"If I wanted America to fail"

provocative new video from the folks over at Americans for Limited Government promoting a new project focused on economic liberty and free market policies. It’s very well done, if perhaps a little on the long side. Watch:

The message at the very end is especially poignant:

If I wanted America to fail I…I suppose I wouldn’t change a thing.

This is exactly right of course, and the prescription for change is more than just about electing a new president in November, or the GOP winning a majority in the Senate.  Yes, the destructive effects of big government on economic prosperity and individual liberty have been exponentially worse since Democrats won a majority in Congress in 2006. Culminating in the nightmare of 2009-2010. But America veered off course long before this, with both parties complicit in the growth of runaway government spending and the perpetual expansion of federal power.
I don’t think Democrats want America to fail any more than Republicans do, and I don’t think this is really the message of this video. But there is an immense contrast in the vision of what a successful America means between the left and the right. For many Americans, I daresay most, an America that seeks to maintain a facade of shared prosperity by confiscating more and more resources from the most productive among us, and placing them at the disposal of power-seekers in Washington D.C., is not a vision of success at all. It’s a recipe for decline, and friction in our society at a time when we should be seeking out and supporting more effective, and unifying, solutions to the challenges we face.
This is the choice we face at the ballot box this November.