The American Spectator

STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED br> Re: Jacob Laksin’s Weird New Jersey : /p>

Two points, if I might. First the Dems have had a very long run as the de facto power in New Jersey. Even when there has been a GOP Governor, it has been someone like Christie Todd Whitman, who is virtually indistinguishable from the standard New England elite Democrat. That is who country club, Rockefeller Republicans from New England are.

The voters themselves have brought this fiscal mess on themselves. They are the ones who have elected these big government, big spending Dems and Repubs. The mass of the electorate wanted a nanny to take care of them, to feed them, and bathe them, give them their allowance, and change their nappy for them. Well that is what they got, and now they are shocked, shocked I say, to find that the state wishes to continue with the very same profligate ways that got then elected in the first place.

Sorry, but to me, the New Jersey voters are demonstrating the same degree of understanding and logic as your average two year old, and for the same reason — gimme, gimme, gimme. They have gotten the kind of government that they have wanted, demanded, and deserve, just like I said about Pennsylvania in my last letter to you folks.

The second point is that it is rarely a good thing to have one party rule in government. It has not proven to be a good thing the few times that the GOP has had it, and it certainly has not been a good thing in spades when the Dems have had it. It invariably leads to government by and for the elite.

One need only look to the virtual explosion of spending and ear marking that occurred during the period when Bush was in the Oval Office, and the GOP controlled both the House and Senate, and not a single veto of a spending bill (or any other bill) occurred until just before the 2006 elections. Of course the two prime examples of the evils of one party rule are still probably the periods when FDR and LBJ were in the Oval Office. Although I find that I must say that FDR was the best war President since at least Lincoln. I surely wish that Bush showed the same understanding, determination, and effectiveness in our current conflict. FDR did not allow the kind of what we now call PC attitudes to creep into the waging of the war.

p>But back to the point, one party rule has been shown to be impossible to have without the creeping corruption, waste, and fraud that we always see as time goes on. Over time, it has brought down every system of governance going back into antiquity. The citizenry decides that they want to be given everything, instead of earning it, so they elect the party’s candidates that promise them the most. That party keeps promising the most out of their own self-interest, and they keep getting re-elected, and keep controlling the levers of power. It has ever been thus, and probably ever will be, despite a hard core kernel of agents of change such as those of us that loyally read The American Spectator . We keep crying “fire,” but the mass of the electorate refuses to interrupt their ongoing party. br> — Ken Shreve