He’s a former patent attorney and an agriculture expert and farmer and so forth, and he’s a Millennial. And at different times we got to talking about what is happening with the Millennial generation because a bunch of them sitting at the table, and he said something fascinating to me about his friends. Now, he’s not the kind of Millennial that we hear about on college campus that are these tender snowflakes that can’t handle controversy and don’t like opposing points of view. He’s a standard, run-of-the-mill…
He’s an all-American kind of guy, and he said the thing that troubles him most about his generation is — and this was a first, but it totally clicked. His nickname is Morty. You know, he looks like Brent Bozell, beard included. That’s why I thought I was playing golf with Brent Bozell. He said… He’s 31, 32. He said that the people he knows in his age-group define good government by how many laws are being made. And if anybody is perceived to be standing in the way of laws being made, they’re the bad guys.
Well, that would mean limited government types are the bad guys to these people. The more laws you make, that’s the sign of success. The more laws, that’s the sign of progress to these people. We didn’t get to that. That’s not… Laws being upheld is irrelevant to these people. To them. Progress is government action. Writing laws, dealing with guns… You know, they’re of-the-moment kind of people so you have… Let’s say you have a terror event like Orlando.
“The government gotta do something! The government’s gotta do something!” If there’s a flood somewhere, “The government’s gotta do something!” A tornado hit? “The government’s gotta do something,” is their attitude. And, if government doesn’t do something, it’s a crisis. If government doesn’t do something, it’s bad. And government not acting, government not writing law, is a sign that things are not going well. And I sat there, and I’m listening to this, and it’s something, I guess, you know, when he said it, I instinctively understood it, agreed.
But it’s not something that I’ve automatically associated with Millennials. I’ve associated other things, but love of government and… That’s not the way to put it. But just the judgment that writing more laws dealing with the things that are bad or wrong, is the sign of good government. Well, I don’t know how common that is among the entire Millennial generation, but there’s no greater obstacle we could face to smaller government, limited government than having a generation of people who believe that good government equals active, writing law, writing new regulations government.
The more laws, the better. And in fact it’s the exact opposite that is needed here. We are so overregulated — we are so overlawed, if you will — that it’s getting in the way of everything. It’s getting in the way of life. I mean, it’s just shocking to me. Now, I’ve always known that there are those people out there, don’t misunderstand. I’ve always known that there are people who believe this. The government shutdown people brought this home for me. The reason a government shutdown’s bad is because the government’s not doing anything.
The government can’t write law. The government can’t fix things. They look at government action as “fixing.” These people have no concept that it is the government breaking everything. They have no concept or understanding that the government is making the messes. You and I sit here, and we marvel. Government makes the mess and then people look to government to fix the mess that they made, which defies common sense. Why would…? If your kid stands on a stepladder or a chair and keeps busting your chandelier every night, why would you hire the kid to fix the chandelier?
It’s essentially what we do.
Government makes a mess of health care. Government makes a mess of whatever it touches. Government makes a mess of Social Security. Government makes a mess of immigration. “You gotta fix it! You gotta fix it!” And, if the government’s not doing it, then something’s wrong. And that has to have come from education. It has to have come from pro-government professors and teachers who have been inculcating these young skulls full of mush with the idea that the only time anything productive ever happens in the country is when the government’s doing something.
When the private sector does something, when Big Business does something, it’s bad. But government has to be the ones to do it. The government has to fix it; the government has to police it; the government has to regulate it.
So our work continues to be cut out for us.