We really do live in two cultures in this country in 2020. The Left is searching for the one man/one woman/one whatever to lead the masses, while conservatives continue to rely on people. Rely on themselves. Rely on their families.
The coronavirus response is highlighting this.
Ezra Klein at Vox is the latest to freak out that big poppa-government isn’t totally in-charge.
"This is the era of no good choices. Take schooling, for example. Keeping children home robs them of education and socialization. It scars their futures, steals their joys. It makes it impossible for their parents to work, or even to rest. But sending them to school endangers their health, and that of their teachers and their families. The argument is so heated because the choices are all bad, at least by the standards of the lives we used to lead. We battle like there is a good answer, like we will discover one side is right and the other is wrong. But we won’t. There is no answer. Whatever we pick, it will be horrible."
"Everything is like that right now. Do you visit your parents, let them see their grandchild? How do you weigh the risk of contagion against the risk of isolation? If they’re sick, does that make visiting them more dangerous, or more necessary? How about your friends? What is the cost to your child of growing up without community, without other hands to take care of them, without other adults they’re allowed to hug, to play with? Do we reopen restaurants? If they do reopen, do we go to them? The risks are terrible, but so is the thought of losing an entire industry, of seeing all those dreams die, all those futures shatter. As the Senate dithers, these decisions are being left to us, and it is tearing us apart."
Tearing us apart? Because New York and South Dakota are different and making different choices? Tearing us apart because people in big cities live different lives than folks in farm country?
Klein forgets that this is a big country. New York, D.C., and San Francisco are not the only places that matter.
The United States was created for and by individuals. This nation celebrates people, families, communities, the nation. It is supposed to be run like that. Individuals, families, cities, counties, states, then the federal government.
Klein and the Left hate America, so they hate how America works. The Left wants to go back to the heady days of Barack Obama who decided everything with his phone and pen. The Left would love to see a national government (not a federal government) in side of relying on the 50 laboratories of Democracy. One size fits all, as long as that one size fits in New York and San Francisco.
Abraham Lincoln said it best at Gettysburg. This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is not a government of the government, by the government, for the government. Or the experts, or the bureaucrats, or the really smart people.
Klein and so many on the left do not trust us to make our own choices. They see us as knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing goons. They see the lack of an imperial coronavirus order as chaos and disorder (not that they would have agreed with any national order from President Trump anyway).
I am a conservative because I trust people to live their lives. I trust you to live your life, raise your kids, make the decisions that are best for you.
Ezra Klein and the Left don’t trust you. They want to live your life for you, raise your kids instead of you, and tell you everyday what they think you should do.