This is very true.

But it doesn't take much looking around the world and through history to know that there are places along that road we really, really don't want to be.

I personally believe we are currently traveling in the wrong direction--away from individualism and toward statism. Every change seems to be in favor of more centralized authority. This is not something that started when Obama was elected, and it's not something that has been exclusively due to Democrats.

I hear people say they support private enterprise and free markets, and yet somehow I never hear them say about any issue "we need to reduce government power in this area." On the other hand, I hear constant calls, often from these same people, for more government influence, more government ownership, more regulation, more centralization, more controls.

I think a lot of well-meaning people subscribe to the "perestroika" concept, the idea that you can have an optimum combination that generates all the wealth and prosperity created by a free economy and yet somehow have the government and the leadership control it all at every level.

Unfortunately that ideal mixture always seems to be up ahead on the road of more government control. Almost never the other way. "If we just have the government take over a few more things in our lives--not all of them, just a few more--we'll be in clover." Rinse and repeat.

I am constantly accused of demanding some kind of libertarian utopia here. I've never assumed full libertarianism is feasible in our current society. Even in the SF novel "The Probability Broach," the libertarian society is assumed to result from historical changes of two hundred years ago, and became part of the culture and mindset, not just a legal framework. We don't have that kind of culture or mindset now. For many Americans, it's no longer possible to even imagine a society where government isn't part of it at every level, never mind trying to sell them on it.

On the other hand, on the other end of the road, totalitarian societies are terrifyingly feasible. Free economies and people plummet into them with an ease that makes one wonder if the master-slave response is part of our genetic makeup. Countries like China that seem to be struggling toward freedom do it as though slogging through deep mud. Countries like Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and so many others drop into statism like falling off a log.

All I'm hoping for in the United States is a simple change in direction. I'm not seeing it.