Nothing New Under the Sun Redux

Doug French writes here about how old "change we can believe in" really is.

Obama is really just borrowing a few pages from history, as French's piece demonstrates amply. Of course, people who know very little history will have to learn the hard way that we've been down this road before. Sadly, we seem to have a voting majority of folks who fit neatly into that dubious category.

Friedrich Hayek wrote The Road to Serfdom in 1944. Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged in 1957. Both wrote about the inevitable, regrettable results of abandoning human liberty and voluntary exchange (my synonym for "capitalism," but without the baggage; "capitalism" is not actually a 4-letter word), although from substantially different perspectives. Both wrote in response to events of their times following FDR's vast expansion of government and its ham-fisted intrusion into our lives.

Here we are again, even though the lessons of history tell us where we are going and how it will turn out. This time it's different, right? Here's a question; why would it be different this time?

How is it possible that a majority of people in the United States either never knew or have already forgotten that government compulsion leads to human misery? How is it possible that a majority of people don't understand that the source of human prosperity is not a government that taxes and prints money to finance its theft of real wealth from those who created the wealth. How is it possible that a majority of people are genuflecting at the feet of a savior made man, even in the face of so much evidence of the inevitable outcome?

History tells us BHO is mistaken and that he too will simply take us down a road we've already traveled---a road we should know better than take again.