Amidst all the claptrap about “change” among both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, perhaps we should remind ourselves what the candidates (except Ron Paul) mean by the term “change.” What they mean is simply a change in the identities or party affiliations of those who wield the levers of the omnipotent government they support.
As I often tell people (mostly to the chagrin of conservatives because they don’t like to hear it), philosophically there ain’t a dime’s worth of difference between a conservative and a liberal. They both believe in such things as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public (i.e., government) schooling, trade restrictions, economic regulations, immigration controls, subsidies, drug laws, government-business partnerships, welfare, income taxation, paper money, the Federal Reserve System, foreign aid, a standing army, foreign intervention, and foreign wars.
Of course, the amusing (and tragic) part of all this is that all the presidential candidates (except, again, Ron Paul) consider these programs to be “freedom.” Never mind the programs are also core elements of Fidel Castro’s communist and socialist “paradise” in Cuba. And never mind that genuinely freedom-loving Americans once lived without such programs.
What would real change mean? It would entail a demolishing of all these programs, which would restore economic liberty, free markets, private property, and a limited-government republic to our land.
That in turn would restore America’s role as the model for the freest, most peaceful, prosperous, harmonious, and moral nation in the world.
Of course, that type of genuine change is what libertarianism is all about.
In the meantime, unfortunately we have to suffer through the insufferable political battles over who is going to be new person who is going to wield omnipotent power over our lives and fortunes.