As the recession continues to advance, many Americans have been hoping and praying that the Obama Administration and Congress can make things — good things — happen in our economy.
They believe that the government will and should devise various types of market intervention tactics and social and corporate welfare to combat the recession and incite an economic rebound.
It is wrong, if not un-American, for our citizens to place such quasi-religious faith in our elected officials and unelected bureaucrats. Those of the political class are not the saviors of our great nation. They were never intended to be and they never will be. They should not have a God-like status in our eyes. Rather, they are intended to be on par with us, for ours is a government by the people and for the people. And, that is exactly what our economy must be, too.
It is we the people who are supposed to be the determinants of what our United States and their economy will become. We were bestowed with the personal liberty to strive for — and achieve — the comforts of life as we saw fit. From that, each and every one of us has the ultimate responsibility for the preservation and betterment of ourselves and our families.
It is that duty — that desire — to better our lives and those of our heirs that truly drives the economy. Piecing together each of those varied and unique American Dreams, we as a collective society have needs and wants that are nearly limitless. But, it should never be the collective as one to address those desires. It is the collective as many who, all working in their own singular ways, make the marketplace what it is, consistently improving the standard of living for not only our own families, but for all families here and even abroad.
By law — fashioned by both Man and Nature — it is not supposed to be the government’s intrusive and controlling hand that decides what those material and emotional possessions are to be and who is worthy of them. It is, instead, the obligation of all men and women to themselves and to society at large to find and earn their own Heaven on Earth and not to have it unworthily given to them based on someone else’s perverse version of what that Heaven may be. This natural right to life’s gifts, one realized only by self-responsibility, was highlighted in the Declaration of Independence. Our forefathers, who forged the greatest nation in history, declared that "men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Thus, if we truly want to end the economic malaise that has befallen us, the onus is on you, me and all those around us. It is the responsibility of the individual, not the government. It is the individual who assumes the entrepreneurial gamble of running a small business. It is the individual who builds things with his hands and improves them with his mind. It is the individual who makes choices in the marketplace, deciding what products and services fail and which of them succeed. It is the individual who makes decisions about her savings and her retirement. It is the individual who manages his home and property and the risk associated with it. It is the individual who earns money and spends it, making all the choices necessary to create for herself the life she wants.
The path to a reinvigorated nation demands the responsibility of self. We must work together and even against one another as independent souls in a free and constructive free market environment, one not burdened or controlled by the government. We cannot allow ourselves to be fooled by the rhetoric of our governing bodies when they press forward with bailouts, stimulus packages and regulations. Government doesn’t have the power or the right to do that. We must understand — and very well at that — that it will only be, and can only be, each of us as consumers and entrepreneurs who will bring us out of the recession. We should not expect the government to "do something." We must buy, sell, invest and hold credit under our own intent.
Accept this charge and press forward because the economy and our destiny are ours to control.
