Little-Acorn
Gold Member
- Jun 20, 2006
- 10,025
- 2,410
Gruber said:
Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage.
And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass…
Elite leftist dictators have had this as their core operating principle, since there have been elite leftist dictators. And that dates back before the time of Christ, who was one of their principal opponents.
More recent leftists have crystallized their philosophy with such statements as "How fortunate it is for leaders, that men do not think", referred to the masses they have such contempt for as "Useful Idiots", etc.
Indeed, leftism is based on the very idea that the citizens are stupid, and are better treated as subjects. Ordinary people are unable to manage their own affairs, and they are much better off if government overrides their own personal judgment and imposes its mandates on them. Invariably "for their own good"... which somehow never turns out to be very good.
OTOH, Conservatism, especially that embraced by most of America's Founding Fathers, holds that a society will be more prosperous and safe if people are left to their own devices, to make their own decisions, try their own ideas, fail and lear from their mistakes, and try again gaining knowledge and experience as they go.
To the FFs, government existed only to keep other people from interfering in their progress in ways they didn't as for (thieves, murderers, con artists as well as invading armies etc.). In most other matters, govt must leave the citizens alone to sink or swim by their own efforts, to help each other voluntarily, and to determine their own fates. And they wrote a Constitution that said so in no uncertain terms - it gave the central government only certain limited powers and denied it all others, leaving those for states and local governments to experiment with.
In fact, the Constitution makes big-government leftism illegal.
Gruber merely joins the ranks of centuries of big-govt addicts who are convince they are far better and more knowledgable than regular citizens, and who are ready to impose their superiority on the others whether they like it or not.
And those ranks include modern leftists who think government is the answer to people's ordinary, everyday problems, instead of letting people take their lumps and learn to do it better themselves.