With the election drawing near, the media is talking a lot about red states and blue states, but there are a number of underlying issues that don’t get much coverage in the mainstream press. The most fundamental questions about what the role of government ought to be are conspicuously absent, and it seems that both major parties envision a much larger role for the state in the daily life of Americans.

Over the last few years the Republicans have drawn some much deserved criticism for their willingness to erode constitutionally protected civil liberties in pursuing a “War on Terror”. The fact that America has been led into two invasions in an undeclared war against a tactic has also gotten a healthy amount of discussion. The US constitution stipulates that only congress may declare war, and there has been no declaration of war by congress since December, 1941.

Now it seems likely that the Democrats will take the reigns of power because Americans are rejecting Republican abuses, but I wouldn’t expect constitutional government to be the result. The Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, and FISA enlargement will likely all remain in force. FISA only passed with the support of Democrats in congress. American foreign policy will remain interventionist even if it becomes a little less unilateral. New enlargements of government are likely to follow. An interview with Barack Obama has surfaced, which indicates he favors the redistribution of wealth by the state. Once a nation has reached a point where it is openly legislating wealth redistribution, it has become avowedly socialist.

The concepts of collectivism and authoritarianism have been present in both major parties for a very long time, and while Obama and McCain both represent the flowering of different brands of statism, one must look to the roots to find a real explanation. Some Americans will welcome socialism at first, but “spreading the wealth around” and putting “country first” have totalitarian implications.

When the government provides “free” health care it becomes invested in all the lifestyle choices of its citizens. I wonder how many Obama supporters on college campuses realize that their binge drinking becomes an issue of national interest when the cost future health problems will be borne by the taxpayer?When government confiscates a portion of your income through taxation for the “social good”, it has control over the way the fruits of your labor are spent. If you have an aversion to undeclared wars, welfare, germ warfare research, subsidies for corporations, or the torture of enemy combatants you are still forced to pay for these things rather than being given the choice to freely give to social causes that you support. When government mandates a “free” education for every child it also controls what curriculum may be taught, how school districts may be run, and which children get extra funding. The list goes on.

The more that government grows, the less choices citizen’s are allowed to make. Not to mention the fact that government does not have a great reputation for efficiency. What choice does a citizen have if government runs the health care system poorly? In many countries there is no alternative, so if waiting periods for treatment are long sick people will just have to cross their fingers and hope that they survive until they can get medical attention. Just take a look at social security as an example. The money that was paid in by people approach retirement was not set aside for that purpose, but rather raided to pay for government largess throughout the years. That is why social security is facing insolvency over the next decade or two. Could individuals have really done any worse had they been left with their their earnings and the responsibility for their own retirement savings?

America has had neither a free market nor a constitutional government for many decades, but we may be on the verge of seeing politicians abandon any pretense of adhering to these ideals. Ultimately I find the prospects for America’s near future to be very depressing. The political class is having great success in getting the American people to trade in their freedom using fear and thirty pieces of silver. If the American people don’t realize the implications of this soon, then it may be too late to stop it.