"We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish. "*

On all the TV and Radio programs as well as in every Newspaper we see stories about the debt crisis and what suffering will happen if we don’t raise the debt limit.  We are being told that we must raise the debt limit or Grandma won’t get her check and the sick will be turned out from their hospital beds.  These are the tactics our President and Treasury Secretary are using on national TV news programs.  They are learned men with degrees from the best school in our nation, I have no such degrees.  They have reached the pinnacle of their chosen professions, I have not.  What great conceit I must have to stand and shout at these two men and their hundreds of thousands of followers: “No! Stop!”  

It is because I consider myself an American Patriot that I have taken a place in the politics of our Commonwealth and Republic.  Truly, I would much prefer to anonymously toil at raising my children, being a worthy husband to my wife, and earning a wage such as I can.  But my love for my wife and children impels me to stand up.  It is my sense of duty that requires me to put my efforts at trying to correct the catastrophic problems which are endangering our Nation.  It is not hubris but humility that I am defending.  It is the prideful few who know what is better for the rest of us that I stand in opposition to. 

If we continue the status quo we are doomed.  No nation in the history of the world has ever survived the levels of borrowing that we are now talking about.  It is ludicrous that there are those that want use to follow the path of Greece.  If we allow our debts to continue to expand we are selling our children into serfdom.  They will not be able to follow their dreams but will be burdened by this mountain of debt.  If the President and the Treasury Secretary don’t see that they are blind.  If they are refusing to deal with it then they are unworthy of their offices. 

I am not alone in seeing this catastrophe coming.  Most of the people I know in the Tea Party Movement know this instinctively.  If that was all maybe we could be dismissed as a group of crackpots.  But we are not alone.  Decades before us an economist warned us:

• 'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.
• If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this
• Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.
• To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm.

Friedrich August von Hayek said this and more (*like the title for this post).  He is the economist in opposition to John Maynard Keynes.  Theirs has been the epic struggle for most of a century.  I urge every American to learn all that they can about these two economists.  Here is an easy way to start.  Watch both, I don’t plan on giving any pop quizzes, but it is well worth your time to be informed.