By Sam Brier

According to most polls, Republicans are less than one month away from massive gains in Congress. And it’s about time. Since coming to power, Democrats have insisted that big government is the answer to our problems, spending this country deeper and deeper into debt in the hopes of solving our economic woes. Apparently, Democrats have forgotten that this isn’t Europe. This is the United States of America, a country founded on the principles of limited government and individual freedom. Our founders understood the dangers of a large government and drew up the clauses and amendments of the Constitution accordingly. Yet Democrats stubbornly push ahead with their big government agenda, creating new regulatory agencies to monitor big business, oblivious to the fact that the agencies already in charge of regulation were in bed with the businesses they were supposed to regulate. If it weren’t for tireless efforts from Republicans during the healthcare debates, the country would be stuck with socialized healthcare in the form of a public option. And of course, Democrats passed a nearly $800 billion stimulus package, which amounted to pork spending projects in their districts. It’s very easy to spend so frivolously when you do it with other people’s money.

Americans put the Democrats in full control in 2008, giving them all the tools to deliver on their promises and clean up the mess left by the Bush administration. Two years later, it is clear that they’ve failed us. Republicans screwed up under Bush and we the people made them pay dearly for it. They lost Congress, the White House, and many governorships. We the people (according to the polls) believe the Republicans have served their time and hopefully will be more prepared to cut spending and reduce the size of government this time around.

Still, the Democrats have no shortage of defenders, especially at a school like Macalester. This opinion page featured two such articles last week with Poulos [“Hear my word vomit: a diatribe on unsubstantiated statements”] praising the virtues of big government and how it is “often beneficent for many other people in various other positions.” Mac students eat that right up, but try telling that to the average American in our current economic situation.

Not to be outdone, Havranek [“My march away from apathy”] portrays opposition to our current government as coming from ” uninformed and bigoted people.” This fits well with the Democratic conception of the government as our benevolent overlords, more capable of making decisions for us than allowing us to think for ourselves.

There is one key thing for which we can all thank Democrats. Since Obama’s election, gun sales have skyrocketed all across the country, as Americans grow increasingly aware of the threat to the 2nd Amendment posed by our very anti-gun president. I myself joined the NRA after the Democrats took power, knowing how crucial it would soon become to protect our right to keep and bear arms.

At the moment, a Republican takeover of Congress represents the best hope we have of reclaiming our government and putting a stop to the big government agenda of the Democrats. On November second, I will do my part by casting my vote in favor of Carly Fiorina for Senate (I am a California voter) and I urge other Macalester students to consider voting for the Republican candidate in their state.

The direction of our country depends on it.

Sam Brier ’13 is a contributing writer for The Mac Weekly and can be reached at [email protected]