OPINION:
The Internet is full of health-related studies and articles. Most of them provide similar, age-old wisdom: Eat right, exercise and don’t smoke. There are no guarantees, but following this timeless advice generally leads to a longer, healthier life.
All of us have heard this and read it countless times, yet there remains a segment of the American public who would rather shovel junk into their mouths and sit on the couch than follow a healthy lifestyle. When these Americans become ill, they want others to pay for their health care, which is a key reason why America is broke and in debt.
We live in a La-La Land entitlement society where poor choices are condoned and rewarded and individual responsibility and accountability are largely ignored by the bloodsuckers who want the rich to “pay their fair share.” Unbelievable.
What is not as easy to find on the Internet is rock-solid wisdom on how to keep America healthy, wealthy and wise. But it is out there if you search for it.
Start with reading quotes by Thomas Jefferson, arguably the smartest person to ever take up residency in the White House. Jefferson had a healthy distrust of the very type of bloated, ineffective and now broke federal government we have embraced over the past 50 years when he wrote, “Most bad government has grown out of too much government.” Thanks to President Obama, we are living in the era of the biggest federal government in our nation’s history.
Jefferson must have been able to see far into the future when he wrote, “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” Reckless, dangerous, stupid European-style entitlement spending is now sucking the life out of the American dream, and the guilty have a president.
President Reagan wisely stated, “Government isn’t the solution; it’s the problem.”
Limited-government freedom dreamers also will find solace in the famous and wise words of the Rev. William Boetcker, who famously wrote almost 100 years ago: “You cannot bring prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further brotherhood of men by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”
Mr. Obama and his legions of bloodsucking supporters surely find Boetcker’s wise words a threat to their continued goal of expanding government at all levels and creating more dependency rather than independence.
Conservatives are not opposed to government. What conservatives are opposed to is an arrogant, oppressive, out-of-control, anti-Constitution federal government that seeks to impose its suffocating, heavy-handed will upon Americans.
Less government is best government. Jefferson and Boetcker knew that. The question for Americans this fall is this: Do more know this than don’t know this? America will get what we ask for, and with the dumbing-down of America at an all-time extreme, we should be very, very scared.
Ted Nugent is an American rock ’n’ roll, sporting and political activist icon. He is the author of “Ted, White, and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto” and “God, Guns, & Rock ’N’ Roll” (Regnery Publishing).
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