Big ideas can do more than big government
Many liberals want change. Fine; so do I. However, many liberals cannot figure out how to achieve their objectives on their own or by working with others to promote change that others welcome, so they often seek to increase the size and power of government to force others to do what they want done.
In contrast, I've created technology and other solutions that solve some of the world's biggest problems. I eventually connected with some very rich people who work at such a snail's pace getting less than 1% of my ideas out (and not my big ones, BTW) that I've begun to wonder if they're serious about fully capitalizing on my ideas or just paying me off to keep me busy enough to not find other investors, which I assuredly will do. When I do and when my big ideas come out, you'll see that no one needs government power to produce big changes, so I don't understand the lust for big government. Big ideas are infinitely preferable.
“Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.”
— Eric Hoffer
“It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression. St. Vincent De Paul cautioned his disciples to deport themselves so that the poor "will forgive them the bread you give them."”
— Eric Hoffer
While I am not fully conservative or liberal, conservatives strike me as generally more civil—certainly not always. I suspect that much of the rudeness and intolerance I see from liberals ultimately stems from their frustration getting others to welcome their ideas, so they gravitate to big government to impose them.
But in the same breath I should mention that people who turn to government may do so as a last resort, not because they love big government. After a conservative snowmobiler read my article on snowmobile safety, he called me a “Communist” for suggesting that it may be time for government to mandate simple, low-cost safety measures after the snowmobile industry has ignored those solutions for decades or been too stupid to think of them. One thing the snowmobiling industry doesn't ignore is speed, which they achieve by giving many of their products more horsepower than some cars. Nuts.
More than a few snowmobilers, myself included, refuse to snowmobile on trails or have given up that sport altogether. The snowmobiling industry increasing caters to the speed freaks and is deaf to the concerns of people like me who've had so many near-misses on trails I knew that if I continued, it was only a matter of time until I was injured or killed.
Of all the ones in my family once obsessed with snowmobiling, 100% now avoid Michigan trails like the plague. They're often narrow, bumpy, include blind corners, and have nuts blazing down them at greater-than-freeway speeds. Yet in all my past years riding on trails, how many law enforcement officers did I see on trails? Not a single one. Thus it is not always unwise to want more government control when people and corporations cannot control themselves.
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
Reference: Imagining dialogue can boost critical thinking: Excerpt: “Examining an issue as a debate or dialogue between two sides helps people apply deeper, more sophisticated reasoning …”
