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Was anybody taking the national debt into consideration when we decided to declare war against Japan and Germany? When we held the line in Korea? When we stood around the world at Freedom's Frontier during the Cold War? When we started the space program? When we decided to electrify rural America? There are appropriate decisions that are made, at least sometimes, that it's appropriate and just to defer the payment for many important things to future generations. The nettlesome question is whether that's all become too casual a decision. When people in government go along with loud voices that demand benefits, programs, and action, they need to be prepared to say instead, "No, we can't afford it", unless it's something so important that the justice of saddling the debt on future generations is obvious, plain, and patent. Otherwise, it's just a Ponzi scheme. And those invariably crash down. Voices in government need to be elected who are prepared to say that and vote No, even to praiseworthy expenditures, because the money isn't there. And, like Barry Goldwater, to realize that the solution to every problem is not always a law, and like him, too, to realize that having too many laws is, itself, a serious problem. Forgive me, as a Libertarian, for saying it, but we need to elect representatives whose aim will be to repeal as many laws as possible, to fight for the freedom of individuals rather than their control and surveilance over them, and to massively cut the activities of the government and the budgets and taxes that fuel them.
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Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice. . . Restraint in the pursuit of Justice is no virtue.
Senator Barry Goldwater, 1964
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