No Peggy, Americans are not looking for a leader to give them meaning, a higher purpose!

Peggy Noonan in her column today in the Wall Street Journal is telling Romney that he needs to articulate a vision. She tells us that in electing a President

People want meaning, a higher and declared purpose.

How about not screwing up? How about letting people live their own lives. How about letting people decide what the higher declared purpose is in their own lives? Peggy remains in love with the idea of leaders who will give meaning to a country. Despite having worked for Ronald Reagan, she still doesn't realize that his major domestic accomplishments were removing regulations and burdensome taxes. One of his first acts as president was to remove price controls on domestic oil, eliminating the long lines at gas stations and reducing prices almost like magic.

Why is it that so many so-called smart people think that the American people need a “leader?” Mobs have leaders. Mass movements have leaders. Revolutions have leaders. George Washington was the leader of an army and later led a new-made government. Once the new country was established, laws were enacted and customs created, the American people wanted to be left alone and looked to the government to do only those things they could not do for themselves such as law enforcement and national defense.

The people of this country don’t want a “leader” who will give them a vision and compel them to his will. That’s the Obama Way, the Left’s way. Remember how Michelle Obama told us during a speech at UCLA on Febrary 18, 2008:

"Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

The people in this country want to be allowed to create their own vision, not to be enlisted in a mass movement. The people of this country can pretty well run their own lives; can pretty well manage their own affairs and the affairs of their community. The people of this country can go to work where they want or start their own businesses if they want. The main obstacles to the vision of a free people living their lives freely are those who want power over us, to ride us like a horse. And it is people like Peggy Noonan who desire to find that horseman to run the country and the people in it. It was the appeal of Barack Obama to the chattering classes because in that kind of country, the chatterers can help hold the whip in case the horse slows down or wants to, in Michelle’s words “to go back to your lives as usual.”

Quiet down Peggy. I don’t need a leader to give me a vision. In fact, I don’t want a leader to try to force his vision on the American people. A good technocrat who will clear the undergrowth, drain the swamp, cut leviathan down to size will do just fine.