Government-financed terrorism insurance? Republicans hope it will ‘stimulate’ the economy. It just might, short-term — but at the expense of making individuals ever-more dependent on government handouts; and at the expense of reinforcing the false notion that government has the right to forcibly seize the income of some people to be the keepers of other people — and take all the credit, of course.
It seems like we can expect a Republican-controlled welfare state to replace the Democratic one, now that Democrats are totally out of power. Democrats, of course, will continue to push for the real thing. They need not fear. Sooner or later, Democrats get what they want from the Republicans. Republicans just need to win first.
Some of you who (like me) oppose the welfare state will argue that terrorism is a valid exception because it’s the proper role of government to protect people from violent criminals. I don’t buy it. It’s not the proper role of government to rob from Peter to pay for Paul’s insurance — be it health insurance or terrorist insurance. It is the proper role of government to kill and destroy terrorists and terrorist-sponsoring governments. Because our government is so tepid and hesitant about doing either of these things in this politically correct age, it superficially seems to make sense, to some, that government should provide terrorism insurance. Nonsense. Terrorism insurance is a distraction from the real issue: that government has failed to protect us from violent thugs, thanks to years of waffling and appeasement — waffling and appeasement which is still with us, as our pleas to the U.N. for official permission to attack Iraq grotesquely illustrate.
Government should be spending our hard-earned money on making the world safe for the United States and anyone else who cares about individual rights and freedom. We can, and should, take care of the rest ourselves.
