Is a Jumpstart really what we need?

jump-start –noun

1. Also, jump. Automotive. the starting of an internal-combustion engine that has a discharged or weak battery by means of booster cables.[1]

This morning I had a little difficulty getting my 1992 Plymouth Grand Voyager to start. It's cold and the battery is weak. I was begining to think I would need to ask a neighbor for a jump. Finally, though, as the starter labored, it chugged to a start.

This really got me thinking as I recalled the Washington Post article where they mention Timothy Geithner pledging to "launch initiatives quickly to jump-start the credit markets and the broader economy." What is the point of using the exact same model that got us where we are today to try to fix the problem we have with our economy? This is exactly like jumpstarting your vehicle when you have a dead battery. Sure, it might get the car started, but since the battery is no good, it will just be a matter of time before it dies again. The rather obvious solution is to get a new battery.

Lately, I have heard ruminations about a change that refers to a "world-wide" economy, and a singular "system" that would control it. Just like a dead battery leading to the choice to get a new one, we do need a new monitary system. Ours is like a dead battery, and jump starting it will not repair it. If it does start the car, sooner or later (probably sooner) it will need another jump. But where people who talk about a "world-wide" economic system miss the mark (in my opinion) is with the idea that it should be a single "world system," a system that would control "the world economy."

I'm reasonably certain that most people who see things through a conservative lense view the notion of a "world economic system" as something that has biblical overtones — the whole "End Times" idea et cetera (pronounced et-SET-uh-ruh)....But putting the biblical connection aside, I think we should also look at this from another angle.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution established our Federalist (yes, "Federalist" not "Democratic") form of government, with its checks and balances, for the purpose of preventing any one branch of government from obtaining too much power. They did this because they were aware that power has the tendancy to corrupt "people," or at least tempt them to tend toward grabbing as much power as they can, and, as well-meaning as any person might be, they are, never-the-less, still human, still imperfect, still corruptible.

So, is it really very wise to put the entire world under a single economic system (entity, that is), given the proclivity for financially-oriented entities, driven by "all things monetary," to tend toward greed, and thereby corruption, dishonesty, and power? To me, it simply makes no sense to put the world at the hands of a single, financially-oriented entity, period. Nor is it in the best interests of the people — or is it not the people who are the intended beneficiaries of the government that was established, and do we really want to hand over complete monetary control to some external pecuniary organism? Because if the people were, and still are, the intended beneficiaries, putting the world economy in the hands of a monitarily-driven passel (somehow assembled from "the important" nations) is not beneficial for the people.

If this is really the plan and if this is the way things proceed, we may as well just kiss our government goodby because it will no longer bear any resemblance to the government Abraham Lincoln referred to in his Gettysburg Address:

"...that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

In 1964, when he nominated Barry Goldwater [2] at the 1964 Republican Convention in Cow Palace, Ronald Reagan declared ,

“The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.” [3]

In the First Inaugural Address In the Washington, D.C., Wednesday, March 4, 1801 Thomas Jefferson says:

And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is l eft free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

It would appear that Reagan understood the founding fathers. The notion of the importance of "the people" not being "controlled" by government, for it is the will of the majority that is to prevail, not the will of the few.

"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.[2]

We are clearly at a critical time in our nation. There is no question that the founding fathers wanted to avoid an oppressive government. As Jefferson stated, the strongest government on earth is, "Only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern."

Should we, then, now seek the standard of the law as our own personal concern, to meet this invasion of the public order that the financial crisis clearly represents? I believe the founding fathers would say "Yes," especially to avoid what they so intentionally made clear; the government should represent the people in their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.