There’s No Messiah

I live in Arlington, Virginia, a liberal stronghold.  Children are told that “Republicans are ‘bad and evil’” at school.  On a daily basis, my home gets called by the Obama campaign’s get-out-the-vote effort, seeking to talk to my wife, my 18-month old daughter, and imaginary people like Hassan Bader.  We also get calls from a variety of liberal interest groups.  (On the bright side, living in a liberal enclave means we don’t have to put up with any robocalls from the McCain campaign, which seems to have written off Northern Virginia).

When my wife, a moderate who doesn’t support any candidate, expresses disinterest in these calls, the callers get cranky, as if she were criticizing their messiah.   In truth, their calls are pointless: my wife, a French citizen, can’t even vote in our elections.   (Some independent voters called by the Obama campaign report being asked, in a hostile tone, “are you a Republican?”, when they express disinterest).

These callers, who seem to view Obama as the messiah, and any dissent from that view as sacrilege, should read John Stossel’s column today, “We Don’t Need Anyone to Run the World,” which explains why even smart leaders can’t run the economy better than individual citizens and free markets can, and why they shouldn’t be arrogant enough to try to run the world.   This is particularly timely, given that we may end up with a virtual political monopoly next year.

Given the legion of awful proposals from Obama and McCain this year (not to mention many out-and-out lies and distortions), treating them like messiahs, and expecting government officials to magically fix our problems, is very naive.