Folks Riot When They Feel Helpless

Reading this warning of "A Rising Anti-Government Tide" from Newt Gingrich in The Washington Post reminded me of some things I tell my kids.

1)People yell when they think they aren't getting heard.
2)Be courteous to everyone so that no one has a reason to be rude to you.
3)When people think they're helpless they get angry and sometimes violent.

So when I read this from Mr. Gingrich's article...

The elites ridiculed or ignored the first harbinger of rebellion, the recent tea parties. While it will be harder to ignore this massive anti-tax, anti-spending vote, they will attempt to do just that.

Voters in our largest state spoke unambiguously, but politicians and lobbyists in Sacramento are ignoring or rejecting the voters' will, just as they are in Albany and Trenton. The states with huge government machines have basically moved beyond the control of the people. They have become castles of corruption, favoritism and wastefulness. These state governments are run by lobbyists for the various unions through bureaucracies seeking to impose the values of a militant left. Elections have become so rigged by big money and clever incumbents that the process of self-government is threatened.

Sacramento politicians will now reject the voters' call for lower taxes and less spending and embrace the union-lobbyist-bureaucrat machine that is running California into the ground, crippling its economy and cheating residents. This model of high-tax, big-spending inefficiency has already driven thousands of successful Californians out of the state (taking with them an estimated $11 billion in annual tax revenue). The exodus will continue.

It reminded me of life lesson number 3 above.

You see, my daughter and son and I were watching a TV program that showed some rioters in Germany. My daughter asked me why they were rioting and I answered with #3.

I explained to her that under socialism (or even social democracy), the government takes an ever increasing authority over individuals lives. And since, even in freedom-loving countries like Great Britain, the people do not have as direct representation as Americans, the folks who live in such countries feel helpless and are far more likely to riot than Americans.

Let's face it, there are regular destructive riots in Europe, not so here. Americans, generally feel and are more empowered to make changes in their lives and to their government than virtually all other democracies.

So when voters get angry, smart politicians pay attention. And politicians who are attempting to take America further Left than they wish to go, may risk the Europeanization of America in many rather disagreeable ways.