage, what kind of sex I can have or what a woman can do with their uterus.
I would also rather have a big government that believes in one of the principal rights of our Constitution that we can not be searched without a warrant instead of the big government that says “hey we can search anyone without a warrant in the name of safety”.
And a big government that says “people have the right to build a church and worship any god they want, or even no god at all” is much better to me than one that says “hey you Muslims can’t build a place of worship here”.
So again – what kind of big government do the people fear? What kind do you fear? My fear is the very kind we lived under in the 00’s and the very kind that a Republican ran government will again bring.
And if you don’t believe what I’m saying on pointing this hypocrisy out on big government and things like privacy, look at who the GOP front runner is now. This is a man who made a big part of his career bringing the private sexual matters of Bill Clinton into the halls of Congress and the living rooms of Americans.This is the very same man who thinks his own infidelities should be a private matter. Newt Gingrich shows exactly what is wrong with that type of big government and why we should never go back to it again.