What is “Our” Side?

“Jon Barela’s not on our side”…echoes one of Martin Heinrich’s increasingly desperate commercial attempts to cling to a House of Representatives seat that he will not acknowledge that he holds to fight for an agenda that he will not admit. Many political advertisements feature some play on the tripe phase “our” side, most of them in support of democrat candidates. What exactly is “our” side and what exactly is in “our” best interest politically?

The answer is as simple as it is confusing because it depends. It depends because not everyone everywhere has the same interests and needs and no one belongs to the same “side” as anyone else. One of the greatest dangers of a large and obtrusive government is that it picks “sides” and to do so implies that big government must pick against another “side”. And while government picking on one “side” may make the other feel better it will almost always hurt the other side too.

Take for example the government’s recent bailing out of bankrupt automakers. As a result unions received large portions of the companies while previous investors were shunned. Former investors and many others may never purchase a car from those companies which will lead to lower sales and what happens next time that the union side needs for the other to be punished for bankruptcy? The unions are on both sides, the next bankruptcy may lead to one or both automaker disappearing for good.

This isn’t the same thing as when the government does something to punish one side for doing something horrible to another side. There is a need for laws and as a society we have to protect unalienable rights; life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. And that’s the point; big government has a problem because it attempts to determine all of the right “sides” and in a relatively civil society the people all have different “sides” and can best determine what those are.