Intentions or results?
By Theresa Camoriano
People who promote smaller government and greater individual freedom are regularly attacked as being evil and having bad intentions. They are said to be bigoted, anti-woman, unfeeling toward the poor, wanting to despoil the environment, and so forth. But the truth is that we do not know what is in a person’s mind and heart. All we really can know for sure are what a person says and does.
If we judge by results instead of rhetoric, the people who promote smaller government, free markets, and the rule of law look pretty good.
By all objective measures, people who live where small government and free market principles prevail are more prosperous, have more employment and educational opportunities, a better environment, and a better quality of life than do people who live in places governed by big government principles. This is true of countries, states, and cities. (For a study of states, click here.)
If we assume that people’s intentions are aligned with their results, then it is the promoters of big government who have the evil, mean-spirited intentions – wanting to keep people poor and helpless and taking away their ability to seek their own happiness in their own way.
If voters are smart, they will stop falling for the rhetoric and start looking at the real results of policies.
Politicians who engage in crony capitalism, taking property away from the producers in order to dispense money and favors to their friends, are doing great harm, no matter how much they claim to care about the little guy. Same with those who destroy jobs and opportunities with excessive red tape and other heavy-handed policies. The politicians who promote individual liberty, free markets and the rule of law are helping make people’s lives better, regardless of what is in their hearts and minds.
When it is time for us to vote, we should ignore all the smooth talk about how much the candidate feels our pain or cares about us and focus on whether we think he or she will enact policies that will produce good results. It will do us no good to elect politicians who “feel our pain” if their policies inflict more of it on us!
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