Should we do away with political labels? That is what many advocate in the midst of the political controversies and congressional stalemates. A few years ago, a NO LABELS movement got some traction arguing that we need to stop fighting and start fixing our problems.

As much as all of us would like to see progress on governmental issues, political positions and political labels are rooted in reality. Yuval Levin was on my program to talk about his book, The Great Debate. He takes us back to the origin of the left/right debate by looking at the positions of Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke. Their contrasting worldviews illustrate some of the differences today we see in political positions and labels.

Are human beings naturally good or evil? Thomas Paine would say that human beings are born good and only corrupted by social and political institutions. He would agree with the perspective of Jean Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract. By contrast, Edmund Burke argued that without some accountability, humans tend toward corruption.

The implication of this view is significant. James Madison argued in Federalist Paper #51 that government is “the greatest of all reflections on human nature. If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

Take another question. What is the proper role of government? Thomas Paine believed that government should promote autonomy. It should free individuals from external constraints. Edmund Burke, on the other hand, argued that government should strengthen communal bonds. He believed that most of our needs were met within the family and church and civil society. Government, therefore, exists to protect those institutions.

The framers of our government attempted to limit the federal government. James Madison explains why they created both horizontal and vertical distributions of power with checks and balances. He said: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

This book once again reminds us that worldviews matter and political positions and labels are significant.

The American people are being squeezed out by big government, big business, and big labor. That is one of themes of former Senator Jim DeMint’s latest book. He was on my radio program to talk about the small, community activities that Edmund Burke called “the little platoons.” Civic groups, volunteer organizations, and churches are making a positive impact on their communities.

By contrast, the bigs (as he calls them) are taking away our liberty and squeezing out groups doing good. Instead of empowering our little platoons, he says, Washington policymakers have sidelined them.

He also makes a convincing case that our government is too big to manage. Let’s start with some basic numbers. The federal government will spend $3.5 trillion this year. “A large chunk of that money will not achieve its intended purpose.” The president and Congress are supposed to manage a $3.5 trillion bureaucracy with 4.5 million employees. No one in history has every managed such a large organization.

The current president has never managed anything. The previous president did serve as governor and previously served as the owner of a baseball team and an oil company. But even if we chose the best manager in the world, it is doubtful that he or she could manage such a huge bureaucracy.

Try this comparison. The number one company in the Fortune 500 is WalMart. It has total revenues of $470 billion and employees 2.1 million people. “If it were part of the government, WalMart would not even be the second biggest federal program.”

Consider the extent of fraud in the government. Medicare fraud is estimated to be $60 billion, or about seven times as much money as the combined profits of the nation’s ten largest insurance companies. “Compared to the federal government, the largest corporation in America is a mom-and-pop store.”

The problem is simple. We the people are being squeezed by the bigs.

Today (April 15) is significant for at least two reasons. It is tax day, but it is also the day in which the first of four blood moons occur during Jewish feast days. When a lunar eclipse takes place, it is often called a blood moon because the red part of the sun’s light passes by the earth and gives the moon a reddish hue.

Many prophecy teachers point to the fact that some verses of Scripture mention the moon turning to blood and believe this tetrad of blood moons might signal the end of the age. The first blood moon occurs today during Passover (April 15). The next takes place during the Feast of Tabernacles (October 8). Then a third occurs next Passover (April 4, 2015). And the last takes place during the following Feast of Tabernacles (September 29, 2015).

These are significant events in the heavens, but do they predict the return of Christ? Authors of books on the four blood moons usually point of a number of biblical passages, such as Joel 2, Matthew 24, and Revelation 6. I realize that Christians have different views of prophecy, but I think we might at least be able to agree on a basic interpretation of these passages.

Joel 2 was written to people who needed to repent. He prophesied about the “day of the Lord” and Revelation 14 seems to confirm that the prophet Joel was referring to Armageddon in his prophecy. Jesus in Matthew 24 talks about a great tribulation and predicts a time when the sun is darkened and the moon is not giving its light. A blood moon would only occur if the sun is giving its light. Likewise, you have in Revelation 6 the sun becoming black and the moon becoming like blood. Both of these verses seem to be talking about something supernatural not a lunar eclipse.

That being said, I still think that these events can be a great conversation-starter. I would think many people might be intrigued by the fact that there are four lunar eclipses (known as blood moons) that occur on a Jewish feast. I just wouldn’t try to argue that these events are specific prophetic signs.

Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party? That was the question constantly asked in the 1950s by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the House Committee on Un-American Activities. His goal was the root out from our government and from the movie industry those who were communist sympathizers. Asking such questions has come to be known as “McCarthyism,” which is the practice of making such accusations.

Today there seems to be a new question. It goes something like this: Are you now, or have you ever been, a supporter of traditional marriage? If you answer yes, you are likely to be ostracized and can even lose your job. Last week the CEO of Mozilla Corp. was forced out of his position because he donated $1,000 toward Proposition 8 which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

High tech firms in Silicon Valley have tried to create the image that the Internet and their companies are a marketplace of free speech and diversity of thought. That may be true in some cases, but it doesn’t apply when the homosexual lobby decides to punish someone who departs even slightly from the politically correct gay orthodoxy.

We are seeing more and more of these sorts of cases. Charles Krauthammer notes that the left isn’t just interested in winning a debate, but wants to shame and even punish anyone on the other side of an argument. Climate change is called settled science. If you disagree, you are labeled a denier and considered the equivalent of a denier of the Holocaust.

If you support traditional marriage and oppose same-sex marriage, you are considered the equivalent of a segregationist. You are labeled a bigot and pushed to the margins of society. You can lose your job. You can be fined if you don’t perform a service for a same-sex commitment ceremony (even if same-sex marriage isn’t legal in your state).

Make a donation six years ago toward a state constitutional amendment that defines traditional marriage, and you will be forced out of your job and publicly shamed. This is the McCarthyism of the homosexual movement today.

The National Religious Broadcasters have been monitoring censorship on the new media platforms through their John Milton Project for Religious Free Speech. Their conclusion is ominous. The report says: “The free speech liberty of citizens who use the Internet is nearing a crisis point.” Various new media companies like Apple with its iTunes app store, Google, YouTube, and Facebook have been censoring Christian content.

Craig Parshall is Vice President and General Counsel for National Religious Broadcasters and also Director of the John Milton Project. He was on my radio program recently to talk about the threat of censorship from the new media.

There are lots of examples. Apple pulled an iPhone app created for the Manhattan Declaration. The declaration, which was the work of Chuck Colson and others, is an ecumenical document that upholds the biblical perspective on life and marriage. It was pulled because of pressure from homosexual groups. Apple also pulled another app created by Exodus International also because of pressure.

A pastor’s support of traditional marriage and opposition to same-sex marriage was stripped from YouTube. The same thing happened to Lila Rose after she posted her investigative reports on Planned Parenthood.

Last year, Facebook pulled a page by former Governor Mike Huckabee that called for “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.” The page was taken down for about 12 hours before appearing again. A Facebook representative reportedly said the company deleted the page because the “content violated our policies not because of public sentiment.”

The National Religious Broadcasters published free speech guidelines for Internet technology companies. It calls on new media companies to “permit all manner of content, information, and opinions on their web-based platforms, regardless of the viewpoint expressed, unless that content, information or opinion fits squarely within one of the traditional, well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem.”

I encourage you to express your concern to what the new media companies are doing to censor Christian speech.

A few months ago, I did a commentary on the fact the modern nations are facing a “demographic winter.” That is a colorful way of saying that the falling birth rates in many countries will devastate their policies and economies. When fertility rates drop, the population age profile inverts: there are more old people than young people.

Japan is a good example. Eric Metaxas in a recent commentary explains that nearly a quarter of Japan’s population is over sixty-five. By the mid point in this century, the percentage will rise to nearly 40 percent. In order to reverse this, Japan would have to either have more kids or admit more immigrants. Japanese women are having few children, and Japan values homogeneity and will not open their borders to any significant extent. Japan is only one example. Nineteen countries have lower fertility rates than Japan.

Jonathan Last explains what is ahead in his book, What to Expect When No One’s Expecting. He explains that population inversion isn’t the only problem. Slow economic growth follows low population growth. He reminds us that Japan has had essentially zero economic growth in the last two decades.

Immigration is the only thing keeping America from careening off the demographic cliff, like Asia and Europe. The latest figures from the Census Bureau report that the U.S. birth rate is the lowest it has ever recorded. Policy makers should pay attention. Michael Barone points out that when Medicare was established in 1965 and when Social Security was vastly expanded in 1972, America was accustomed to the high birth rates of the baby boom.

The birth rate fell. “Social Security had to be tweaked in 1983 when it became clear there weren’t enough working age people to fund benefits promised to the elderly.” The latest Census Bureau report shows why politicians need to tweak the system once again. We are producing fewer babies and fewer dollars.

Most us are unaware of all the taxes we pay since many taxes are hidden in the products we buy and the services we use. Nevertheless, a recent Rasmussen poll found that 49 percent of Americans think they “pay more than they should in taxes and question the fairness of the current tax system.”

When you ask people about taxes, they usually think of federal income tax. They might also think of any state and local taxes. But we pay more in taxes than we might think.

Payroll taxes are a significant tax at 7.65%. That is double (15.3%) if you are self-employed. Sales taxes levied by state and local authorities are another significant tax. All but five states levy sales taxes that range from 2.9% to 8.25%, which is the rate for California. Many cities also have a local sales tax.

If you drive a vehicle, then don’t forget gasoline taxes. When you pull up to the pump and see rising prices, some of that increase is due to the gasoline tax rate. The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon up to 24.4 cents for diesel. State gas taxes range from 8 cents to 46.6 cents in California.

If you own a home, you also pay property taxes. But even if you rent, some of the rent you pay goes to cover the property taxes. While we are talking about your home, remember that you are paying hidden taxes on utilities like your gas, water, electric, cable, and home phone. Add to that the taxes you pay for your cell phone plan.

Finally, we should mention the so-called “sin taxes.” The cigarette tax ranges from 17 cents per pack to a high of 46 cents per pack in California. Taxes on beer range from 6 centers to over one dollar. Add to this the taxes that are levied on wine and liquor.

Regularly we hear stories in the news about people who have won the lottery. Sometimes there are follow-up stories about what happened to them years later. Most of the stories are discouraging. A famous study of major lottery winners in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that happiness was elusive for most of the winners. Most were less happy than before they won.

Does this mean that money will make us unhappy? No, but it does show the value of earned success. This is something that Arthur Brooks has been studying for some time. Put simply, people are more likely to be happier and more satisfied if they earn their success rather than have it given to them. Arthur Brooks concludes that “earned success facilitates the pursuit of happiness, unearned success generally impedes it.”

Let’s apply this to the entitlement culture that has developed over the last few decades. One study found that “going on the welfare rolls increases by 16% the likelihood of a person saying he or she has felt inconsolably sad over the past month.” Another study found “that single mothers who were required by the 1990s welfare reform to work for their benefits—and therefore lost leisure time, had to find child care and the like—were still significantly happier about their lives after the reforms than before.”

These, and other studies, suggest that Americans will be less happy in the future as the government continues to expand the welfare state. Fewer and fewer people earn their way in America while more and more become dependent upon a government subsidy. A record number of Americans are on food stamps. Entitlements as a percentage of the federal budget have doubled since 1960. The Tax Foundation estimates that nearly 70 percent of American now take more out of the tax system than they pay into it.

We are heading to a future where there will be less earned success and less happiness.

Have you ever heard of the verb “nestoring? I had never heard about it until Jonah Goldberg wrote a column about it. The word comes from Dr. John Nestor, who even has an entry in Wikipedia about him and the reason someone coined the term to describe him.

Back in the 1980s, transit officials in Washington tried to figure out why they were having traffic problems on the Beltway. It turns out that Dr. Nestor would get in the left lane and set his cruise control to 55 mph. This forced cars behind him to merge right and create a bottleneck. He would not move to the right for drivers behind him. He asked: “Why should I inconvenience myself for someone who wants to speed?”

He became a somewhat of a celebrity when he wrote a letter to the Washington Post explaining what he was doing on the highway and why. The newspaper received lots of angry letters to the editor in response and led to the coining of the term “nestoring.”

Dr. Nestor was also a regulator for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. While he was in the cardio-renal-pulmonary unit, he approved no new drugs. None, he reasoned, were worth the risk. That was his philosophy. If you don’t approve of any drugs, then you are guaranteed that no harmful drugs will go out on the market. Of course, you also will be keeping back drugs that could be beneficial, even life-saving, to the general public.

This was the philosophy of John Nestor, which came to be known by the verb “nestoring.” Don’t take any risks. Keep a firm conformity to laws, standards, and regulations regardless of the larger consequences.

We see so many examples of “nestoring” today in government regulations that strive to make the world 100 percent safe. That is impossible in a fallen world. There will always be risk and we will have to weigh them against the benefits. Unfortunately, people who believe in “nestoring” seem to be missing what we used to call common sense.