Who owns government? The government or the people?

The link below is a thoughtful and provocative piece.  I agree with most of what is covered but not everything.  Specifically, I disagree with the author's characterization that it is the democrats that are the problem - their refusal to negotiate on a goodly number of republican proposals to resolve the government shut down, deal with the federal debt and Obamacare.  It is instead the progressive elements within both the Democratic and Republican parties that are the problem.  Many democrats are wary of the progressive influences that dominate their party.  But it is a fact that the democratic party is the home of far more progressives than the republicans so that is where the intransigence lies.  Hence, the theme of the linked article.  Because the bulk of leadership within the democratic party happens to be progressives getting past the current issue of restarting government, dealing with the debt limit and on to Obamacare will be most difficult.  As the article notes the democrats (progressives) think they own the government.  Democrats and even some republicans lambaste the Tea Party's influence on the repulican party.  The fact is that the Tea Party believes that the federal debt and government spending are out of control and that Obamacare will only exacerbate those problems.  So the progressive left has its world view (big government is good, spending is not out of control, debt is good, etc.) and the Tea Party right believes the opposite.  The progressive left frequently calls Tea Party adherents tyrants, terrorists, etc..  That is an affront to ligitimately held beliefs.  What if they called the progressive left such names?  Who would be more correct? 

Saying the above things about progressives does not mean that all progressive thoughts and actions are unworthy.  Not so.  The movement has done good things over time.  The problem is that progressives seek to place all faith and power in government.  In effect they believe the government is supreme and has the right to dictate policy to its citizens.  A consequence of such thinking is to drain private citizen resources in pursuit of their Utopian ideas.  And because their thinking, especially progressive dominated government, they assume private citizens and organizations on their own are unable to "innovate" and "improve" the lives of their fellow citizens.  Only progressive minded government can do that.  Not only does past history demonstrate that to be a falsehood but also validates such thinking as being socialistic in nature.  To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher:  Socialism does not work for the long term because socialist governments eventually run out of other people's money.  Again history validates that fact.  Nonetheless that is what is happening to us.  Progressive driven programs have caused our government to grow so big and unwieldy that it can neither efficiently and effectively manage the programs it implements.  Worse yet the money is drying up. 

Progressives have demonstrated that they cannot effectively and efficiently manage the tax resources forcefully taken from us.  Hence their penchant for borrowing seemingly without regard for eventual consequences.  As budget and debt limit battles show they apparently cannot fathom our objections to an ever increasing tax load and unbounded national debt neither of which we asked for, but no thanks to them we are responsible for.

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/10/09/democrats-to-america-we-own-the-government/

George Burns