Some gems in the Journal

Found a couple of nuggets worth mining from this particular collection of musings:

First:

"...blogger Mike Hanlon makes a compelling case that if the government supplanted insurance companies, it would leave us with the worst of both worlds. Imagine the heartless officiousness of the stereotypical insurance-company claims agent combined with the actual power of an IRS auditor or traffic cop, and you'll see the point."

I see no need for further elaboration on that one...

Second, a warning for all those partisans emboldened by recent Democratic ineptitude in governance:

One lesson of the 1994 experience is that the tactics and attitudes that make an opposition movement effective are not sufficient for governing. Newt Gingrich was a lot better at the former than the latter. The same seems to be true--at least so far--of the Democrats and their leader, Barack Obama.

There's a reason for that: modern politics has become entirely about the quest for power, not the responsible application of limited amounts of it. Both the Democrats and Republicans are guilty of adopting whatever position they think is electorally convenient, jettisoning principles (not to mention the Constitution) in the process. While I frankly don't care for either flavor of statism, I'll give the Democrats this much: they are far more consistent and open about their view that the State is the source of all answers. The GOP, meanwhile, still has a muddled desire to pretend it defends the original ideas of the Founders. After the past eight years, that's a joke.

One that isn't funny.

I take a certain amount of heart from seeing thousands of Americans pushing back against further government encroachment. The Republicans, meanwhile, see the latest opportunity to coopt legitimate outrage to restore their fortunes. But Americans don't need to rally to a party's banner. In fact, the only real chance they have to restore some semblance of the nation they were bequeathed is to remain what they aspire to be:

Independent.