Don’t Buy the Hype – Scott Brown’s Win is Continuation of Big Government As Usual

Scott Brown’s election win in Massachusetts yesterday is being heralded as “a Boston Tea Party event” – a signal to their government by Americans who believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and want healthcare plans scaled back.  Perhaps Brown’s win truly reflects a belief by voters that the Republican Party has had an epiphany of liberty, repented their big-government ways, and decided to do away with the interventionist economic and warmongering policies of the Bush years.  Indeed, perhaps now, only one year after Obama’s decisive presidential win, Americans already feel the Republican Party has cast off its big-government spell and atoned sufficiently for its disastrous past decade in power.  Maybe Americans feel the party has changed or apologized enough to deserve winning back this year’s round of “congressional musical chairs,” to say nothing of the lofty mantle of “small government patriots.”

Or, more likely, Brown’s election symbolizes voters’ continued frustration with a two-party system that amounts to picking the “least bad” candidate.  Certainly, the fact that Ted Kennedy’s old seat has gone to a Republican is no Tea Party- worthy moment.  For media pundits to even compare these two phenomena – or to equate the win to a “revolution” or “patriot movement” – is sadly mistaken, hilariously predictable, and an intentional slight to the true motivations of the 2009 Tea Party rallies.  These first assemblies convened to protest both parties’ trampling of individual liberty, drunken spending binges, imperialist wars abroad, and socialized healthcare – two-party big government, in a nutshell.

I hope voters don’t really believe Brown will be all that different from a Democratic candidate.  When asked why he was able to defeat Martha Coakley (the Democrat who was predicted to win throughout the campaign) analysts pointed to Coakley’s soft position on the War on Terror and American voters’ desire to “slow down” healthcare legislation.  Yes, Brown represents a hiccup to Obama’s healthcare plan, but he’s just as supportive as any other politician of moves to expand the state’s domestic security apparatus, pursue dissenters of American foreign policy abroad with Predators and U.S. Marines, and inflate governmental involvement in the economy, healthcare, and a wide range of other areas in which they have no constitutional justification for meddling. 

On Brown’s website he states his belief “that all Americans deserve healthcare coverage.”  Deserve?  At whose cost, Scott?  Surprise, surprise:  Brown echoes the same mentality towards “deserved” (read: unearned) entitlement as did his seat’s former Democratic holder, Ted Kennedy.  His website claims he supports a free market – that he feels “our economy works best when individuals have more of their income to spend.”  More?  How generous of you to let me keep more of my private property, Scott!  We all know this rhetoric amounts to the same “mixed” economy of government interventionism, mercantilism, and controlled industry that has been pursued by lawmakers for the last century.  He believes in “common sense” environmental policy to reduce pollution; this means he supports continued government regulation of private industry for the unknown, unscientific, and nebulous common welfare of future generations.  He wants to “preserve our precious open spaces”; read: he promotes government-, as opposed to private-, ownership of land.  And he supports “reasonable and appropriate development of alternative energy sources”… don’t be fooled by the lofty arbitrariness of these words; they echo the typical mixed bag of political hot air that amounts to government-funded energy programs, business-as-usual regulation, and continued interference in the productivity, entrepreneurship, and economic liberty of American citizens.  On education, Brown wants to continue the disastrous public education system, but with new standards (as if this hasn’t been tried before…), supports government regulation of marriage, and proceeds with the same line of thinking towards the Middle East that continues to keep America mired in ancient, complicated, and unwinnable (and expensive!) geopolitical quagmires abroad. 

Is Brown’s win in Massachusetts “better” for Americans than another win by a Democrat?  Possibly, albeit briefly.  Does his victory equate to more liberty in the long run for you and me?  No.  Is his “upset” of Coakley the tip of a political revolution or patriot movement against the past century of inflationary monetary policy, U.S. military imperialism, and socialistic welfare programs?  Absolutely not.  With the exception of Ron Paul, the election of either a Democrat or Republican represents nothing more than opposite sides of the same coin – two heads of the same monster.  The policies of both parties sustain big government:  if not for more healthcare, than for more wars abroad; if not for more taxes, then for more encroachment upon civil liberties in the name of security; if not for marriage of choice, than for doomed-to-fail drug wars.  Same anti-liberty philosophy, different political party.  Brown’s election may temporarily roll back America’s socialization of healthcare, but don’t expect a revolution in thought or policy.  When all the confetti and congratulations are over, nothing much will have changed.

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