------------------------------------------- The BIRCH BARK BBS / 414-242-5070 ------------------------------------------- America's Future, Inc. December 1994 VOTERS SAY "NO" TO BIG GOVERNMENT +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Years from now, history books reflecting on major events of the late 20th Century may record a couple of landmark events of a different sort but similar importance. Both happenings involved individual freedom. At least one conservative friend of ours has likened the fall of the Berlin Wall five years ago to the Democrat Party's loss of control of the U.S House of Representatives in the November election. While this may be overstretching the imagination a bit, our friend makes the point that both events came about because people wanted more freedom - especially freedom from government. Behind the Iron Curtain, of course, the stakes were much, much higher. The oppression of communist governments had killed tens of millions of people who dared protest. And at the same time, apparatchiks were trying to socially engineer the workers' paradise, and failing miserably. Individual Russians and Poles, Czechs and Hungarians, were forced to wait for hours just to buy a loaf of bread and a few potatoes. Yet, members of the ruling elite, the nomenklatura, had all the food they could eat, lived in villas on the Black Sea and smuggled in Western goods denied to the rest of the populace. Despite these hardships, individuals behind the Iron Curtain never lost hope. The efforts of Poland's Solidarity union, America's intelligence services, and Pope John Paul II and the Vatican helped keep that hope alive. Indeed, these and other groups helped chip away at the foundations of communism, so that in 1989, the symbol of communism - the Berlin Wall - fell. Americans, while certainly not subject to the same hardships, have had to deal with the ever-growing burdens of big government. These include heavier tax burdens to feed bloated bureaucracies, regulations which generate tons and tons of paperwork, and laws which deny property owners the use of their land. The Republicans finally succeeded in pinning the blame on Democrats precisely because they had control of the House for so long. Democrats were in charge when the Great Society exploded the size of the welfare state. Democrats were in charge when bureaucracies started enacting regulations intruding on almost every aspect of daily life. And Democrats in the House blocked Republicans when they tried to roll back the size of government during the 1980s. President Clinton's agenda didn't help congressional Democrats, either. A government takeover of health care, pork-barrel spending disguised as a stimulus package, and favoritism for special interest groups - all contributed to the voters' anger at government. As a result, Democrat control of the House has come to a crashing end. The incoming Speaker of the House, Republican Newt Gingrich, who was a history professor at a small Georgia college before he entered politics, has spelled out what the political change in Washington may mean to him. "As a historian," he told a Heritage Foundation audience last October, "I'm looking forward to a chance to go to any campus or any venue in the country to defend the following statement: It is impossible to maintain civilization with 12-year-olds having babies, 15-year-olds killing each other, 17-year-olds dying of AIDS, or 18-year-olds getting diplomas they can't read. It's just impossible. So we are really in a crisis of our civilization.... It is a grand irony, because we managed to contain the Soviet empire for half a century, win an enormous victory for freedom, and in the same cycle begin the process of decaying our civilization." What remains to be seen is whether House Speaker Gingrich's stark appraisal will now be changed for the better. [end] ------------------------------------------------------------------- Behind the Headlines, written by Philip C. Clarke, is a syndicated column distributed by America's Future. It is available to interested newspapers and other publications on a gratis basis as a service of this non-profit educational organization. For more information, please write or call Mr. John Wetzel, c/o America's Future Inc., P.O. Box 1625, Milford, Pa. 18337 (717) 296-2800.