Colossus vs. Leviathan: Why the government cannot suppress the silent majority

One of the great myths that currently pervades politics in the United States is that there is a major difference between the Left and the Right as they have come to be established. The idea that there is a major difference between the two is a fallacy in the respect that neither of them, going back to Coolidge, not even Reagan, despite his rhetoric, has physically done anything to promote the idea of a United States of America with citizens who are truly free. The market has not been allowed to operate freely, no matter what the detractors of the free market on the Left would like you to believe. The Right has, at the same time, failed to actually govern from a limited government standpoint, despite what they would have you believe.

Both the Left and the Right, as they have come to be established, trade in the same currency. That currency is Fear, and its bank is Big Government. It just so happens that the Left and the Right, as they have come to be established, simply trade in different denominations of this currency. War and Empire has become the currency of the Right. Hence when we find the Right in control, the predominant issues at hand become the expansion of our influence overseas. Though this becomes the predominantly discussed issue, the denomination of Left still remains at large in the meantime. That denomination is Social Programmatic Spending draped in the specter of Civil Rights. As the Left comes to power, as we are confronted with now, these are the issues that we have seen come to the forefront. This does not mean, however, that War and Empire have gone away. Indeed they continue unabated, and have merely taken a backseat in the minds of the general public.

Think of the Left as trading in Ten Dollar Bills, and the Right as trading in Twenty Dollar Bills. At the end of the day, they are both trading a thousand dollars, it just happens to pass through the clerk's hands in differently sized stacks at a time. The currency itself is still Fear. The bank is still Big Government.

To be sure there are other issues, such as abortion and gay marriage and racial equality, currently hot-button issues, that continue to pervade everyone's rhetoric, and there are those people that will align themselves with one side or the other over those issues. But the tragedy of those issues has become what the federal government is supposed to do about them. The question is never asked anymore, "What would happen if the federal government were to relieve itself of these issues, to allow them to remain with the states?"

Quite simply, these ideas are not left to be decided by the states because there is no money in it. Our politicians have come to such a level that they are politicians as a career choice, rather than as public servants as they were always meant to be. Abortion, gay marriage, racial equality, and now health care, among the full myriad of other smaller, relatively inconsequential issues, have become industries unto themselves, and the politicians that make them their primary discussions are serving to temporarily line their own pockets, rather than serving their constituents. These politicians, on both sides of the aisle, are served in these issues only by dragging them out, and continually increasing the size of the government in the process. Their actual stance means nothing in the long run, other than that it gives them a chance to keep working in a position that produces nothing but more argument, and perpetually more government. Therefore it becomes difficult to believe that either the Established Left, or the Established Right has a correct solution for where the country finds itself currently. Indeed they have both led the country down the frightening path of collectivism:
 

It is true that the virtues which are less esteemed and practiced now - independence, self-reliance, and the willingness to bear risks, the readiness to back one's own conviction against a majority, and the willingness to voluntary cooperation with one's neighbors - are essentially those on which the working of an individualist society rests. Collectivism has nothing to put in their place, and in so far as it has already destroyed them it has left a void filled by nothing but the demand for obedience and the compulsion of the individual to do what is collectively decided to be good.

F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

The passage of the "stimulus" package, a greater single expansion of government than the country had ever before known, recently brought this to bear.  The unconscionably fast passage in the House of the "cap-and-trade" bill followed, boding ill for those who believe highly and primarily in the principles of Freedom and Liberty of the individual. So what is to be done about an ever-expanding Leviathan?

There is a Colossus present that may find itself great enough to challenge even the Leviathan whose inertia seems unstoppable.  This is the Colossus made up of what was once referred to as the "silent majority," a massive group of people who believe it is incorrect to assume it is the government's job to do anything other than protect its citizens, and that a government's citizens are not protected by being given free rides, having their will and self-reliance eroded as an unintended, yet inevitable consequence.  For Colossus to take on Leviathan, there is only the path of educating as many people as possible over the course of the time available that will aid in following the correct path.

Education of the masses on both sides is the task at hand.  This has been brought to bear in the ongoing battle over health-care reform.  As Congress attempted to plow yet another trillion dollar bill through, unread and not understood, the Colussus that was stirred to life by the stimulus, and roused by cap-and-trade, finally arose to stand in Leviathan's path.  Fearful of a likely unnecessary government takeover of the health-care industry, a full one-sixth of the economy, the American People rose up to halt the onrushing freight train.  A bill that was intended to be rammed through in a matter of weeks, has now been vetted, debated and dumped as too costly and too intrusive.  The second attempt, never actually a bill, and weaker in takeover premise, was hotly contested to the point of futility.  So battered has Leviathan become in its battle against the principles of Freedom and Liberty that it has now resorted to an all out assault position, unveiling not one new try, but two, nearly simultaneously, both excessively voliminous, intended as industry takeovers, and intended to make subjects out of citizens.  Perhaps the thought is that some sort of information overload will overwhelm the previously silent majority.

What Leviathan fails to understand, however, is that it is fighting a losing battle; a battle for control, a battle for subjugation, and a battle for the breaking of wills.  Leviathan fights a battle for the usurpation of Freedom and for the destruction of Liberty and the Individual.

The Colossus of the silent majority knows it is a collection of individuals working decisively toward a common goal.  None seeks to control.  None seeks to subjugate another.  None seeks to dominate another's will.  The cause is a collection of individual wills, brought together by the greatest inertia there is: the yearning for Freedom, the desire for Liberty.  Quite simply, Leviathan cannot win.