A new Gallup poll concludes that Americans hate their government much more than they did when Obama first took office. In 2009, the burden of government was ranked fourth on the list of problems faced by Americans. At that time, seven percent of those surveyed ranked burdensome government as the worst problem they faced. At the end of 2014, that percentage stood at 16%. More importantly, government was the most often cited concern above all others. At his inauguration, Ronald Reagan said, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. It is the problem." If we Americans didn't believe Reagan then, after seven years of Obama, a lot more of us do now.



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An article by Victor Davison Hanson entitled "War Will Be War" appeared a few months after 9/11. In it, he wrote "War is not merely a material struggle, but more often a referendum on the spirit. No nation has ever survived once its citizenry ceased to believe its culture worth saving."

Hanson's piece referred to the battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, where the Greek city states, as the result of one lost battle, gave up their magnificently innovative culture and its associated freedoms to their new Macedonian overlords. In so doing, the Greeks remained a subjugated people for the next 2,400 years.


Immutable # 1


The danger to the U.S. which Trump represents and which the new Gallup poll illuminates can be expressed by the following question—what will happen if the next American president can't or won't reduce the cost and burden of America's now hated onerous government?

In November of 2016, a plurality of American voters will hopefully elect a new president who will lead Congress in rolling government back. But what if that doesn't happen? The Greek Historian Thucydides was the first to observe that history repeats itself. This was because, in his view, the nature of man does not change very much over time. One of his timeless (immutable) observations was: Power always seeks to increase itself.

Students of history would consider it extremely rare and unlikely that an all-powerful government, such as the one currently governing the U.S., will freely give back a substantial portion of its prerogatives to the people it governs. So if that relinquishing of governmental power doesn't happen in the U.S., and soon, how will Americans' growing distrust and hatred for their government impact its ability to defend itself from the threat posed by resurgent militant Islam?

The answer is not reassuring. Consider that the Spanish "Reconquista" took 700 years to rid the Iberian peninsula of Islamic domination. Greece and Southern Europe were enslaved by Ottoman Turks for 500 years. The war between the jihadist portion of Islam and the Judeo Christian West will likely last generations, with the outcome in favor of the West not ensured. Welfare state Europe will likely be of little help in this building clash of civilizations. The U.S. will need to reallocate resources away from the construction of its own welfare state while marshaling its resolve to wage and win a long terrible struggle.

Therefore, America can ill afford to let its citizenry's hatred for its government persist because, over time, it will inevitably morph into a hatred for the country. Soon, a new generation will be coming of military age. But what if our sons and daughters, like the Europeans, do not wish to put their lives at risk to save their culture because they hate their government and because they have no memory of when America was still a free country?

Article reposted with permission from LarryKelley.com, the opinions and views shared do not necessarily reflect the views of Freedom Outpost.
