Mind Your Own Business!
The Morality Of Individualism vs. The Morality Of The Collective
During my time as a bartender, I heard many people grouse about the state of society. I listened while people complained how hard they worked all week and how stunned they were when they got their paychecks and saw how much of it they paid in taxes. Inevitably, the topic would turn to all the people that were laying on their butts watching TV and collecting welfare on their dime. Why the heck are we working for them? How come no matter how much money we give them, they are always complaining? Why do I owe that lazy ingrate a dime? I heard a lot from the other side as well. There was plenty of grumbling about rich people and how much money they had and how they rigged the game so that poor people like them didn't have a chance. Among these people there seemed to be a universal feeling that they were owed some type of compensation for the unfairness and inequities of our society.
What all of those conversations boil down to is a simple, but incredibly complex question. What do we as individuals owe to society and, conversely, what does society owe to each citizen in turn? I am not referring to what a Christian/Jew/Muslim/Hindu/Buddhist/Atheist owes to his fellow human being. That is a completely separate discussion dealing with questions of faith, metaphysics and the soul that is beyond the scope of this book. Instead, I want to examine how someone's conception of morality informs and guides their relationship to the broader society they inhabit and how that influences what they see as the proper role for government to play in our lives. Should the government just mind its own business and leave us alone to live our lives the way we choose or do we want it to intervene directly in our lives to help mitigate some of the unfairness and inequalities of the modern world?
These are deep moral questions and, in many ways, the conclusions we derive from them determine how we relate to our world politically. I would like to say that our schools, media and politicians speak directly and with deep intellectual insight about this subject, but we all know that they'd rather entice you with shiny objects and distractions like how many candidate's tax returns and birth certificates can dance on the head of a pin. In order to go beyond the Matrix and understand the nature of the huge partisan and philosophical divide between our people, it is essential that we examine the morality that underlies the two great political movements now dominant in our country.
I began to think about this subject more intensely than I had in awhile in response to an e-mail I got about Ayn Rand from a friend of mine named "Fred". My buddy hates Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism and, when he found out that Paul Ryan was a fan of hers, he wrote to me that this just proves that Republicans are cold hearted cretins. Having just finished reading Atlas Shrugged, I felt the truth to be the opposite. While writing a response to him, I found myself diving into deep issues about morality and the human condition that are particularly relevant to the huge battle over the soul of our nation fought between conservatives and progressives.
I found it oddly coincidental that my friend would bring up Ayn Rand completely out of the blue at just the point I had just finished reading her novel because I had delayed reading it for so long. For many years I knew of Ms. Rand's work and of the profound impact her writing had on others. I hate to admit it, but every time I tried to pick up Atlas Shrugged, I got through about a chapter of that turgid prose, realized I still had another thousand pages to go, and put it down assuring myself I’d finish it later. Of course, I never did. However, when Barack Obama became President and there was greatly renewed interest in Rand’s seminal work, I began to read it again.
2=======================================================================================================
I am amazed at the prescience of Ms. Rand’s book. Just about everything that she predicted fifty years ago that the left would attempt to promulgate in the United States has come to pass today. Virtually every collectivist argument proclaimed by the unholy trinity of government, media and academe she foresaw in her novel are the very ones currently being used in the current Presidential campaign. It is breathtaking the degree to which Ms. Rand understood the left, how they operate and where they were headed. Ayn Rand understood the Matrix.
That said, there are many aspects of Rand’s objectivist philosophy that I don’t agree with. Belief in God for one. However, reading Atlas Shrugged made me once again really examine the basic question of what the individual owes to his fellow citizen. In her novel, Rand makes a strong and profoundlly philosophical argument for the moral imperative of allowing each individual in society to prosper and advance as far as his/her mind could take them. She argues that those who believe in collectivism seek to equalize outcomes among the people which, by limiting individual liberty, serves to diminish the creative spark that has driven human progress from the beginning of time. Those on the left, like "Fred", disparage Rand and her ideas as the product of selfishness, greed and a lack of compassion. They argue that all of us should march forward equally and collectively together. Who then is right? Who has the moral and intellectual high ground in this argument? In the end, what is more important to us as a people: liberty or justice for all? This question has been at the root of the century long struggle between two opposing ideologies.
Like Rand, Conservatives and libertarians believe that the ultimate goal of man on earth is to safeguard, champion and rejoice in the freedom he was endowed with by the Creator. Living in this way enables each individual to pursue his/her own particular form of happiness. This philosophy sees government as a necessary evil to be tolerated only to the degree to which it promotes our God given right to be free. It is an instrument whose purpose is to create a civil society and to do only those thing that promote the general welfare.
As conservatives, we naturally feel that the Founders got it just about right as to the role that government should play in our lives. We believe that only those things that the Constitution specifically authorizes the state to do are its legitimate functions. In addition, the Constitution also talks about the concept of the "general welfare". Conservatives believe that this clause, at the Founding at least, was designed to ensure that every action the government takes should benefit every citizen equally. Thus, general welfare was construed to mean those things which individuals could not do on their own, but that government could do on their behalf. Over time, this has led to government involvement in many areas not specified by the Constitution such as environmental issues and food and drug safety. These are all governmental activities that benefit the entire citizenry equally.
Conservatives see the purpose of the federal government as primarily being a referee that ensures a level playing field for all the people and to ensure our protection from those who would violate our persons and property from without and within. We believe in the 10th Amendment which states that:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"
In this way, government will be constrained in its power in order that individual rights will always be paramount.
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Because the Founders set up a societal system that limits the power of the state, they naturally transferred most of the authority for governance to the citizens themselves. However, that does not mean everyone gets a free lunch and a license to party and riot. Every individual is given the heavy responsibility to self-govern and provide for themselves and their family's well being. Each citizen is expected to be a self-reliant and not a burden to his neighbors and community. While taxes are necessary to fund the maintenance of the necessary functions of a civil society, they are to be limited to that purpose. As far as the less fortunate and those unable because of physical or mental ailment to fend for themselves are concerned, the Founders left it to each of us as servants of God to voluntarily undertake their care.
In the early days of our nation, so strong was the belief in self-reliance and self-governance that Davy Crockett received an earful from a constituent angry at one of the very first attempts at wealth redistribution by the new Congress:
What all of those conversations boil down to is a simple, but incredibly complex question. What do we as individuals owe to society and, conversely, what does society owe to each citizen in turn? I am not referring to what a Christian/Jew/Muslim/Hindu/Buddhist/Atheist owes to his fellow human being. That is a completely separate discussion dealing with questions of faith, metaphysics and the soul that is beyond the scope of this book. Instead, I want to examine how someone's conception of morality informs and guides their relationship to the broader society they inhabit and how that influences what they see as the proper role for government to play in our lives. Should the government just mind its own business and leave us alone to live our lives the way we choose or do we want it to intervene directly in our lives to help mitigate some of the unfairness and inequalities of the modern world?
These are deep moral questions and, in many ways, the conclusions we derive from them determine how we relate to our world politically. I would like to say that our schools, media and politicians speak directly and with deep intellectual insight about this subject, but we all know that they'd rather entice you with shiny objects and distractions like how many candidate's tax returns and birth certificates can dance on the head of a pin. In order to go beyond the Matrix and understand the nature of the huge partisan and philosophical divide between our people, it is essential that we examine the morality that underlies the two great political movements now dominant in our country.
I began to think about this subject more intensely than I had in awhile in response to an e-mail I got about Ayn Rand from a friend of mine named "Fred". My buddy hates Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism and, when he found out that Paul Ryan was a fan of hers, he wrote to me that this just proves that Republicans are cold hearted cretins. Having just finished reading Atlas Shrugged, I felt the truth to be the opposite. While writing a response to him, I found myself diving into deep issues about morality and the human condition that are particularly relevant to the huge battle over the soul of our nation fought between conservatives and progressives.
I found it oddly coincidental that my friend would bring up Ayn Rand completely out of the blue at just the point I had just finished reading her novel because I had delayed reading it for so long. For many years I knew of Ms. Rand's work and of the profound impact her writing had on others. I hate to admit it, but every time I tried to pick up Atlas Shrugged, I got through about a chapter of that turgid prose, realized I still had another thousand pages to go, and put it down assuring myself I’d finish it later. Of course, I never did. However, when Barack Obama became President and there was greatly renewed interest in Rand’s seminal work, I began to read it again.
2=======================================================================================================
I am amazed at the prescience of Ms. Rand’s book. Just about everything that she predicted fifty years ago that the left would attempt to promulgate in the United States has come to pass today. Virtually every collectivist argument proclaimed by the unholy trinity of government, media and academe she foresaw in her novel are the very ones currently being used in the current Presidential campaign. It is breathtaking the degree to which Ms. Rand understood the left, how they operate and where they were headed. Ayn Rand understood the Matrix.
That said, there are many aspects of Rand’s objectivist philosophy that I don’t agree with. Belief in God for one. However, reading Atlas Shrugged made me once again really examine the basic question of what the individual owes to his fellow citizen. In her novel, Rand makes a strong and profoundlly philosophical argument for the moral imperative of allowing each individual in society to prosper and advance as far as his/her mind could take them. She argues that those who believe in collectivism seek to equalize outcomes among the people which, by limiting individual liberty, serves to diminish the creative spark that has driven human progress from the beginning of time. Those on the left, like "Fred", disparage Rand and her ideas as the product of selfishness, greed and a lack of compassion. They argue that all of us should march forward equally and collectively together. Who then is right? Who has the moral and intellectual high ground in this argument? In the end, what is more important to us as a people: liberty or justice for all? This question has been at the root of the century long struggle between two opposing ideologies.
Like Rand, Conservatives and libertarians believe that the ultimate goal of man on earth is to safeguard, champion and rejoice in the freedom he was endowed with by the Creator. Living in this way enables each individual to pursue his/her own particular form of happiness. This philosophy sees government as a necessary evil to be tolerated only to the degree to which it promotes our God given right to be free. It is an instrument whose purpose is to create a civil society and to do only those thing that promote the general welfare.
As conservatives, we naturally feel that the Founders got it just about right as to the role that government should play in our lives. We believe that only those things that the Constitution specifically authorizes the state to do are its legitimate functions. In addition, the Constitution also talks about the concept of the "general welfare". Conservatives believe that this clause, at the Founding at least, was designed to ensure that every action the government takes should benefit every citizen equally. Thus, general welfare was construed to mean those things which individuals could not do on their own, but that government could do on their behalf. Over time, this has led to government involvement in many areas not specified by the Constitution such as environmental issues and food and drug safety. These are all governmental activities that benefit the entire citizenry equally.
Conservatives see the purpose of the federal government as primarily being a referee that ensures a level playing field for all the people and to ensure our protection from those who would violate our persons and property from without and within. We believe in the 10th Amendment which states that:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"
In this way, government will be constrained in its power in order that individual rights will always be paramount.
3======================================================================================================
Because the Founders set up a societal system that limits the power of the state, they naturally transferred most of the authority for governance to the citizens themselves. However, that does not mean everyone gets a free lunch and a license to party and riot. Every individual is given the heavy responsibility to self-govern and provide for themselves and their family's well being. Each citizen is expected to be a self-reliant and not a burden to his neighbors and community. While taxes are necessary to fund the maintenance of the necessary functions of a civil society, they are to be limited to that purpose. As far as the less fortunate and those unable because of physical or mental ailment to fend for themselves are concerned, the Founders left it to each of us as servants of God to voluntarily undertake their care.
In the early days of our nation, so strong was the belief in self-reliance and self-governance that Davy Crockett received an earful from a constituent angry at one of the very first attempts at wealth redistribution by the new Congress:
Davy's constituent was prescient. Once the door was opened for the government to redistribute wealth, the nature of the constitutional republic the Founders created was forever altered. From that moment on, liberty would be under assault from those who believed that government was the proper place for charitable endeavors. Whether Crockett's constituent was correct in the opinion that no one had the right to give his money to another solely for their benefit has been the subject of almost two hundred years of debate. Is it moral to appropriate from one person in order for corrupt politicians to give it to whomever is deemed most deserving at any given moment? Is that the proper role of government or is it the proper role of individuals through their own charitable donations?
While that particular debate is still ongoing in our country to this day, the Founders left it up to us to decide how to handle the matter. Conservatives believe that there may be a role for the government to provide for a safety net, but they do not believe that that safety net should become a hammock to which people are guaranteed benefits they did not earn. A proper safety net should be a hand up, not a hand out. For us, there is no question that true happiness and worth comes from a job, not a welfare check that robs people of their dignity and pride. Our guiding principle is that freedom is the source of all that is good. We value the society that the Founders bequeathed to posterity because it is based on the moral imperative of creating equal opportunity for every citizen to pursue their own individual dreams wherever it might take them. It is a society based upon liberty.
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Progressives, liberals, socialists and communists, on the other hand, believe the purpose of government is to provide equal justice for all. While this may strike some as basically being the same thing as what conservatives and libertarians believe, it is actually the opposite. The philosophy of liberty promotes the concept of equal opportunity. The philosophy of equal justice promotes equal outcomes. This difference in perspective as to the proper role of government in society is profound and, as we shall see, is the main cause of the angry and deep partisan divide that grips our country:
While that particular debate is still ongoing in our country to this day, the Founders left it up to us to decide how to handle the matter. Conservatives believe that there may be a role for the government to provide for a safety net, but they do not believe that that safety net should become a hammock to which people are guaranteed benefits they did not earn. A proper safety net should be a hand up, not a hand out. For us, there is no question that true happiness and worth comes from a job, not a welfare check that robs people of their dignity and pride. Our guiding principle is that freedom is the source of all that is good. We value the society that the Founders bequeathed to posterity because it is based on the moral imperative of creating equal opportunity for every citizen to pursue their own individual dreams wherever it might take them. It is a society based upon liberty.
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Progressives, liberals, socialists and communists, on the other hand, believe the purpose of government is to provide equal justice for all. While this may strike some as basically being the same thing as what conservatives and libertarians believe, it is actually the opposite. The philosophy of liberty promotes the concept of equal opportunity. The philosophy of equal justice promotes equal outcomes. This difference in perspective as to the proper role of government in society is profound and, as we shall see, is the main cause of the angry and deep partisan divide that grips our country:
Whether you want to call it socialism or not, liberalism's approach to government comes from an entirely different moral and ideological perspective. The left is not happy with the Constitution as it was written. They believe that in order for our society to achieve equal justice, the entire meaning and purpose of the Founding documents must be changed. America, as Barack Obama so famously declared, must be fundamentally transformed.
In Exceptionalism, we heard then Senator Obama opine in a radio interview that he believes that there are major flaws in the way the Constitution is written. In the opinion of progressives like the President, the Constitution is a "charter of negative liberties". It only says what government can't do to you. Leftists would prefer a governing document that says what government must do on your behalf. Thus, according to their ideology, in order to fix what they consider to be deeply ingrained societal injustices, a system of government must be created that guarantees each and every citizen what they deem to be the essential rights of humanity. Society, in their view cannot be considered moral until everyone is freed from need and want.
FDR was the first major politician to promote this idea in the United states when he proposed what he called the Second Bill of Rights:
In Exceptionalism, we heard then Senator Obama opine in a radio interview that he believes that there are major flaws in the way the Constitution is written. In the opinion of progressives like the President, the Constitution is a "charter of negative liberties". It only says what government can't do to you. Leftists would prefer a governing document that says what government must do on your behalf. Thus, according to their ideology, in order to fix what they consider to be deeply ingrained societal injustices, a system of government must be created that guarantees each and every citizen what they deem to be the essential rights of humanity. Society, in their view cannot be considered moral until everyone is freed from need and want.
FDR was the first major politician to promote this idea in the United states when he proposed what he called the Second Bill of Rights:
To be clear, virtually everything on President Roosevelt's list are things that most everyone can agree they'd like to see take place. I mean, who doesn't think everyone should be able to have a job, a home, food to eat and decent medical care? But, it is one thing to say that we would like to live in a world where prosperity is such that there is an abundance of the kinds of high paying jobs that would provide everyone with these wonderful things. It is another entirely to say that they should be the right of every citizen regardless of how prosperous the nation is, whether it can afford to pay for them or whether each citizen desires to be responsible for his fellow in this manner.
Unlike our basic unalienable rights to things like speech, religion and the right to bear arms, these new proposed rights are commodities that can be bought and sold. It costs no one their property for you to speak your mind, pray as you wish and own as many guns as your heart desires. However, for the government to guarantee each citizen food, a house and health care costs money and that requires the forcible taking away of another citizen's property in order to provide it.
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Proponents of a philosophy based on promoting social justice and egalitarianism have a unique take on the Constitution that has allowed them to enact many of their ideas. Regardless of the written intent of the Founders, the left believes that when it says in the Constitution that government has a responsibility to provide for the "general welfare", they can interpret that to mean that we all have a collective responsibility to be our brother's keeper:
Unlike our basic unalienable rights to things like speech, religion and the right to bear arms, these new proposed rights are commodities that can be bought and sold. It costs no one their property for you to speak your mind, pray as you wish and own as many guns as your heart desires. However, for the government to guarantee each citizen food, a house and health care costs money and that requires the forcible taking away of another citizen's property in order to provide it.
5======================================================================================================
Proponents of a philosophy based on promoting social justice and egalitarianism have a unique take on the Constitution that has allowed them to enact many of their ideas. Regardless of the written intent of the Founders, the left believes that when it says in the Constitution that government has a responsibility to provide for the "general welfare", they can interpret that to mean that we all have a collective responsibility to be our brother's keeper:
Of course Barry isn't referring to his own brother, aunt or uncle. He is perfectly happy to let them fend for themselves and live in tiny shacks or on welfare. Obama has no problem using my money to pay for someone else's health care, but he won't use his to help out his nephew suffering from a chest condition in a hospital in Kenya. Yet, with all his wealth, it would be so easy for him to help them out. But, the One doesn't believe in being his own family's keeper with his personal stash , just someone else's. This is hypocrisy on a grand scale. But I digress...
The the idea that we all share a collective responsibility for each other is the central tenet of progressive philosophy. It is what Hillary Clinton’s book It Takes a Village is all about. It is also one of the central foundations of Marxism and Socialism. Once you decide that government's powers expand beyond just providing for the services that create a civil society in order to provide for equal opportunity for everyone, you have crossed a very important Rubicon. This is the point that Davy Crockett's constituent was trying to make.
Regardless of whether you love or hate Barack Obama's little bit of oratorical flourish at the 2004 convention, there is no doubt that it is a clarion call for the collectivist philosophy: we are our brother's keeper and the state should do the keeping with your tax dollars. Further, it is each citizen's individual responsibility to aid the collective. We are all in this together. That is, unless you don't feel like it. Then it is still the collective's responsibility to aid you. Uh, what?
Sounds different when I put it that way doesn't it? That doesn't jibe at all with what progressives try to spin you about social justice during election time, eh? In passages like the one above, left wing politicians like Obama are always tugging at your heartstrings with the stories of people who are oppressed and in need, but they always gloss over the fact that what when they propose that things like housing, food and health care become "rights", then no one has to work for them if they don't want to. They are born entitled to them. That's what having a "right" is all about. It is no longer a privilege. It is a birthright!
Think, for a moment, how that changes the essential societal bargain. If food, shelter, medical care and whatever other goodies that people believe are essential for life (some argue this includes a cell phone, a computer, internet and a car), are an inalienable right, then what incentive do they have to work? If all of your basic needs are provided for you, why dig ditches or work as a dishwasher? And what about the person who works one of those jobs and is trying to better himself? Why should the fruits of his labor be confiscated to provide for someone who chooses just to sit around and collect his inalienable rights?
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Since President Obama is so fond of quoting from scripture, perhaps he just overlooked this passage from the Apostle Paul:
"If anyone isn't willing to work, he should not eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10).
However, you can be sure that Obama and his progressive allies are going to do their best to spin away from the central reality that what they are proposing leads to some people getting something for nothing. That's not the kind of knowledge that the left would like you to have about the implications of their policies. However, that is the inescapable reality of it. Fortunately for them, they have a lapdog media and control of schools and universities, so often they can keep that information under lids. Gotta love how the Matrix works for the left, don't you?
Nonetheless, the left is forcing us to confront a very serious moral question. In order to achieve what they consider to be social justice, progressives assert the right to seize someone's property in order that they might provide it to another that they deem more deserving of it. The intentions of the redistribution of wealth always seem righteous on first blush. Take food stamps for instance. No one wants anyone else to starve. Would it then be the right thing to help a family who is hungry to eat? Absolutely. That is what charity is for. But, does the state have a right to demand that someone else pay for that meal regardless of how noble the intention is? The implications of this major breach of our unalienable rights is profound:
The the idea that we all share a collective responsibility for each other is the central tenet of progressive philosophy. It is what Hillary Clinton’s book It Takes a Village is all about. It is also one of the central foundations of Marxism and Socialism. Once you decide that government's powers expand beyond just providing for the services that create a civil society in order to provide for equal opportunity for everyone, you have crossed a very important Rubicon. This is the point that Davy Crockett's constituent was trying to make.
Regardless of whether you love or hate Barack Obama's little bit of oratorical flourish at the 2004 convention, there is no doubt that it is a clarion call for the collectivist philosophy: we are our brother's keeper and the state should do the keeping with your tax dollars. Further, it is each citizen's individual responsibility to aid the collective. We are all in this together. That is, unless you don't feel like it. Then it is still the collective's responsibility to aid you. Uh, what?
Sounds different when I put it that way doesn't it? That doesn't jibe at all with what progressives try to spin you about social justice during election time, eh? In passages like the one above, left wing politicians like Obama are always tugging at your heartstrings with the stories of people who are oppressed and in need, but they always gloss over the fact that what when they propose that things like housing, food and health care become "rights", then no one has to work for them if they don't want to. They are born entitled to them. That's what having a "right" is all about. It is no longer a privilege. It is a birthright!
Think, for a moment, how that changes the essential societal bargain. If food, shelter, medical care and whatever other goodies that people believe are essential for life (some argue this includes a cell phone, a computer, internet and a car), are an inalienable right, then what incentive do they have to work? If all of your basic needs are provided for you, why dig ditches or work as a dishwasher? And what about the person who works one of those jobs and is trying to better himself? Why should the fruits of his labor be confiscated to provide for someone who chooses just to sit around and collect his inalienable rights?
6======================================================================================================
Since President Obama is so fond of quoting from scripture, perhaps he just overlooked this passage from the Apostle Paul:
"If anyone isn't willing to work, he should not eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10).
However, you can be sure that Obama and his progressive allies are going to do their best to spin away from the central reality that what they are proposing leads to some people getting something for nothing. That's not the kind of knowledge that the left would like you to have about the implications of their policies. However, that is the inescapable reality of it. Fortunately for them, they have a lapdog media and control of schools and universities, so often they can keep that information under lids. Gotta love how the Matrix works for the left, don't you?
Nonetheless, the left is forcing us to confront a very serious moral question. In order to achieve what they consider to be social justice, progressives assert the right to seize someone's property in order that they might provide it to another that they deem more deserving of it. The intentions of the redistribution of wealth always seem righteous on first blush. Take food stamps for instance. No one wants anyone else to starve. Would it then be the right thing to help a family who is hungry to eat? Absolutely. That is what charity is for. But, does the state have a right to demand that someone else pay for that meal regardless of how noble the intention is? The implications of this major breach of our unalienable rights is profound:
Ayn Rand is despised by those on the left. How dare someone say that the collective has no right to the fruits of someone's mind and labor! How utterly selfish and greedy! There are so many people who are suffering. Those who have been successful, like Gary Cooper's character in The Fountainhead, must be forced to give their rewards back to the society that "enabled" it in the first place. Progressives believe that this is a citizen's moral obligation to his countrymen, even if it must be enforced without their consent.
Politicians and spin-meisters on the left usually try to mask the ugliness of this aspect of their philosophy by disguising and sugar-coating their collectivist impulses and focusing the narrative on notions of fairness and appeals to envy in their disparagement the evil rich. To do otherwise exposes their collectivist argument to charges of the socialism and communism from which it originates. In this center right country, that would spell instant electoral death.
With the aid of a compliant media that is only too eager to show stories of starving children or the few seniors who are forced to eat dog food so that they can pay for their medicine, the Democrats are usually able to sit comfortably on the high ground of compassion. It is the easiest thing in the world to be a liberal. You get to pump up your chest with pride in the fact that you care about your fellow man and his plight. By offering to spend someone else's money and outsource the job of providing the help to government, you too can feel like a great humanitarian without actually doing anything yourself. And those dastardly Republicans who say we can't afford such largesse or say it is wrong to tax people to pay for it? Why they are mean, evil and probably racists!
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This ability to dominate the moral high ground through the appearance of compassion is the reason why we have such massive and unsustainable growth in entitlement spending. But with a media that is willing to spin their memes and distract people's attention from the fact that all of this caring and good intentions are making us go broke, progressives have had great success portraying themselves as paragons of virtue. However, once in awhile the true leftist in them come out and they reveal to us all what they really believe:
Politicians and spin-meisters on the left usually try to mask the ugliness of this aspect of their philosophy by disguising and sugar-coating their collectivist impulses and focusing the narrative on notions of fairness and appeals to envy in their disparagement the evil rich. To do otherwise exposes their collectivist argument to charges of the socialism and communism from which it originates. In this center right country, that would spell instant electoral death.
With the aid of a compliant media that is only too eager to show stories of starving children or the few seniors who are forced to eat dog food so that they can pay for their medicine, the Democrats are usually able to sit comfortably on the high ground of compassion. It is the easiest thing in the world to be a liberal. You get to pump up your chest with pride in the fact that you care about your fellow man and his plight. By offering to spend someone else's money and outsource the job of providing the help to government, you too can feel like a great humanitarian without actually doing anything yourself. And those dastardly Republicans who say we can't afford such largesse or say it is wrong to tax people to pay for it? Why they are mean, evil and probably racists!
7=======================================================================================================
This ability to dominate the moral high ground through the appearance of compassion is the reason why we have such massive and unsustainable growth in entitlement spending. But with a media that is willing to spin their memes and distract people's attention from the fact that all of this caring and good intentions are making us go broke, progressives have had great success portraying themselves as paragons of virtue. However, once in awhile the true leftist in them come out and they reveal to us all what they really believe:
What is expressed by Barack Obama during this revelatory peek inside his mind is so against everything that this country has always stood for, it blows my mind that it was actually uttered by a President of the United States during my lifetime. How does one get to be an instructor of Constitutional law and then President of this nation without understanding the social compact whereby the government receives its legitimacy? The whole point of the general welfare clause and the specifically enumerated powers of the Constitution (roads, post office, military) is to provide each and every American equal opportunity, personal security and access to necessary government services that cannot be provided by individuals on their own. As citizens, all of us (or half of us actually) pay our taxes and, thus, we are all equally entitled to access the services that are funded by our money. Obviously, some will do this more successfully than others, but everyone has the opportunity to do so. That's the point.
The truth is, Mr. President, that it is irrelevant whether we just use the road to get to work or whether we use it to transport thousands of tons of goods to our customers. The only thing that matters is that the government provides each of us with the opportunity to do so without favoritism or bias. A civil society is set up so that everyone has the opportunity to access its benefits, not to penalize those who are more successful at it than others.
Furthermore, since we have a progressive tax code, the more successful someone is the more they will pay towards the maintenance of those necessary functions of government and, therefore, the more and better services we can provide for everyone. It is the creation of wealth that is the horse that drives the road building cart. Not the other way around.
Kurth Schlichter over at Breitbart.com came up with an awesome mathematical formula to help our President learn something new:
(Roads + Bridges +Internet) x (Hard Work + Initiative) =/= (Roads + Bridges +Internet) x Zero Effort
Maybe that might help Barry figure this thing out, but I doubt it.
8=======================================================================================================
A more important question raised by the President's specious logic is this: since the benefits of civil society can be accessed by all equally, why should they not be funded by all equally? Why are certain people singled out for an extra "contribution" while others (now nearly 50% of taxpayers) pay nothing into the treasury to fund it and yet still maintain an entitlement not only to the benefits of the civil society, but also an entitlement to the wealth of those who created it? How is that fair or just?
It isn't, of course. But, the President surely knows this. This kind of argument is classic progressive spin used to fabricate a rationale for the funding of his social justice agenda. The real reason President Obama wants to extract more tax dollars from the successful isn't to fund the roads, bridges, teachers and cops. Most of this is actually already provided by local and state governments. In fact, current revenue from current taxes is plenty to fund every single thing the government does except for entitlements with money left over to spare. Thus, the argument he is making about why the rich should pay more in taxes has nothing to do with what he wants those taxes to be used for. Barack Obama is using a flawed argument to mask a truth he'd rather not share with the American people: I need more money from the people that are pulling the cart and making our society work so that I can give it to all the people that are now riding in it.
While Barack Obama's ignorance about the nature of the American social compact is troubling, it is this glimpse into his collectivist mindset that informs how he believes the economy works that speaks volumes about him and the political party he leads. The President is seemingly and unalterably convinced that it is government that is the driving force in creating prosperity. In Barack Obama's imaginary America, without the totality of the collective paying for the roads, teachers and cops, no one can succeed in business. While there is some truth in that statement, it flies in the face of reality. In the real world of the constitutional republic we live in, slavery has been abolished. If the government wants to build a road, teach our youth or police our streets, it cannot just pull people from their homes and order them to perform these services. It actually needs to pay them to do so. In other words it needs wealth to be created first so that it can be taxed to fill the government coffers to pay those workers. Imagine that!
And who is it that creates wealth? Why, it's the individual businessman whose great idea, hard work, perseverance and willingness to risk everything that creates the type of success and reward that the fat government bureaucrat with a lifetime job, cushy benefits and pension chooses not to pursue. Instead of attacking those who created the wealth to make the road possible, Obama should be applauding them for their service to their community. Anyone who has ever started a business knows that it is one of the most difficult and stressful endeavors imaginable. So many people fail in the attempt and lose everything they worked so hard to achieve.
Therefore, is it right for the President to claim that these entrepreneurs didn't earn their success and their reward? Do successful people who create jobs and wealth for the society somehow owe more of a contribution than someone who sits on his butt and does nothing? Really? When Bill Gates helped to create the computer revolution, not only did he create thousands (perhaps millions) of jobs that had never existed before and billions of dollars in wealth that has filled the treasury, but his ideas and innovations have enriched our lives dramatically. How is it that his or any other wealth creator's accomplishments and contributions to society should be denigrated by the President of the United States? Is it true that because an individual may (or may not) have paid the taxes that helped build the system from which Bill Gates was able to found and operate Microsoft, he is as deserving of the rewards as the person who took the risk? After all, according to Barry's logic, other people are smart. Other people work hard too. They pay their taxes (or not). So, why shouldn't they get a nice slice of the pie? Doesn't the person who baked it have more than enough to satisfy their own hunger? They should share!
9=======================================================================================================
The other day I read a unique take on what President Obama was really saying with his remarks in Roanoke. It comes from Fay Voshel and she has parsed what the President had to say and she came up with this interpretation:
"We own you."
Without the State, you are nothing. All your abilities, your intellect, your individuality, your work, your dreams, and the fruits of your labor would never happen without the federal government. Where would you be without us? We allowed you, along with the rest of the amorphous and indistinguishable masses constituting the collective, to thrive.
You owe everything to the State.
What you eat, where you sleep, and how you earn your daily bread are because of the State's munificence. Everything is a gift to you from the State, in which you live and move and have your being.
Do you really think you as a mere individual built and therefore own your business? Do you think you are entitled to "your" profits? We built the infrastructure that supports your endeavor; therefore, we can tax you as we please. Your initiative and hard work are merely part of the entire labor pool, a small slice of the community of others.
This is the progressive collectivist mentality in a nutshell. Believing that someone's success is not truly earned, that they had to get help from the "village" along the way, justifies government to confiscate the of wealth of some in order to give it to others. From each according to his ability to each according to his need. Sound familiar? Well, it might if you came from the Soviet Union, but it is antithetical to everything our Founding Fathers created. Obama's "you didn't build that" philosophy is the antithesis of the pioneer spirit that built this country. It is an outright repudiation of American Exceptionalism!
Is Ms. Voshel right? Have we really come to a time when the President of the United States would actually say that to an audience of Americans and have them applaud him? Have the ideological battles of the 20th century finally culminated into a battle between the Marxist ideal of collectivism and the Founders ideal of liberty? It appears so. At least according to head NBC political correspondent Chuck Todd:
The truth is, Mr. President, that it is irrelevant whether we just use the road to get to work or whether we use it to transport thousands of tons of goods to our customers. The only thing that matters is that the government provides each of us with the opportunity to do so without favoritism or bias. A civil society is set up so that everyone has the opportunity to access its benefits, not to penalize those who are more successful at it than others.
Furthermore, since we have a progressive tax code, the more successful someone is the more they will pay towards the maintenance of those necessary functions of government and, therefore, the more and better services we can provide for everyone. It is the creation of wealth that is the horse that drives the road building cart. Not the other way around.
Kurth Schlichter over at Breitbart.com came up with an awesome mathematical formula to help our President learn something new:
(Roads + Bridges +Internet) x (Hard Work + Initiative) =/= (Roads + Bridges +Internet) x Zero Effort
Maybe that might help Barry figure this thing out, but I doubt it.
8=======================================================================================================
A more important question raised by the President's specious logic is this: since the benefits of civil society can be accessed by all equally, why should they not be funded by all equally? Why are certain people singled out for an extra "contribution" while others (now nearly 50% of taxpayers) pay nothing into the treasury to fund it and yet still maintain an entitlement not only to the benefits of the civil society, but also an entitlement to the wealth of those who created it? How is that fair or just?
It isn't, of course. But, the President surely knows this. This kind of argument is classic progressive spin used to fabricate a rationale for the funding of his social justice agenda. The real reason President Obama wants to extract more tax dollars from the successful isn't to fund the roads, bridges, teachers and cops. Most of this is actually already provided by local and state governments. In fact, current revenue from current taxes is plenty to fund every single thing the government does except for entitlements with money left over to spare. Thus, the argument he is making about why the rich should pay more in taxes has nothing to do with what he wants those taxes to be used for. Barack Obama is using a flawed argument to mask a truth he'd rather not share with the American people: I need more money from the people that are pulling the cart and making our society work so that I can give it to all the people that are now riding in it.
While Barack Obama's ignorance about the nature of the American social compact is troubling, it is this glimpse into his collectivist mindset that informs how he believes the economy works that speaks volumes about him and the political party he leads. The President is seemingly and unalterably convinced that it is government that is the driving force in creating prosperity. In Barack Obama's imaginary America, without the totality of the collective paying for the roads, teachers and cops, no one can succeed in business. While there is some truth in that statement, it flies in the face of reality. In the real world of the constitutional republic we live in, slavery has been abolished. If the government wants to build a road, teach our youth or police our streets, it cannot just pull people from their homes and order them to perform these services. It actually needs to pay them to do so. In other words it needs wealth to be created first so that it can be taxed to fill the government coffers to pay those workers. Imagine that!
And who is it that creates wealth? Why, it's the individual businessman whose great idea, hard work, perseverance and willingness to risk everything that creates the type of success and reward that the fat government bureaucrat with a lifetime job, cushy benefits and pension chooses not to pursue. Instead of attacking those who created the wealth to make the road possible, Obama should be applauding them for their service to their community. Anyone who has ever started a business knows that it is one of the most difficult and stressful endeavors imaginable. So many people fail in the attempt and lose everything they worked so hard to achieve.
Therefore, is it right for the President to claim that these entrepreneurs didn't earn their success and their reward? Do successful people who create jobs and wealth for the society somehow owe more of a contribution than someone who sits on his butt and does nothing? Really? When Bill Gates helped to create the computer revolution, not only did he create thousands (perhaps millions) of jobs that had never existed before and billions of dollars in wealth that has filled the treasury, but his ideas and innovations have enriched our lives dramatically. How is it that his or any other wealth creator's accomplishments and contributions to society should be denigrated by the President of the United States? Is it true that because an individual may (or may not) have paid the taxes that helped build the system from which Bill Gates was able to found and operate Microsoft, he is as deserving of the rewards as the person who took the risk? After all, according to Barry's logic, other people are smart. Other people work hard too. They pay their taxes (or not). So, why shouldn't they get a nice slice of the pie? Doesn't the person who baked it have more than enough to satisfy their own hunger? They should share!
9=======================================================================================================
The other day I read a unique take on what President Obama was really saying with his remarks in Roanoke. It comes from Fay Voshel and she has parsed what the President had to say and she came up with this interpretation:
"We own you."
Without the State, you are nothing. All your abilities, your intellect, your individuality, your work, your dreams, and the fruits of your labor would never happen without the federal government. Where would you be without us? We allowed you, along with the rest of the amorphous and indistinguishable masses constituting the collective, to thrive.
You owe everything to the State.
What you eat, where you sleep, and how you earn your daily bread are because of the State's munificence. Everything is a gift to you from the State, in which you live and move and have your being.
Do you really think you as a mere individual built and therefore own your business? Do you think you are entitled to "your" profits? We built the infrastructure that supports your endeavor; therefore, we can tax you as we please. Your initiative and hard work are merely part of the entire labor pool, a small slice of the community of others.
This is the progressive collectivist mentality in a nutshell. Believing that someone's success is not truly earned, that they had to get help from the "village" along the way, justifies government to confiscate the of wealth of some in order to give it to others. From each according to his ability to each according to his need. Sound familiar? Well, it might if you came from the Soviet Union, but it is antithetical to everything our Founding Fathers created. Obama's "you didn't build that" philosophy is the antithesis of the pioneer spirit that built this country. It is an outright repudiation of American Exceptionalism!
Is Ms. Voshel right? Have we really come to a time when the President of the United States would actually say that to an audience of Americans and have them applaud him? Have the ideological battles of the 20th century finally culminated into a battle between the Marxist ideal of collectivism and the Founders ideal of liberty? It appears so. At least according to head NBC political correspondent Chuck Todd:
Do you see how upset Joe Scarborough is that the nation has actually reached such a point in its politics that it is considering embracing a collectivist model that is responsible for the death of hundreds of millions of people? Obama's opening up the curtain that has successfully concealed what the left has always believed has shocked many people who have been under the false impression that the modern Democrat party are the heirs of JFK and Harry Truman. Now, the real truth is laid bare for all to see. This is not your father's Democrat party. Even Mitt Romney understands how profound this revelation is:
I know it's a long one, but it's worth it
As Romney just made clear, the opportunity of each individual to pursue happiness and to follow their dreams is what built this country. We did not become the most prosperous country in the world because of anything the government did. We became the most prosperous country because constitutionally protected freedom is the most fertile ground for creativity and wealth creation in the history of man on earth. To be free to think, create, invest, risk and produce is what leads to prosperity, not some government program. This does not mean that government does not have a role to play. But, it does mean that role is subordinate to each individuals right to strive to achieve great things and be rewarded commensurately.
10======================================================================================================
Amazingly, despite all evidence to the contrary, progressives like Barack Obama believe that government and its programs are what creates wealth. You can gauge his level of certitude in this concept when he talks about how it was government that invented the internet. You see, you stupid Republicans and greedy businessmen, it was government that created the whole online world that you profited from. Therefore, government is the engine that drives the economy and you should be happy we allow you to contribute more of your wealth and pay your fair share. We'll make you richer!
Of course, by using the internet as an example of how the government horse pulls the economic cart, the President once again reveals how little he actually does know about the internet and the role the government actually did play. First of all, the internet wasn't really invented by the government. It was invented by Xerox PARC labs in Silicon Valley during the 1970's. However, whatever part of the internet that was developed by the defense department was financed with dollars taken from the wealth created by the citizens of this country. The government doesn't own it. The people do because they paid for it. By law, that grants each citizen an equal right to try and use it and create opportunity from it. But, missing this essential point isn't even the begining of Obama's ignorance.
From listening to Barry, you might get the idea that the government designed the internet with the express purpose of creating the wonderful world of cyberspace. But that wasn't how it went down. Actually, the internet was created solely and specifically for the different branches of government (particularly the military) to be able to allow their computers to communicate with each other over a distance. That was it. No one had any thought as to its business implications. However, with the creative genius of millions of fertile minds, business took a useful but limited government invention and turned it into something magical. It was individuals seeking their own selfish interests, not the government that created the wealth of the online world.
It is the Zuckerbergs of the world who come up with the idea for Facebook (for good or evil) not some faceless government bureaucrat. Why? Not because he was trying to do some great noble deed for the "collective", but because he wanted to make tons of money and vastly increase the number and quality of the women in his social life. Recognizing that just about everything we take for granted that makes our lives better was invented by some evil rich dude/dudette or company who were in it solely for the greedy motivation of making money is the first step in beginning to appreciate why freedom is so important to modern prosperity and why fostering and protecting it should be the ultimate goal of a moral government.
In the entire seventy some odd year history of the USSR, did that government ever create anything of use to the world? Did any of their satellites in Eastern Europe? Have the Cubans under Castro? Have the Red Chinese? Have the Swedes for crying out loud? Think about it.
Freedom is conducive to people turning their dreams into reality. Freedom, not government. The things that make our lives better do not come from a council of bureaucrats, but from individual minds and imaginations and from economic systems that reward such ideas handsomely. Preferably with boatloads of cash! That is the reality we live in. To claim otherwise defies history, fact and logic.
Back in the ancient times, you could become rich by conquering other countries and taking their stuff. In the modern world, the only way for a nation to create wealth is by either inventing things or producing them. The problem we have with our economy today is not that we have run out of creative minds, but that government makes it so difficult to turn ideas into a profitable reality with its high taxes and over-regulation. As a result, the ideas may originate here, but the product is built where it is more competitive to do so. That's why Apple builds its i-Phones and i-Pads in China. Thus, we create many things, but don't produce them and the economy, particularly blue collar factory workers, suffer as a result.
The truth is that unless creativity, initiative and hard work are well rewarded, it would be simpler and far more secure for everyone to aspire to a cushy government job. Or, as history shows, to sit around and drink vodka like they did in the former Soviet Union and as they do in the failed citadels of liberal compassion like Detroit, Camden and Cleveland.
11=====================================================================================================
This all seems fairly obvious doesn't it? It is the creative genius of the American people living in a free society that creates wealth. Obama's vision of government being the engine that drives wealth is a fantasy. The Soviet Union had tons of cops (way too many), plenty of roads, bridges, rail lines, ports, copious numbers of teachers and free medical care, yet they created so little wealth that the whole society collapsed. You'd think that our Barry and the rest of the progressives would understand this basic historical fact, but you'd be wrong. They believe that the collectivist model works best. Sure communism and socialism has failed everywhere it's been tried, but it just wasn't done right. Every generation of progressives thinks that they are the geniuses who'll finally figure out how to make this collectivism thing work. To paraphrase Obama, we're the ones we've been waiting for and we'll get it right this time. Yeah, right...
Besides, progressives say, capitalism is based upon greed and greed is bad. Greed is sinful. Greed is immoral. Sure, free people living in free societies with free markets create a lot of wealth, but so many people are left behind. So many of the oppressed and disadvantaged are crushed under its boot. Capitalism isn't fair because it is based upon selfishness. We must think about the society as a collective in order that everyone prospers together. No one should have too much and no one should have too little. Well, that might be fine if this was fairy land and this kind of thinking actually worked in practice, but it doesn't. In the history of humanity, only capitialism and free markets have produced the level of wealth necessary to lift mankind above the level of meager subsistence:
10======================================================================================================
Amazingly, despite all evidence to the contrary, progressives like Barack Obama believe that government and its programs are what creates wealth. You can gauge his level of certitude in this concept when he talks about how it was government that invented the internet. You see, you stupid Republicans and greedy businessmen, it was government that created the whole online world that you profited from. Therefore, government is the engine that drives the economy and you should be happy we allow you to contribute more of your wealth and pay your fair share. We'll make you richer!
Of course, by using the internet as an example of how the government horse pulls the economic cart, the President once again reveals how little he actually does know about the internet and the role the government actually did play. First of all, the internet wasn't really invented by the government. It was invented by Xerox PARC labs in Silicon Valley during the 1970's. However, whatever part of the internet that was developed by the defense department was financed with dollars taken from the wealth created by the citizens of this country. The government doesn't own it. The people do because they paid for it. By law, that grants each citizen an equal right to try and use it and create opportunity from it. But, missing this essential point isn't even the begining of Obama's ignorance.
From listening to Barry, you might get the idea that the government designed the internet with the express purpose of creating the wonderful world of cyberspace. But that wasn't how it went down. Actually, the internet was created solely and specifically for the different branches of government (particularly the military) to be able to allow their computers to communicate with each other over a distance. That was it. No one had any thought as to its business implications. However, with the creative genius of millions of fertile minds, business took a useful but limited government invention and turned it into something magical. It was individuals seeking their own selfish interests, not the government that created the wealth of the online world.
It is the Zuckerbergs of the world who come up with the idea for Facebook (for good or evil) not some faceless government bureaucrat. Why? Not because he was trying to do some great noble deed for the "collective", but because he wanted to make tons of money and vastly increase the number and quality of the women in his social life. Recognizing that just about everything we take for granted that makes our lives better was invented by some evil rich dude/dudette or company who were in it solely for the greedy motivation of making money is the first step in beginning to appreciate why freedom is so important to modern prosperity and why fostering and protecting it should be the ultimate goal of a moral government.
In the entire seventy some odd year history of the USSR, did that government ever create anything of use to the world? Did any of their satellites in Eastern Europe? Have the Cubans under Castro? Have the Red Chinese? Have the Swedes for crying out loud? Think about it.
Freedom is conducive to people turning their dreams into reality. Freedom, not government. The things that make our lives better do not come from a council of bureaucrats, but from individual minds and imaginations and from economic systems that reward such ideas handsomely. Preferably with boatloads of cash! That is the reality we live in. To claim otherwise defies history, fact and logic.
Back in the ancient times, you could become rich by conquering other countries and taking their stuff. In the modern world, the only way for a nation to create wealth is by either inventing things or producing them. The problem we have with our economy today is not that we have run out of creative minds, but that government makes it so difficult to turn ideas into a profitable reality with its high taxes and over-regulation. As a result, the ideas may originate here, but the product is built where it is more competitive to do so. That's why Apple builds its i-Phones and i-Pads in China. Thus, we create many things, but don't produce them and the economy, particularly blue collar factory workers, suffer as a result.
The truth is that unless creativity, initiative and hard work are well rewarded, it would be simpler and far more secure for everyone to aspire to a cushy government job. Or, as history shows, to sit around and drink vodka like they did in the former Soviet Union and as they do in the failed citadels of liberal compassion like Detroit, Camden and Cleveland.
11=====================================================================================================
This all seems fairly obvious doesn't it? It is the creative genius of the American people living in a free society that creates wealth. Obama's vision of government being the engine that drives wealth is a fantasy. The Soviet Union had tons of cops (way too many), plenty of roads, bridges, rail lines, ports, copious numbers of teachers and free medical care, yet they created so little wealth that the whole society collapsed. You'd think that our Barry and the rest of the progressives would understand this basic historical fact, but you'd be wrong. They believe that the collectivist model works best. Sure communism and socialism has failed everywhere it's been tried, but it just wasn't done right. Every generation of progressives thinks that they are the geniuses who'll finally figure out how to make this collectivism thing work. To paraphrase Obama, we're the ones we've been waiting for and we'll get it right this time. Yeah, right...
Besides, progressives say, capitalism is based upon greed and greed is bad. Greed is sinful. Greed is immoral. Sure, free people living in free societies with free markets create a lot of wealth, but so many people are left behind. So many of the oppressed and disadvantaged are crushed under its boot. Capitalism isn't fair because it is based upon selfishness. We must think about the society as a collective in order that everyone prospers together. No one should have too much and no one should have too little. Well, that might be fine if this was fairy land and this kind of thinking actually worked in practice, but it doesn't. In the history of humanity, only capitialism and free markets have produced the level of wealth necessary to lift mankind above the level of meager subsistence:
Even China and Vietnam have embraced the basic ideas that Milton Friedman championed. They know that greed works. As former Marxist societies, their own failed history has forced them to come to the inescapable conclusion that government does not create wealth. People pursuing their own dreams in their own self-interest do. Yet, Barack Obama and the Democrat party remain stubborn in their insistence that somehow they are right and can defy all historical evidence to the contrary.
So what does all this have to do with morality? Well, it is the left's view of the human condition and its perfectibility that informs their politics and economic policies. You see, progressives believe that America and its capitalist system are inherently unfair. It is immoral. There are too many people who are getting screwed by the "system". There is too much of a disparity between the rich and the poor. Never mind that due to the incredible wealth creation of capitalism that the poor in America live better than Kings did just a few hundred years ago.
So what does all this have to do with morality? Well, it is the left's view of the human condition and its perfectibility that informs their politics and economic policies. You see, progressives believe that America and its capitalist system are inherently unfair. It is immoral. There are too many people who are getting screwed by the "system". There is too much of a disparity between the rich and the poor. Never mind that due to the incredible wealth creation of capitalism that the poor in America live better than Kings did just a few hundred years ago.
Unfortunately, Jack Webb's plea to see the bigger picture about prosperity mostly falls on deaf ears in the progressive community. To a liberal, equality of outcome is paramount. This is the key moral point that underlies their entire philosophy. As far as leftist dogma is concerned, America is inherently a greedy, racist and exploitative country and people wind up on the bottom of the social scale through no fault of their own. They are all victims of the oppressive white male patriarchy! At least that is how the Frankfurt School's critical theory view of society paints America and these views predominate in the elite circles of modern academe and Democrat politics. From black studies, to feminist studies to the whole grab bag of multicultural claptrap and politically correct nonsense, a brand new generation of progressives has come to power that believes that they have a moral duty to "fundamentally transform" America into a better and more just society.
12======================================================================================================
It is all about fairness, you see. It just isn't fair that greedy rich people drive their expensive BMW's while so many are reduced to walking, bicycling or taking public transit. It isn't fair that Bill Gates has billions while so many are barely scraping by. It isn't fair that some people live in McMansions while others live in public housing. It isn't fair that some people have more advantages than others, that some people are smarter than others , that some people choose to work harder than others and thus have a larger percentage of the wealth.
Here is the progressive co-anchor of the powerfully influential Today Show, Ann Curry, expressing her moral outrage about the basic unfairness of the American system:
12======================================================================================================
It is all about fairness, you see. It just isn't fair that greedy rich people drive their expensive BMW's while so many are reduced to walking, bicycling or taking public transit. It isn't fair that Bill Gates has billions while so many are barely scraping by. It isn't fair that some people live in McMansions while others live in public housing. It isn't fair that some people have more advantages than others, that some people are smarter than others , that some people choose to work harder than others and thus have a larger percentage of the wealth.
Here is the progressive co-anchor of the powerfully influential Today Show, Ann Curry, expressing her moral outrage about the basic unfairness of the American system:
Ms. Curry actually makes a good point here that virtually every conservative would agree with. It is the role of government to make the playing field even for every citizen. Until every American has access to the same opportunities, we will never reach our full potential as a society. The difference between a liberal and a conservative, however, is the means to achieve that end. Conservatives promote equality of opportunity for all, but progressives go further. They believe that everyone should get what they consider to be a "fair " piece of the pie regardless of their contribution to society. Therefore, wealth must be redistributed from those who have to those who have not in order that the slices are more evenly distributed:
13======================================================================================================
The problem with the collectivist argument about fairness is that no matter how you tilt the playing field, life is fundamentally unfair. I'm sorry to say it, but it is true. There is a great scene in the movie Enemy at the Gates that highlights this point perfectly. Two of the main characters in the movie are a strong and brave Russian sniper and the short and ugly Pravda journalist who made him famous. They are both in love with the same woman and, of course, the woman falls for the heroic sniper and not the ugly but intelligent reporter. This situation causes the young propagandist to undergo a serious contemplation about the nature of life. He comes to the deep insight that the communist revolution will never fix the world. The Commissars could redistribute wealth and end the inequities of income among the people all they wanted, but they could never make things "fair". He realizes that there will always be better looking people, more intelligent minds, people with better eyesight, better coordination, better teeth etc. etc. who will always be the ones that end up with the beautiful girl in the end. There is just no way to change that simple reality. Thus, it is a fundamental truth that life is inherently unfair and he discerns that this is the essential deceit of leftist philosophy. The dream of equality can never be attained.
The major difference between conservatives and liberals is that those of us on the right accept this as a fact of life. However, we believe that each of us has a unique God given talent with which to contribute to society. Each of us can make the world a better place by following our dreams and developing our abilities. Therefore, unlike President Obama we applaud success just as we applaud everyone who strives to make themselves better. We believe that each individual is responsible for his or her decisions. How someone pursues his/her own happiness is their business alone. Everyone else should mind their own business, including the government. However, with that freedom comes the recognition that they, and not society, are responsible for the end results of the choices they make. They did or did not build that. That is the nature of liberty.
Therefore, if each individual is free to make their own bed, make their own choices vis a vis work/leisure, study/sloth, ambition/contentment, thin/fat then they should be prepared to lie in it without complaining. Conservatives don't applaud the notion that you should have guilt for your own achievement or that others have any claim against you for being successful because they aren't. It isn't a philosophy of screw everyone else as progressives would like everyone to think. It is a philosophy of opportunity. If you want something, if you want to be rich, go out and earn it and work for it or be content with your lot in life. No one is entitled to anything but opportunity. The only people entitled to be taken care of are those who truly cannot do it for themselves.
This is the heart of what I personally believe in. I believe that society should be structured in a way that all of us have an equal opportunity to succeed. While it is true that we are still a long way from creating that society, I will fight to my dying breath to end discrimination, a terrible education system or any other obstacles that denies anyone the chance to succeed and live their dreams. I will fight for everyone’s right to have an equal shot at life, but not a right to an “equal” outcome because equal outcome will never be achieved no matter how much the left says otherwise.
14======================================================================================================
My long antipathy for the left isn’t just because I think that the facts show that their policies are an economic disaster for a society in the long run. It is also because I don’t believe it is the proper function of government to be redistributing the wealth from one person to another. I find it to be fundamentally immoral. As the great Walter E. Williams explains, when the government forcibly takes the property of one person and gives it to another, regardless of the noble intent, it is nothing more than thievery:
The problem with the collectivist argument about fairness is that no matter how you tilt the playing field, life is fundamentally unfair. I'm sorry to say it, but it is true. There is a great scene in the movie Enemy at the Gates that highlights this point perfectly. Two of the main characters in the movie are a strong and brave Russian sniper and the short and ugly Pravda journalist who made him famous. They are both in love with the same woman and, of course, the woman falls for the heroic sniper and not the ugly but intelligent reporter. This situation causes the young propagandist to undergo a serious contemplation about the nature of life. He comes to the deep insight that the communist revolution will never fix the world. The Commissars could redistribute wealth and end the inequities of income among the people all they wanted, but they could never make things "fair". He realizes that there will always be better looking people, more intelligent minds, people with better eyesight, better coordination, better teeth etc. etc. who will always be the ones that end up with the beautiful girl in the end. There is just no way to change that simple reality. Thus, it is a fundamental truth that life is inherently unfair and he discerns that this is the essential deceit of leftist philosophy. The dream of equality can never be attained.
The major difference between conservatives and liberals is that those of us on the right accept this as a fact of life. However, we believe that each of us has a unique God given talent with which to contribute to society. Each of us can make the world a better place by following our dreams and developing our abilities. Therefore, unlike President Obama we applaud success just as we applaud everyone who strives to make themselves better. We believe that each individual is responsible for his or her decisions. How someone pursues his/her own happiness is their business alone. Everyone else should mind their own business, including the government. However, with that freedom comes the recognition that they, and not society, are responsible for the end results of the choices they make. They did or did not build that. That is the nature of liberty.
Therefore, if each individual is free to make their own bed, make their own choices vis a vis work/leisure, study/sloth, ambition/contentment, thin/fat then they should be prepared to lie in it without complaining. Conservatives don't applaud the notion that you should have guilt for your own achievement or that others have any claim against you for being successful because they aren't. It isn't a philosophy of screw everyone else as progressives would like everyone to think. It is a philosophy of opportunity. If you want something, if you want to be rich, go out and earn it and work for it or be content with your lot in life. No one is entitled to anything but opportunity. The only people entitled to be taken care of are those who truly cannot do it for themselves.
This is the heart of what I personally believe in. I believe that society should be structured in a way that all of us have an equal opportunity to succeed. While it is true that we are still a long way from creating that society, I will fight to my dying breath to end discrimination, a terrible education system or any other obstacles that denies anyone the chance to succeed and live their dreams. I will fight for everyone’s right to have an equal shot at life, but not a right to an “equal” outcome because equal outcome will never be achieved no matter how much the left says otherwise.
14======================================================================================================
My long antipathy for the left isn’t just because I think that the facts show that their policies are an economic disaster for a society in the long run. It is also because I don’t believe it is the proper function of government to be redistributing the wealth from one person to another. I find it to be fundamentally immoral. As the great Walter E. Williams explains, when the government forcibly takes the property of one person and gives it to another, regardless of the noble intent, it is nothing more than thievery:
Not only is the redistribution of wealth from one person to another a form of stealing, it is by its very nature immoral because it rewards one individual for the sweat and labor of another. Here is one of the great stories that illustrates this point:
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be very liberal, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words redistribution of wealth.
She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch conservative, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harboured an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.
One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs.
The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.
Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.
Her father listened and then asked, “How is your friend Audrey doing?”
She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over.”
Her wise father asked his daughter, “Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.”
The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, “That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!”
The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, “Welcome to the conservative side of the fence.”
Obviously, this is a massive simplification of reality. But, this story is very representative of the philosophy of the American right. Everyone should be free to shoot for the 4.0 GPA or be free to party and be popular and settle for the 2.0. And, while every citizen should have the opportunity to pursue an education, the student who gets the 4.0 should not be made to feel guilty for it and the student with the 2.0 should not be persuaded she is entitled to that which she did not earn. In other words, enjoy the bed you yourself made. However, if you cannot make your own bed, society has a responsibility to help you to do it. Not to make it for you, but to help you learn how to make it so that you too can be a productive member of the community.
15======================================================================================================
Thus, we wish to teach people how to fish so that they can provide for themselves rather than just give them free fish caught by others. I know of no national Republican who favors the elimination of the safety net. Conservatives have no problem with the concept of unemployment insurance, with helping people to get job training and to helping people to provide for their families when they fall on hard times. However, we do believe that every able bodied member of society has a responsibility to try to provide for themselves. They have a responsibility not to produce children that they cannot afford to raise. There is a guy in Tennessee with thirty children all of whom are being supported by the state. In my life I have personally witnessed women who gave birth to child after child so that they could continue to receive welfare checks. This isn't good for society and it is particularly harmful to the children.
I am also appalled at the way our Social Security and Medicare system works. I think it is absolutely immoral to take money from 18 year old LaShonda working forty hours a week at her first job at Burger King in order to give it to some old geezer with a million dollar home who uses the subsidies he gets on his Medicare plus the tidy sum from his Social Security check to pay his greens fee at the golf course. This redistribution of wealth from poor and young to rich and old is not part of the "safety net" , but its costs are so massive that we have to borrow money from China to pay for it. Not only is this morally wrong, but it is bankrupting the country.
However, the greatest sin is that LaShonda is being forced to contribute her FICA tax into a system whose own actuaries say will be good and broke by the time she retires. She is being sold a bill of goods by the politicians. They are conning her into believing that she is paying money into a pension fund that will be there for her when she is ready to retire Yet,these politicians know that this will never happen. Not only are they committing an unconscionable fraud upon her, they are also complicit in the direct theft of her property. Tell me, how does subsidizing millionaires and billionaires with pension checks and Medicare subsidies at the expense of people like LaShonda provides for the common good? How is it moral?
By the same token, if I refuse to pay my share of taxes that go directly to the subsidizing of a woman who has three children that she can't afford to provide for, the government will come with armed men and take me to jail. What is the difference if that woman herself had just pointed a gun to my head and said give me my food, my housing and my medical care or I'll shoot you? In reality it is the same thing.
Now, if the government could point to the success of the redistribution of my property to said woman and show me how such a program benefits her and transforms her into a productive citizen, they'd have a better case that it was for the common welfare of society as a whole. However, as long as they are using my time and money to subsidize people who either don't need it or who are being rewarded for their irresponsible behavior, I find it antithetical to the common good and, therefore, I find forced redistribution of wealth without the recipient showing need or personal responsibility totally immoral.
As Dr. Williams says, that does not mean that it is not good and proper, even highly laudable, for me as a human being to try to help people voluntarily. There are also many instances in which government programs that redistribute wealth promote the common welfare of the society. For instance, I could make the case that Pell Grants and student loans by enabling people to learn and access better opportunities for themselves is good for society. However, to be moral, any form of redistribution must require responsibility. The government has a responsibility to make sure that they are actually helping the people to whom wealth is being given and those recipients have a responsibility to use that assistance to better their lives. That is certainly not the case today and it is something that we as a people and as taxpayers should demand.
16======================================================================================================
Unfortunately, progressives don't see it that way. Why, just the other day, the President ended the work requirement for welfare. Recently his attorney general Eric Holder was at a conference at Columbia University:
Holder made a jarring statement in support of racial preferences, saying he “can’t actually imagine a time in which the need for more diversity would ever cease.” “Affirmative action has been an issue since segregation practices,” he declared. “The question is not when does it end, but when does it begin. . . . When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled?”
This statement is from the Attorney General of the United States! He is supposed to defend equal protection under the law, not pursue a policy of reparations for things that according to him will never end. This is absolutely outrageous coming not only from the top law enforcement official in the country, but a spokesman for the President of the United States. How can there ever be justice in his department when he starts off with the belief that preferential treatment for "his" people should never end? No wonder he failed to prosecute the Black Panthers despite one of the most open and shut cases of voter intimidation in history.
More to the point, there is just no excuse for people to feel “entitled” to anything other than a fair shot in life. Earlier in my life I lived in a welfare neighborhood in New Jersey. A friend of mine got a great price on a house and we fixed it up and moved in. We were the only white people in the neighborhood, but people were friendly to us and we were welcomed into the community. That said, every so often someone would say something to me that affected me like fingernails on a chalkboard. Too many times I would hear my neighbors talk about how they were “owed” all of the benefits they were receiving from the government because it was their due for the injustices of white society.
One day I had enough. I turned to the guy who made that remark and I told him that my grandparents came to this country fifty years after the end of slavery without a penny to their name. My grandfather owned a store where he sold newspapers to people who rode the subway. He didn't care what your race or ethnicity was only whether you had a nickel in your pocket to buy the paper. Today, I live in the same neighborhood as you do, so how can I possibly owe you a red cent?
I went further. I reminded him that the town we lived in had a Memorial Park. I told him that plenty of towns around us had identical parks with the same name. I asked him if he knew why and he shook his head no. Because, I said, young men exactly our age went to fight and die until their blood ran like rivers in places like Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg and Cold Harbor so that your sorry butt could be free. No one owes you anything. You owe an entire generation of young men who gave their lives for the principle that one man could not own another. You ought to rejoice in your hard won freedom instead of complaining that you are owed.
Some in the audience nodded their heads in appreciation for what I said, but most dismissed it as more white boy lies. It isn't that they held what I said against me personally, but that isn't the story they've been sold. In order that they can rationalize the acceptance of what amounts to direct charity, these able bodies human beings need to find a reason why they deserve it. For the African-Americans in my community, that sense of entitlement was almost always based on the belief that they were owed reparations for years of slavery and racism. While this rationalization allowed them to keep their pride while happily accepting the handouts provided by others, it also convinced them that they could never succeed in "white" society because of their skin color. So most of them never tried. Dependency, I came to see, was a crime against the individual. It infantilized them and took away a key part of what it means to be a human being able to stand on his own two feet.
17======================================================================================================
I am not ashamed to admit that it used to annoy the heck out of me that while most of my neighbors were living on the government dole in Section 8 housing, there seemed to be no sense of gratitude. I saw only a sense of entitlement and an attitude that it was cool to be getting something for nothing because they truly believe that there is an endless stash of cash that their man Obama can hand out to his people. If you are not getting some of your own free money, then you are a sucker. That's why they vote for Democrats and why they continue to vote for politician after politician that constantly reminds them that they are "oppressed" and that they are, therefore, owed their rent, their food, their medical care, an Obama phone, a car and some pocket cash. More cash from the stash please!
Here is a great spoof that highlights this point:
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be very liberal, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words redistribution of wealth.
She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch conservative, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harboured an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.
One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs.
The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.
Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.
Her father listened and then asked, “How is your friend Audrey doing?”
She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over.”
Her wise father asked his daughter, “Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.”
The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, “That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!”
The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, “Welcome to the conservative side of the fence.”
Obviously, this is a massive simplification of reality. But, this story is very representative of the philosophy of the American right. Everyone should be free to shoot for the 4.0 GPA or be free to party and be popular and settle for the 2.0. And, while every citizen should have the opportunity to pursue an education, the student who gets the 4.0 should not be made to feel guilty for it and the student with the 2.0 should not be persuaded she is entitled to that which she did not earn. In other words, enjoy the bed you yourself made. However, if you cannot make your own bed, society has a responsibility to help you to do it. Not to make it for you, but to help you learn how to make it so that you too can be a productive member of the community.
15======================================================================================================
Thus, we wish to teach people how to fish so that they can provide for themselves rather than just give them free fish caught by others. I know of no national Republican who favors the elimination of the safety net. Conservatives have no problem with the concept of unemployment insurance, with helping people to get job training and to helping people to provide for their families when they fall on hard times. However, we do believe that every able bodied member of society has a responsibility to try to provide for themselves. They have a responsibility not to produce children that they cannot afford to raise. There is a guy in Tennessee with thirty children all of whom are being supported by the state. In my life I have personally witnessed women who gave birth to child after child so that they could continue to receive welfare checks. This isn't good for society and it is particularly harmful to the children.
I am also appalled at the way our Social Security and Medicare system works. I think it is absolutely immoral to take money from 18 year old LaShonda working forty hours a week at her first job at Burger King in order to give it to some old geezer with a million dollar home who uses the subsidies he gets on his Medicare plus the tidy sum from his Social Security check to pay his greens fee at the golf course. This redistribution of wealth from poor and young to rich and old is not part of the "safety net" , but its costs are so massive that we have to borrow money from China to pay for it. Not only is this morally wrong, but it is bankrupting the country.
However, the greatest sin is that LaShonda is being forced to contribute her FICA tax into a system whose own actuaries say will be good and broke by the time she retires. She is being sold a bill of goods by the politicians. They are conning her into believing that she is paying money into a pension fund that will be there for her when she is ready to retire Yet,these politicians know that this will never happen. Not only are they committing an unconscionable fraud upon her, they are also complicit in the direct theft of her property. Tell me, how does subsidizing millionaires and billionaires with pension checks and Medicare subsidies at the expense of people like LaShonda provides for the common good? How is it moral?
By the same token, if I refuse to pay my share of taxes that go directly to the subsidizing of a woman who has three children that she can't afford to provide for, the government will come with armed men and take me to jail. What is the difference if that woman herself had just pointed a gun to my head and said give me my food, my housing and my medical care or I'll shoot you? In reality it is the same thing.
Now, if the government could point to the success of the redistribution of my property to said woman and show me how such a program benefits her and transforms her into a productive citizen, they'd have a better case that it was for the common welfare of society as a whole. However, as long as they are using my time and money to subsidize people who either don't need it or who are being rewarded for their irresponsible behavior, I find it antithetical to the common good and, therefore, I find forced redistribution of wealth without the recipient showing need or personal responsibility totally immoral.
As Dr. Williams says, that does not mean that it is not good and proper, even highly laudable, for me as a human being to try to help people voluntarily. There are also many instances in which government programs that redistribute wealth promote the common welfare of the society. For instance, I could make the case that Pell Grants and student loans by enabling people to learn and access better opportunities for themselves is good for society. However, to be moral, any form of redistribution must require responsibility. The government has a responsibility to make sure that they are actually helping the people to whom wealth is being given and those recipients have a responsibility to use that assistance to better their lives. That is certainly not the case today and it is something that we as a people and as taxpayers should demand.
16======================================================================================================
Unfortunately, progressives don't see it that way. Why, just the other day, the President ended the work requirement for welfare. Recently his attorney general Eric Holder was at a conference at Columbia University:
Holder made a jarring statement in support of racial preferences, saying he “can’t actually imagine a time in which the need for more diversity would ever cease.” “Affirmative action has been an issue since segregation practices,” he declared. “The question is not when does it end, but when does it begin. . . . When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled?”
This statement is from the Attorney General of the United States! He is supposed to defend equal protection under the law, not pursue a policy of reparations for things that according to him will never end. This is absolutely outrageous coming not only from the top law enforcement official in the country, but a spokesman for the President of the United States. How can there ever be justice in his department when he starts off with the belief that preferential treatment for "his" people should never end? No wonder he failed to prosecute the Black Panthers despite one of the most open and shut cases of voter intimidation in history.
More to the point, there is just no excuse for people to feel “entitled” to anything other than a fair shot in life. Earlier in my life I lived in a welfare neighborhood in New Jersey. A friend of mine got a great price on a house and we fixed it up and moved in. We were the only white people in the neighborhood, but people were friendly to us and we were welcomed into the community. That said, every so often someone would say something to me that affected me like fingernails on a chalkboard. Too many times I would hear my neighbors talk about how they were “owed” all of the benefits they were receiving from the government because it was their due for the injustices of white society.
One day I had enough. I turned to the guy who made that remark and I told him that my grandparents came to this country fifty years after the end of slavery without a penny to their name. My grandfather owned a store where he sold newspapers to people who rode the subway. He didn't care what your race or ethnicity was only whether you had a nickel in your pocket to buy the paper. Today, I live in the same neighborhood as you do, so how can I possibly owe you a red cent?
I went further. I reminded him that the town we lived in had a Memorial Park. I told him that plenty of towns around us had identical parks with the same name. I asked him if he knew why and he shook his head no. Because, I said, young men exactly our age went to fight and die until their blood ran like rivers in places like Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg and Cold Harbor so that your sorry butt could be free. No one owes you anything. You owe an entire generation of young men who gave their lives for the principle that one man could not own another. You ought to rejoice in your hard won freedom instead of complaining that you are owed.
Some in the audience nodded their heads in appreciation for what I said, but most dismissed it as more white boy lies. It isn't that they held what I said against me personally, but that isn't the story they've been sold. In order that they can rationalize the acceptance of what amounts to direct charity, these able bodies human beings need to find a reason why they deserve it. For the African-Americans in my community, that sense of entitlement was almost always based on the belief that they were owed reparations for years of slavery and racism. While this rationalization allowed them to keep their pride while happily accepting the handouts provided by others, it also convinced them that they could never succeed in "white" society because of their skin color. So most of them never tried. Dependency, I came to see, was a crime against the individual. It infantilized them and took away a key part of what it means to be a human being able to stand on his own two feet.
17======================================================================================================
I am not ashamed to admit that it used to annoy the heck out of me that while most of my neighbors were living on the government dole in Section 8 housing, there seemed to be no sense of gratitude. I saw only a sense of entitlement and an attitude that it was cool to be getting something for nothing because they truly believe that there is an endless stash of cash that their man Obama can hand out to his people. If you are not getting some of your own free money, then you are a sucker. That's why they vote for Democrats and why they continue to vote for politician after politician that constantly reminds them that they are "oppressed" and that they are, therefore, owed their rent, their food, their medical care, an Obama phone, a car and some pocket cash. More cash from the stash please!
Here is a great spoof that highlights this point:
A black Tea Party member named Lloyd Marcus is also appalled at how years of progressive spin to the poor and minority populations have made them feel entitled to receiving the entirety of their existence and made them worse off in the bargain:
If you ever wondered why modern Democrats like Barack Obama promote this kind of mass dependency in the face of all the evidence that suggests that not only is it not working, but that it is actually harming the very people it is intended to help, Lloyd Marcus has them spot on. Let's face it, no one is really so stupid or blind that they cannot grasp the obvious fact that we are fifty years into the war on poverty and the poor are no better off today than they were when it started. The nation has spent $16 Trillion fighting this war and we are $16 Trillion in debt. This is not a coincidence.
Surely, the smartest man ever to become President, a community organizer no less, is cognizant that all of this redistribution of wealth has not alleviated the suffering of the poor. It's only made it worse. However, the President and his party know that they need to maintain their hold on power in order to transform the rest of the society into their perfect progressive utopia. To do that, they need to win elections.
18======================================================================================================
In the end, all of this tugging at our heartstrings trying to make the country feel guilty for the less fortunate is all leftist spin. This isn't about helping people escape poverty. It's not even about morality and social justice. It's about buying votes. Pure and simple. And that's about as immoral as it gets:
Surely, the smartest man ever to become President, a community organizer no less, is cognizant that all of this redistribution of wealth has not alleviated the suffering of the poor. It's only made it worse. However, the President and his party know that they need to maintain their hold on power in order to transform the rest of the society into their perfect progressive utopia. To do that, they need to win elections.
18======================================================================================================
In the end, all of this tugging at our heartstrings trying to make the country feel guilty for the less fortunate is all leftist spin. This isn't about helping people escape poverty. It's not even about morality and social justice. It's about buying votes. Pure and simple. And that's about as immoral as it gets:
Perhaps you think that Bill Whittle, Lloyd Marcus and I are being far too cynical. Perhaps you think that Bill and I are racists and that Lloyd is an Uncle Tom. Surely the Democrat party isn't that cynical. Really? Guess again:
Let's forget for a moment that Representative Fatah thinks that the President is doing a good job on the economy. He isn't and it sucks. But, what Chaka Fatah does understand is that there is no way anyone on food stamps, unemployment or any other kind of government assistance is ever going to vote for a Republican who wants to cut off their free ride. Exactly Chaka! That's why the redistribution of wealth is the greatest vote buying racket in history.
19======================================================================================================
Feeding that vote buying machine is so integral to the electoral calculus of the Democrat party that to try to convince young women that they should join minorities and the elderly in an "entitlement" coalition to reelect the President, the Obama campaign created a fictional character known as Julia to show how their President has women's backs. Daddy government will always be there to help her along every step of her life, but those evil Republicans will leave her alone and abandoned. By all means please click on the picture below and start your journey into Barack Obama's progressive utopia:
19======================================================================================================
Feeding that vote buying machine is so integral to the electoral calculus of the Democrat party that to try to convince young women that they should join minorities and the elderly in an "entitlement" coalition to reelect the President, the Obama campaign created a fictional character known as Julia to show how their President has women's backs. Daddy government will always be there to help her along every step of her life, but those evil Republicans will leave her alone and abandoned. By all means please click on the picture below and start your journey into Barack Obama's progressive utopia:
For those of you who cannot stomach any more of Obama's progressive pablum, here is a great summary by David Harsanyi:
20=====================================================================================================
Rich Lowry of National Review adds that:
In the competition for the creepiest campaign material of 2012, we may already have a winner. It is “The Life of Julia,” the Obama reelection team’s cartoon chronicle of a fictional woman who is dependent on government at every step of her life.
The phrase “cradle-to-grave welfare state” originated with Clement Attlee’s socialist government in post–World War II Britain. Back then, it was meant as a boastful description of a new age of government activism. Subsequently, it became a term of derision for critics of an overweening government. In the spirit of Attlee, the Obama campaign revives the concept of “cradle to grave” as it highlights Obama-supported programs that take care of Julia from age 3 to her retirement at age 67...
No doubt, the creators of Julia — imagine a dour and featureless version of Dora the Explorer who grows old through the years — weren’t seeking to make a major philosophical statement. But they inadvertently captured something important about the progressive vision.
Julia’s central relationship is to the state. It is her educator, banker, health-care provider, venture capitalist, and retirement fund. And she is, fundamentally, a taker. Every benefit she gets is cut-rate or free. She apparently doesn’t worry about paying taxes. It doesn’t enter her mind that the programs supporting her might add to the debt or might have unintended consequences. She has no moral qualms about forcing others to pay for her contraception, and her sense of patriotic duty is limited to getting as much government help as she can...
The point of view of “The Life of Julia” is profoundly condescending. It assumes that giving people things will distract them from larger considerations of the public weal — the economy, debt, the health of the culture. This view’s infantilizing tendency is captured by Obamacare’s insistence that, for purposes of health insurance, young adults are children who belong on their parents’ policies until the age of 26. It devalues self-reliance and looks at us less as independent citizens than as drab Julias, bereft without the succor of our life partner and minder, the state.
No thanks.
Andrea Tantaros agrees and adds that every woman should be offended by the condescension of a political party and a president who see them as helpless wards of the state:
Rich Lowry of National Review adds that:
In the competition for the creepiest campaign material of 2012, we may already have a winner. It is “The Life of Julia,” the Obama reelection team’s cartoon chronicle of a fictional woman who is dependent on government at every step of her life.
The phrase “cradle-to-grave welfare state” originated with Clement Attlee’s socialist government in post–World War II Britain. Back then, it was meant as a boastful description of a new age of government activism. Subsequently, it became a term of derision for critics of an overweening government. In the spirit of Attlee, the Obama campaign revives the concept of “cradle to grave” as it highlights Obama-supported programs that take care of Julia from age 3 to her retirement at age 67...
No doubt, the creators of Julia — imagine a dour and featureless version of Dora the Explorer who grows old through the years — weren’t seeking to make a major philosophical statement. But they inadvertently captured something important about the progressive vision.
Julia’s central relationship is to the state. It is her educator, banker, health-care provider, venture capitalist, and retirement fund. And she is, fundamentally, a taker. Every benefit she gets is cut-rate or free. She apparently doesn’t worry about paying taxes. It doesn’t enter her mind that the programs supporting her might add to the debt or might have unintended consequences. She has no moral qualms about forcing others to pay for her contraception, and her sense of patriotic duty is limited to getting as much government help as she can...
The point of view of “The Life of Julia” is profoundly condescending. It assumes that giving people things will distract them from larger considerations of the public weal — the economy, debt, the health of the culture. This view’s infantilizing tendency is captured by Obamacare’s insistence that, for purposes of health insurance, young adults are children who belong on their parents’ policies until the age of 26. It devalues self-reliance and looks at us less as independent citizens than as drab Julias, bereft without the succor of our life partner and minder, the state.
No thanks.
Andrea Tantaros agrees and adds that every woman should be offended by the condescension of a political party and a president who see them as helpless wards of the state:
Andrea totally nails it in this piece particularly when she says that giving people free stuff is very politically seductive. That's the calculus of the Obama campaign in creating this fictional Julia who is so sad and pathetic that the real Julia's are coming out of the woodwork and mercilessly making fun of the whole idea:
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If you haven't been Julia'd out by now, go over to Iowahawk's page and check out his take on Obama's fictional dependent. It's hilarious:
If you haven't been Julia'd out by now, go over to Iowahawk's page and check out his take on Obama's fictional dependent. It's hilarious:
The Life Of Julia shows how far Barack Obama and his leftist allies are willing to go in order to buy votes. Can there be any doubt that his goal is to add as many people to feed at the trough of government dependency as possible? Is there any question that they think so little of women's potential to thrive in our "unjust" society that they are all in need Uncle Barry's help to eke out the meager and solitary existence that Daddy government has to offer them?
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Julia is not the only path that Barack Obama and his minions of the left sees available to buy the female vote with redistributionist government largesse. Oh, no! Why, they are even willing to trample on the Constitution's First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion in order to pander to women with free contraception for all. After all, according to the progressive spinmeisters, shouldn't the right to have copious amounts of sex be free too? Anyone who says no is a mean spirited killjoy! You must hate women!
This was too much for Bill O'Reilly to stomach:
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Julia is not the only path that Barack Obama and his minions of the left sees available to buy the female vote with redistributionist government largesse. Oh, no! Why, they are even willing to trample on the Constitution's First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion in order to pander to women with free contraception for all. After all, according to the progressive spinmeisters, shouldn't the right to have copious amounts of sex be free too? Anyone who says no is a mean spirited killjoy! You must hate women!
This was too much for Bill O'Reilly to stomach:
When pundits, religious organizations and politicians objected to free contraception on moral and religious grounds, the Democrats and their media allies immediately claimed that there was now a Republican war on women. Can you imagine? Not only do these egalitarians on the left propose that sex become another government freebie with which to buy votes, any resistance or disagreement to it is painted as a misogynist attack on women. It's a total win/win for the left. If ever you needed a classic example to show how having the media as willing allies creating a Matrix of spin for them allows the left to promote their agenda, this is it.
But, if we are all entitled to free sex on the taxpayer's dime, what are we not entitled to? That's the question Bill O'Reilly was trying to pose. The truth is that as far as the progressive establishment is concerned, the answer is nothing. Particularly if you can be made part of the dependency coalition that can be bought with other people's money.
While this is a tragic development in and of itself and speaks to the inherent immorality of a government that feels free to redistribute wealth to buy votes, the impact this type of egalitarian mentality has on the society as a whole is the real crime. We are no longer a nation where everyone believes in the principle of self-reliance. Too many of our fellow citizens have been lulled by the success and wealth of the capitalist system into believing they are all owed a cushy life filled with all the luxuries they've come to take for granted:
But, if we are all entitled to free sex on the taxpayer's dime, what are we not entitled to? That's the question Bill O'Reilly was trying to pose. The truth is that as far as the progressive establishment is concerned, the answer is nothing. Particularly if you can be made part of the dependency coalition that can be bought with other people's money.
While this is a tragic development in and of itself and speaks to the inherent immorality of a government that feels free to redistribute wealth to buy votes, the impact this type of egalitarian mentality has on the society as a whole is the real crime. We are no longer a nation where everyone believes in the principle of self-reliance. Too many of our fellow citizens have been lulled by the success and wealth of the capitalist system into believing they are all owed a cushy life filled with all the luxuries they've come to take for granted:
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Nowhere is this sense of entitlement and lack of appreciation for the wonders of the capitalist system more evident than in the Occcupy Wall Street movement:
Nowhere is this sense of entitlement and lack of appreciation for the wonders of the capitalist system more evident than in the Occcupy Wall Street movement:
As Remy points out, if the occupy movement was all about protesting against bank bailouts, I'd be totally with them. The very idea that the taxpayers of the United States would be on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the idiots on Wall Street who made a bad bet on the mortgage derivatives that their government all but forced them to launder for them so that they could institute a policy in which every American regardless of their ability to pay could own a home just sticks in my craw!!! Incredibly long sentence, eh? The moral hazard involved in not allowing the banks to go down is incalculable. Part of capitalism is that you win some, you lose some. Not, you win some, you lose some and then you get bailed out so you still win. When President Bush 43 said we had to abandon the free market in order to save it, I wanted to scream. And I did. Loudly.
So, if that is what the Occupy movement is protesting, then I am with them. But, then I'd also want to protest a government that allowed the two politicians most responsible for pushing their corrupt friends at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to encourage sub-prime loans to people who couldn't afford it to write the bill that supposedly reformed the system. They even had the audacity to name it the Dodd/Frank law. I mean that's like letting the fox guard the hen house. Unfortunately, that's not what the Occupy folks want to do. Why, from the interviews I saw on TV, most of them want exactly the opposite. They want forgiveness for their student loans because it turns out that not too many folk want to hire you if your degree is in gender studies. It's just not the kind of marketable skill that can get you like... a job.
Hmm, let's see. You are protesting the bailout of banks and investment houses, right? You excoriate large corporations and the richest 1% while using your iPhones and your macbooks (made by one of the richest corporations in the world filled with evil 1 percenters) so that you can use Facebook (another rich evil corporation) to organize the next rally. Then you march on the stock exchange wearing your brand name sneakers and your designer handbags and jeans to protest the capitalist system that made them. And you are angry and upset because not one of the greedy institutions that are supposedly running the country will bail you out of the stupid $75,000 decision you made to major in gender studies? Did I get that right?
Sounds to me like the tantrum of a five year old who didn't get his way and is finding out for the very first time that sometimes life sucks. It appears that way to Bill Whittle too:
So, if that is what the Occupy movement is protesting, then I am with them. But, then I'd also want to protest a government that allowed the two politicians most responsible for pushing their corrupt friends at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to encourage sub-prime loans to people who couldn't afford it to write the bill that supposedly reformed the system. They even had the audacity to name it the Dodd/Frank law. I mean that's like letting the fox guard the hen house. Unfortunately, that's not what the Occupy folks want to do. Why, from the interviews I saw on TV, most of them want exactly the opposite. They want forgiveness for their student loans because it turns out that not too many folk want to hire you if your degree is in gender studies. It's just not the kind of marketable skill that can get you like... a job.
Hmm, let's see. You are protesting the bailout of banks and investment houses, right? You excoriate large corporations and the richest 1% while using your iPhones and your macbooks (made by one of the richest corporations in the world filled with evil 1 percenters) so that you can use Facebook (another rich evil corporation) to organize the next rally. Then you march on the stock exchange wearing your brand name sneakers and your designer handbags and jeans to protest the capitalist system that made them. And you are angry and upset because not one of the greedy institutions that are supposedly running the country will bail you out of the stupid $75,000 decision you made to major in gender studies? Did I get that right?
Sounds to me like the tantrum of a five year old who didn't get his way and is finding out for the very first time that sometimes life sucks. It appears that way to Bill Whittle too:
Bill really gets to the root of the problem. It's not just that the kids of the Occupy movement feel entitled, they have absolutely no appreciation for all the tough and dirty things that go into making the world work. They don't understand capitalism because they don't teach that in gender studies or in any of the politically correct "studies" courses taught in our universities. All they've ever heard from their professors is that capitalism is evil and greedy rich people are the most evil of all. Everything that sucks about America sucks because of them. They don't understand the true moral benefits of the free enterprise system:
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While I was at my fancy dancy Ivy League school during the Eighties, I didn't learn any of this either. I had to learn it on my own. Left wing blather like Marx and the icons of the Frankfurt School? That drivel I learned about. In detail. However, being a self-taught capitalist Reagan loving kind of guy, all the left wing propaganda my professors could throw at me only served to make me understand how truly vapid and immoral their vision was. But, what about those who didn't have a broader education and a deeper understanding of America and the capitalist system? Well, if you didn't know better, it would be easy to buy into the whole socialism is the bomb and capitalism stinks mantra.
They are encouraged in these beliefs by the highest ranking politicians in the land:
While I was at my fancy dancy Ivy League school during the Eighties, I didn't learn any of this either. I had to learn it on my own. Left wing blather like Marx and the icons of the Frankfurt School? That drivel I learned about. In detail. However, being a self-taught capitalist Reagan loving kind of guy, all the left wing propaganda my professors could throw at me only served to make me understand how truly vapid and immoral their vision was. But, what about those who didn't have a broader education and a deeper understanding of America and the capitalist system? Well, if you didn't know better, it would be easy to buy into the whole socialism is the bomb and capitalism stinks mantra.
They are encouraged in these beliefs by the highest ranking politicians in the land:
So, in addition to growing up in a society that breeds an entitlement culture supported by the most influential politicians, these young skulls full of mush are herded into schools and universities where they've also been fed a whole lot of propaganda that reinforces the notion that their lives suck because of the greed of others. As a result, they have a completely warped view of how the world works. Especially because they've been handed everything their whole lives. They have no appreciation for the hard work it takes to start a business or to work with their hands punching the clock every day. Some of them even grow up to be President:
Fortunately, there are still many Americans who find it morally repugnant that our government buys votes by offering free benefits with other peoples money, bails out Wall Street with other peoples money and the bails out homeowners who made a bad decision to buy a house too big for them with other people's money:
Little did the CNBC anchor realize when he joked that Rick Santelli would make a great revolutionary leader, that this rant would be the genesis of what would become known as the Tea Party. While the Occupy movement was organized on the basis of protesting the moral issue of income inequality (give me free stuff!), the Tea Party was organized to protest the moral issue of too much spending of other people's money. To a Tea Partier, one of the most immoral things that a government can do is to saddle future generations with unsustainable levels of debt.
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Let's take a look at The Life of Julia from a Tea Party perspective:
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Let's take a look at The Life of Julia from a Tea Party perspective:
The Occupy movement is about expanding government power and government spending at the expense of the corporations and the one percent. The Tea Party is about limiting government, restoring spending back to manageable levels and saving the future for the next generation. One group is busy using their smart phones while complaining about corporate greed and asking for bailouts for their student loans. The other group is asking for a return to Founding principles, the free enterprise system and personal responsibility. So which movement do you think that the media loves and which do you think they hate? Do I have to even ask that question? No, I didn't think so:
Can you believe it? Obviously, when ABC likes you, they talk about Grandmothers from Idaho sending in cookies for those nice kids in the Occupy movement, but when it comes to those nasty Tea Partiers they have no problem screaming Racist! in a crowded theater. Since, we know that we are never going to get anything but leftist spin and narrative from the lamestream media, what is the truth? Check it out:
My point here isn't to bash OWS and promote the Tea Party. It is to illustrate how two entirely different views of morality act when they demonstrate and march to change the direction of the country. The moral values of the entitlement culture where everyone expects a cushy middle class life as their birthright leads to decadence, violence and destruction of property. The moral values of the Tea Party movement based upon hard work, self-reliance and love of the country and its Founding principles leads to a movement that gathers in the hundreds of thousands sings patriotic songs, cleans up after themselves and there is not a single report of violence. They also pay their taxes and make the country work.
This country is broken and clearly in need of new direction. Both the Occupy movement and the Tea Party want change, but which set of moral values best reflects the direction we want our nation to follow? I don't know about you. But, I don't think it's even a question.
This country is broken and clearly in need of new direction. Both the Occupy movement and the Tea Party want change, but which set of moral values best reflects the direction we want our nation to follow? I don't know about you. But, I don't think it's even a question.