Upcoming Romney-Obama contest says this is what Americans want

The next man to be inaugurated president of the United States is going to be Mitt Romney or Barack Obama. If you’re one of those counting on elections to bring change to this country, this realization should be a wake-up call. Americans want big government.

It’s been clear for some time that Romney would win the GOP nomination, but the obvious became pretty widely accepted Tuesday when Rick Santorum dropped out of the race. (Ron Paul and New Gingrich remain in the race, but anyone who thinks at this point that either of them has even the slightest chance of being the nominee is delusional or doing drugs. Sorry.)

So now that we know what the choice for the fall is going to be, what does it tell us? It tells us that we have another choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, between a Republicrat and a Demopublican. It tells us that nothing is going to change in this country. It tells us that Americans want big government and are going to keep electing people to give it to them.

My optimistic friends tell me that “freedom is popular” and that “The People want their country back,” but they’re fooling themselves. The rhetoric of freedom is popular. People love to talk about freedom and responsibility. They just don’t want anybody to actually implement it.

If you want change — especially if you want much smaller government — isn’t it time to consider the obvious fact that people don’t want what we want? Isn’t it time to give up on the electoral process and to start investing your time in yourself, your family and in “real life” instead of the cesspool that we call politics?

Real change isn’t going to come through electing people to run the machinery of the coercive state. From that process, we’re generally going to get one form or other of the same old thing. Every now and then, someone will be elected who promises huge change. Ronald Reagan was like that for Republicans. Barack Obama was like that for Democrats. When you look at what actually happens, though, you find that not much has really changed. Things might be slightly better or worse — depending on your perspective — but the system doesn’t change. Government is getting bigger. Debt is getting bigger. And politicians on both sides of the mainstream continue to find ways of ignoring what’s coming — mostly by pointing fingers at each other.

Both sides of the mainstream are playing the same game. Even if their intentions are good, the results are the same. Things are getting worse. They’re going to continue to get worse. It’s time to give up on saving the sinking ship. It’s time to start figuring out how to build lifeboats. We just need to find enough people with a serious interest in escaping the ship and building lifeboats.