We the People v. We, the People

This article from the Wall Street Journal seems to nail the true decision we citizens face in today's political war. It is not so much a religious decision, as it is about whether to make a paradigmatic break from the ideals of our founding fathers. For much of this nation's history, our society has thrived on the notion that men must step up and provide for their own existence and that of their families. That is one reason families, even extended families, were so important. Together, they worked hard and lived or died off the fruits of their labors.

The Great Depression "woke us up", some would say, to the 'reality' that we can ill afford to care for ourselves without strong governmental coordination. That required, in part, the creation of government jobs and welfare programs. Eventually, this evolved into the mandate that government must protect a man from himself. However, despite all this, there still existed some semblance of the American Dream (Work hard in America and you can achieve whatever you truly desire).

Today, we stand at a new edge, where we must decide whether to drop the "work hard" portion of that American Dream. We must decide whether we, the people, individual and diverse citizens, should be permitted to control the destiny of our great country by our individual, private efforts, or whether We The People, mobocratic and of one conglomerate mind, ruled by the elite and controlled by the 'deservists', will control the destiny of our great country, carried on the backs of the ever-diminishing innovators and honest laborers.