The Definition of Insanity

by Steve Shute

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Boy, these “representatives” in Washington just don’t get it, do they?

Even after constituents, in many cases by a 100-to-1 margin, made their voices heard against Czar Hank Paulson’s ill-conceived (and, in the end, ineffective) $700-billion Wall Street bankers’ bailout — and it passed anyway…

…even after those same constituents spoke out against the $14-to-34-billion bailout of the auto industry — and it was done anyway by executive fiat…

…and even after people from across the political spectrum have now expressed severe reservations about ruler-to-be Barack Obama’s government-rich “stimulus” plan…

…the crazy train keeps rollin’ along, toward the cliff.

Now, as a vote on the second half of the $700 billion TARP money is about to take place, Obama is threatening a veto of the proposed legislation barring release of the funds to the Treasury to do lord-knows-what with… and he’s not even president yet.  (So much for having “one president at a time,” eh?)

By now, it should be crystal clear to everyone that it doesn’t matter what the ”serfs” think (the auto bailout was done in the face of 61% public opposition, and the TARP was approved by legislators in the face of much more overwhelming disapproval) - our “rulers” will do what they wish anyway, for the “greater good.”  In other words, we’re obviously too dumb to understand the complexities of these matters, so they will just do the thinking for us.

Ever heard of “taxation without representation?”

 I believe that was the justification (among other things) for the American Revolution.

Of course, we haven’t even gotten to the part where this has all been tried before, with (at best) mixed results.  But it cannot be denied by any objective measure that the same people that got us into this mess in the first place are the very same ones who are now insisting that they are the only ones to fix the mess they created.

Easy money, over-lending, over-spending, and encouraging (some would even say requiring) businesses to make reckless decisions is what created this unprecedented asset bubble that has burst with devastating consequences.  And what is the solution that these brainless wonders are proposing?

MORE easy money (in the form of “stimulus”). MORE over-lending and debt creation.  MORE malinvestment and reckless decision-making, that government will require and compel businesses to undertake, in the name of “job creation.”

And, in the end, even more attacks on our freedoms and on the prosperity of future generations – until, as in Ayn Rand’s magnum opus Atlas Shrugged, there is nothing left.

If the definition of insanity is truly doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then I believe we have all gone mad.  Or, at least our “leaders” have.

Or, maybe we need to ask ourselves:  Are they really crazy… like a fox?