Every few generations, we seem to rediscover that politicians can’t guarantee our happiness. In 2020 (and apparently into 2021), we will be learning the collective lesson that you can’t just turn off the economy like a light switch, send people stimulus checks, and pretend it’ll all be okay. The only real stimulus is opening the economy. It may scare some people, but freedom always has. And always will.
Freedom is messy. It is what it is.
In free societies, people will fall through the cracks—they will drink too much, exercise too little, max out their credit cards, spend their emergency savings, and then beg politicians for a bailout.
But the price of politicians bailing us out of bad decisions is too high.
As GK Chesterton said:
“The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.”
The sooner we all learn that, the better. Politicians can’t guarantee your happiness or your income or your safety.
In fact, politicians can’t guarantee you much of anything....other than a guarantee of smaller freedoms, smaller homes, smaller cars, smaller opportunities, and smaller lives.