In early elementary school we are taught that a story has a beginning, a middle and an end. People like to know there’s an ending point.

We love to arrive at our final destination when we go on vacation. When we are in school, we work towards the final goal of graduation. When we go to a movie, we like a satisfying ending, preferable in two hours or less. We follow the NFL every season all the way to the Super Bowl. We go on a diet with the goal of attaining a specific amount of weight loss in a specified time.

When an endeavor doesn’t seem to have an ending point within reach, we begin to complain, scoff at it and either don’t get involved or quickly desert it. For that reason we tend to avoid extremely long novels and extensive dietary programs. We get tired of the Iraq war and similar events which never seem to end.

As a conservative libertarian, my own politics has a defined ending point. I want government to protect me from international and domestic threats, provide basic infrastructure such as roads and sewers, ensure free commerce between all citizens and stand by the Bill of Rights.

Beyond those and few other things, I basically want government to stay out of my life. Let me succeed or fail on my own. Let me choose which path I want to take and if I want to willingly partake in risky behavior which I will take responsibility for.

Basically, if I’m not impeding upon someone else’s rights, just stay out of my way.

Liberalism goes on forever though. It has no beginning, no middle and no ending, ever, which makes it hard to imagine why so many Americans embrace the politics of perpetually ever-growing government.

For instance, remember when the government worked so hard to sell us on TARP, one of the selling points being that the tax payers would make a nice hefty interest payment to the banks and once the banks paid us back, that would be the end. Well, surprise! Barney Frank now wants to allocate those interest payments to low income housing and other types of mortgage subsidy programs rather than carry out the original intention of giving it to the taxpayers.

Last week, we found out that hidden in the Cap and Trade Bill is a whole new government program which will create an environment inspection task force that will enforce strict new environmental standards on housing. Before you would be allowed to sell your home, you would have to bring it up to an environmental code. This could mean replacing all the windows in the home, the appliances, insulation, and God knows what else. 

These initiatives could easily cost millions of home owners thousands of dollars. Of course, there will be homeowners who will cry out that they cannot afford to take the required actions, which will mean that another program will be introduced to provide funds for “the poor” to do so, meaning that the average taxpayer will not only be paying to bring his house up to code, but someone else’s as well.

 And so it goes, round and round. We hear talk of Stimulus 2, new food stamp programs, etc. The reality is that there is no ending point for President Obama and the Democratic Congress. There is no last page of the novel, or cinematic conclusion. They are leading us down a road that never ends, and for some reason, many Americans are willing to partake in the unsatisfying journey.

Brad Rudisail is a syndicated political columnist. A graduate of the Coverdell Leadership Institute, Rudisail resides in Oconee County.

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