The Real revolution-Sweden or Stalin?
In case you haven’t noticed, there is a real revolution happening in the US of A. No, I’m not talking about a revolution led by NRA types or the many disgruntled conservatives and libertarians who are unhappy with the course of this nation. Yes, there are a lot of angry people out there and there are talk radio hosts and political commentators who reflect, and at times, encourage, that anger but there is no revolution brewing there. Revolutions require political power and leadership and right now conservatives and libertarians have none and as cowardly and spineless as Republicans have shown themselves, they are unlikely to recapture it anytime soon.
No, the revolution I am talking about is happening in Washington DC as you read this. The United States has been the victim of a bloodless coup whose aim is no less than the replacement of the constitutionally limited government on which our nation was founded and replacing it with a one party socialist, or dare I say, communist, political system. I know that is a loaded statement but after observing President Obama and the other Democrat leaders for the last six weeks and considering their proposals, I have come to believe it’s true. After observing their words and actions since the first of the year there are two possible conclusions. First, these people are really stupid and totally incompetent and their first few weeks in office have demonstrated an ignorant disregard of the history of this country and basic common sense. Although my opinion of politicians in general is very low, I don’t think any group can be that stupid. The second possibility is that they are choosing to set common sense and this nation’s history aside because they are pursuing a malevolent agenda in which they desire to replace that which has gone before with a system that will ensure their own power. I have come to accept this as the truth based on the following evidence.
Exhibit A is the fact that everything they are doing is aimed at destroying the personal wealth of the citizens of this country. Economic freedom is the basis for all freedom. The founders understood this. It was economic freedom over which they rebelled and it was to ensure the greatest personal freedom in economic spheres and all others that they formulates a constitutionally limited government. Look at the first two amendments to the Constitution. Without the wealth that results from economic freedom, your freedom to speak will mean little. It takes money to make yourself heard beyond the sound of your natural voice. Without wealth there will be no exercise of your right to keep and bear arms for the poor cannot afford such things. Then there are our everyday choices. Economic freedom allows us to choose which businesses we support and which charities we give to. This creates an efficient and compassionate society, two things that have made this country great and two words that are never applied to government.
All socialist/communist governments limit or eliminate the economic freedom of their citizens. Some will confiscate it, literally stealing their citizens money and throwing them out of their homes. We are not there...yet. This revolution is content to literally destroy our wealth, hoping that we will not blame them but look to them as our savior when we have nothing left. Sound too harsh? I don’t think it’s harsh enough. Consider this, where do most Americans have their wealth? Two places, their homes and their retirement-the stock market. The destruction of the housing market can be tied directly to Barny Frank and Chris Dodd and their coddling of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack and their desire to encourage, and at times, threaten, banks to give loans to people that shouldn’t have qualified. That wealth is disappearing and what is left is very difficult to tap with credit markets being tight. To make recovery difficult, the administration is removing the incentive to buy by removing some of the mortgage deduction. Only someone stupid or malevolent would look at the present housing market and increase costs on people who may be in a position to buy. Only someone stupid or malevolent would attempt to empower judges or force banks to throw out signed contracts and reduce actual principle amounts on loans which will only raise interest rates for all and make home buying more difficult.
What about the stock market? The majority of Americans that have money have money there, mostly in retirement savings. Certainly the bursting housing bubble contributed to the market’s decline but that is not the whole story. Larry Kudlow rightly describes President Obama’s policies as a “war on investors”. Just as the way to turn the housing market around is to let it finds its bottom and encourage people to buy, so it is with the stock market. But President Obama’s statements scare people. Nobody wants to buy stock when the president tells them the crisis will be getting a lot worse. Then there is all the tax hikes on investors, dividend tax increases, capital gain increases, income tax increases, the double taxation of corporations. Who wants to invest when the government has its hand in your pocket before you do? Then there are the policies of running the printing presses full time and begging unfriendly foreign governments to continue to fund our enormous debt. Haven’t these people heard of Argentina or any number of other governments that have tried to spend and borrow their way to prosperity? It doesn’t work and Wall Street knows it. But the Democrats don’t want the market to recover. They are at war with the successful people in this country because wealth is power and they want it all. I personally predict the Dow will drop to triple digits before it is all over and all the retirement and pension wealth of this country will be wiped out. The the government security net will be all that’s left for everyone. Everyone equally dependent and equally miserable.
That is not all. Not only does the government now want to destroy wealth, it wants to make sure no new wealth is created. It would appear that they are doing everything they can to make sure the economy never again becomes the wealth creation engine for the world. Both Ronald Reagan and George Bush “inherited” recessions but they didn’t go to these depths. History can be a good teacher but the Obama administration is ignoring it in favor of a course of action that most economists (and the administration!) agree is the opposite of what should be done during an economic downturn. Exhibit B. It is a very bad idea to raise taxes during a recession, particularly on those who are the engine of the economy. Just when we need people to spend money, the government is going to take more of it. But this is just the “down payment” on the administrations war on the “rich” which includes many more of us that we realize. There are a lot of taxes that the other “95%” of us are going to pay. If cap and trade passes, energy costs will go up over 50%. The 634 billion dollars that comprise the “down payment” on a universal health care program we haven’t seen yet will cost trillions of dollars that we will all have to pay. As spending goes up, interest payments skyrocket, entitlement spending increases exponentially, the money will have to come from somewhere. We can only borrow and print so much, eventually, it will have to come from all of us. Soon, those high rates on “the rich” will affect all of us and we will be left with a small allowance while the great bulk of our income is confiscated to pay for all these “free” government services.
Exhibit C. The federal government is working hard to eliminate competition to its power and doing its best to make sure that everyone looks to it for their needs. C1. The debate among some governors as to whether to take the stimulus money because they rightly understand that taking the money now will make them dependent in the future and federal money always comes with strings attached. By making the states beholden to federal money they can be brought under federal control and will bend to federal will when necessary even though the constitution reserves most power for the states and the people. C2. The reduction of the tax deduction for charitable giving. Just when the economy is in a downturn and charities are seeing a drop in contributions and a rise in demand, the government wants to reduce the incentive to give by those who have the money to give. Sure, the budget includes a small percentage of the projected loss but make no mistake. If a lot of charities fold, the government is more than willing to take up the slack. Those that don’t fold and find it necessary to take federal money will find themselves effectively regulated and run by the government. Its all about control and concentrating it in Washington.
Exhibit D. Control of the economy. The nationalization of several banks and the money we continue to pour into AIG and Detroit are the early stages of this. The fact that lawmakers have shamed and scolded the leaders of whole industries by dragging them before congress is easily compared to the attitude communists havealways had toward capitalists. The fact that there are already a myriad of regulatory agencies and complicated tax law that give Washington control over business will pale in comparison to what is coming. If no one is allowed to fail and our money is used to prop up businesses that made bad decisions, our whole economy will suffer. Innovation is a result of competition and risk. If risk of failure is removed competition becomes meaningless, innovation goes out the window and corporations, particularly large corporations, will become...just like government. The consumer suffers because prices will rise and quality will go down. What did the Soviet Union ever produce that the world wanted? Do we really want to follow that model?
Some of these things have been described as “temporary”, that these measures are necessary now and will be removed when the economy recovers or the businesses involved can stand on their own two feet. If anyone believes that I’ve got some foolproof investments to sell you that are guaranteed to return 200% per year for ten years. Ronald Reagan said that the closest thing to eternal life we know is a government program. There are government programs that have long outlived their usefulness, government programs that have demonstrated themselves to be detrimental and still go on. Government never relinquishes control once it has it. What about welfare reform, you say? A rare reduction which is about to be reversed in a big way. This is perhaps the scariest part of all of this. Once these things are implemented, putting Republicans back in power isn’t going to change it. They have shown themselves inept and spineless and will not rescind these programs. Do you really think that once people have “free” health care, the Republicans are going to take it away? I don’t think so.
The question is, will there be a change in party again or are we becoming, effectively, a one party country? Exhibit E. There is a two pronged approach to securing power among the Democrats. The first is to silence the opposition. This will be done through some form of the “Fairness Doctrine”, even if it is called something else. Most of the media is already in Lord Obama’s pocket, no better than the Pravda of the old Soviet Union. The media makes the party look good whenever possible and will defend or minimize mistakes. Talk radio, unfriendly media outlets and the Internet must be controlled or silenced. The Democrats and liberal Republicans will then be able to get their message out and count on a friendly media to destroy their opponents. The second prong is to expand their voter base. Both parties have been fighting for the illegal immigrant vote but with more goodies to hand out, the Democrats will win this one. This can be the only reason both parties have refused to control illegal immigration even though it has proven destructive to the economy, violent and divisive. If twenty million illegal are given amnesty under the Democrats, there is no doubt those that aren’t already registered will do so as Democrats, many in Texas, Arizona and other “red” states. Then there is the expansion of unions under the so called “Freedom of Choice Act” which is just the “Freedom to Bully People into Joining a Union Act”. If this passes, unions will muscle there way into a myriad of other businesses, prices will go up and competitiveness will go down. Just compare domestic car plants run under the UAW and those that aren't. Which are competitive and which are not? Add all those union workers to all the federal union workers that will be added to run all these new programs and the voter base for the Democrats and the amount of money they receive will increase exponentially.
Finally, Exhibit F. The willful destruction of the American Character. I will define the American character as a mix of rugged individualism, moral strength, compassion, and a puritan work ethic. These are things that made this country great and these are the exact opposite of the characteristics any dictatorial power wants in its people. Dictators want sheep, stupid sheep who will follow without question and believe the government knows best. That the public education system, the ACLU and liberal Hollywood have sought to destroy the intelligence and moral character of Americans for decades is not in question. We have already mentioned that by punishing charitable giving the Democrats are trying to co-opt compassion and make it the sole property of the Federal government. Democrats and their “it takes a village” approach have been trying to infect our minds with collectivism forever. Now there is an all out assault on the hard work and innovative spirit that make this country prosperous. The fact is that the Democrats want to reward irresponsible behavior and punish success. This is unlike FDR’s New Deal which gave jobs to people after they lost everything or even welfare that provide the basics for people who have nothing. This is an attempt to do to the middle class what the welfare system has done to the poor-make them dependent on government and specifically, Democrats. They are destroying incentive. “Why should I work to pay my neighbors mortgage, credit card bills or car loan? Where’s my bailout?” Once that last question is backed by a real expectation in the majority, all is lost. Government will gladly jump in and provide whatever we think we need. All we need to do is vote away our freedom. Citizens become subjects, power becomes more concentrated in Washington, more freedom is lost and....then what? I suppose the best result would be that we follow the Scandinavian model. We put up with high unemployment with a horrendously expensive social service network and we all remain satisfied with our lower middle class lives, letting the government take care of us. What is to keep us, however, from following other one party totalitarian regimes like Germany or the Soviet Union? We have a constitution, you say. So? Stalin’s Russia had a constitution that guaranteed all kinds of rights. It was ignored. We have ignored much of ours in the interests of filling our bellies and now we will find it difficult, if not impossible, to reverse that trend. There is a revolution taking place and the United States is changing more rapidly than we can imagine, and not for the better. We need a counter-revolution before our country is lost forever. We need to find the courage to stand up for the American Character no matter what the personal cost, stop looking for handouts and learn to stand on our own two feet again. We need to find our voice now, before its too late. For if we don’t shout now, we may find it necessary to shoot later. Sweeden or Stalin, we don’t know where this road will end up. I’d just as soon turn around and embrace Washington and Jefferson again. What about you?
No, the revolution I am talking about is happening in Washington DC as you read this. The United States has been the victim of a bloodless coup whose aim is no less than the replacement of the constitutionally limited government on which our nation was founded and replacing it with a one party socialist, or dare I say, communist, political system. I know that is a loaded statement but after observing President Obama and the other Democrat leaders for the last six weeks and considering their proposals, I have come to believe it’s true. After observing their words and actions since the first of the year there are two possible conclusions. First, these people are really stupid and totally incompetent and their first few weeks in office have demonstrated an ignorant disregard of the history of this country and basic common sense. Although my opinion of politicians in general is very low, I don’t think any group can be that stupid. The second possibility is that they are choosing to set common sense and this nation’s history aside because they are pursuing a malevolent agenda in which they desire to replace that which has gone before with a system that will ensure their own power. I have come to accept this as the truth based on the following evidence.
Exhibit A is the fact that everything they are doing is aimed at destroying the personal wealth of the citizens of this country. Economic freedom is the basis for all freedom. The founders understood this. It was economic freedom over which they rebelled and it was to ensure the greatest personal freedom in economic spheres and all others that they formulates a constitutionally limited government. Look at the first two amendments to the Constitution. Without the wealth that results from economic freedom, your freedom to speak will mean little. It takes money to make yourself heard beyond the sound of your natural voice. Without wealth there will be no exercise of your right to keep and bear arms for the poor cannot afford such things. Then there are our everyday choices. Economic freedom allows us to choose which businesses we support and which charities we give to. This creates an efficient and compassionate society, two things that have made this country great and two words that are never applied to government.
All socialist/communist governments limit or eliminate the economic freedom of their citizens. Some will confiscate it, literally stealing their citizens money and throwing them out of their homes. We are not there...yet. This revolution is content to literally destroy our wealth, hoping that we will not blame them but look to them as our savior when we have nothing left. Sound too harsh? I don’t think it’s harsh enough. Consider this, where do most Americans have their wealth? Two places, their homes and their retirement-the stock market. The destruction of the housing market can be tied directly to Barny Frank and Chris Dodd and their coddling of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack and their desire to encourage, and at times, threaten, banks to give loans to people that shouldn’t have qualified. That wealth is disappearing and what is left is very difficult to tap with credit markets being tight. To make recovery difficult, the administration is removing the incentive to buy by removing some of the mortgage deduction. Only someone stupid or malevolent would look at the present housing market and increase costs on people who may be in a position to buy. Only someone stupid or malevolent would attempt to empower judges or force banks to throw out signed contracts and reduce actual principle amounts on loans which will only raise interest rates for all and make home buying more difficult.
What about the stock market? The majority of Americans that have money have money there, mostly in retirement savings. Certainly the bursting housing bubble contributed to the market’s decline but that is not the whole story. Larry Kudlow rightly describes President Obama’s policies as a “war on investors”. Just as the way to turn the housing market around is to let it finds its bottom and encourage people to buy, so it is with the stock market. But President Obama’s statements scare people. Nobody wants to buy stock when the president tells them the crisis will be getting a lot worse. Then there is all the tax hikes on investors, dividend tax increases, capital gain increases, income tax increases, the double taxation of corporations. Who wants to invest when the government has its hand in your pocket before you do? Then there are the policies of running the printing presses full time and begging unfriendly foreign governments to continue to fund our enormous debt. Haven’t these people heard of Argentina or any number of other governments that have tried to spend and borrow their way to prosperity? It doesn’t work and Wall Street knows it. But the Democrats don’t want the market to recover. They are at war with the successful people in this country because wealth is power and they want it all. I personally predict the Dow will drop to triple digits before it is all over and all the retirement and pension wealth of this country will be wiped out. The the government security net will be all that’s left for everyone. Everyone equally dependent and equally miserable.
That is not all. Not only does the government now want to destroy wealth, it wants to make sure no new wealth is created. It would appear that they are doing everything they can to make sure the economy never again becomes the wealth creation engine for the world. Both Ronald Reagan and George Bush “inherited” recessions but they didn’t go to these depths. History can be a good teacher but the Obama administration is ignoring it in favor of a course of action that most economists (and the administration!) agree is the opposite of what should be done during an economic downturn. Exhibit B. It is a very bad idea to raise taxes during a recession, particularly on those who are the engine of the economy. Just when we need people to spend money, the government is going to take more of it. But this is just the “down payment” on the administrations war on the “rich” which includes many more of us that we realize. There are a lot of taxes that the other “95%” of us are going to pay. If cap and trade passes, energy costs will go up over 50%. The 634 billion dollars that comprise the “down payment” on a universal health care program we haven’t seen yet will cost trillions of dollars that we will all have to pay. As spending goes up, interest payments skyrocket, entitlement spending increases exponentially, the money will have to come from somewhere. We can only borrow and print so much, eventually, it will have to come from all of us. Soon, those high rates on “the rich” will affect all of us and we will be left with a small allowance while the great bulk of our income is confiscated to pay for all these “free” government services.
Exhibit C. The federal government is working hard to eliminate competition to its power and doing its best to make sure that everyone looks to it for their needs. C1. The debate among some governors as to whether to take the stimulus money because they rightly understand that taking the money now will make them dependent in the future and federal money always comes with strings attached. By making the states beholden to federal money they can be brought under federal control and will bend to federal will when necessary even though the constitution reserves most power for the states and the people. C2. The reduction of the tax deduction for charitable giving. Just when the economy is in a downturn and charities are seeing a drop in contributions and a rise in demand, the government wants to reduce the incentive to give by those who have the money to give. Sure, the budget includes a small percentage of the projected loss but make no mistake. If a lot of charities fold, the government is more than willing to take up the slack. Those that don’t fold and find it necessary to take federal money will find themselves effectively regulated and run by the government. Its all about control and concentrating it in Washington.
Exhibit D. Control of the economy. The nationalization of several banks and the money we continue to pour into AIG and Detroit are the early stages of this. The fact that lawmakers have shamed and scolded the leaders of whole industries by dragging them before congress is easily compared to the attitude communists havealways had toward capitalists. The fact that there are already a myriad of regulatory agencies and complicated tax law that give Washington control over business will pale in comparison to what is coming. If no one is allowed to fail and our money is used to prop up businesses that made bad decisions, our whole economy will suffer. Innovation is a result of competition and risk. If risk of failure is removed competition becomes meaningless, innovation goes out the window and corporations, particularly large corporations, will become...just like government. The consumer suffers because prices will rise and quality will go down. What did the Soviet Union ever produce that the world wanted? Do we really want to follow that model?
Some of these things have been described as “temporary”, that these measures are necessary now and will be removed when the economy recovers or the businesses involved can stand on their own two feet. If anyone believes that I’ve got some foolproof investments to sell you that are guaranteed to return 200% per year for ten years. Ronald Reagan said that the closest thing to eternal life we know is a government program. There are government programs that have long outlived their usefulness, government programs that have demonstrated themselves to be detrimental and still go on. Government never relinquishes control once it has it. What about welfare reform, you say? A rare reduction which is about to be reversed in a big way. This is perhaps the scariest part of all of this. Once these things are implemented, putting Republicans back in power isn’t going to change it. They have shown themselves inept and spineless and will not rescind these programs. Do you really think that once people have “free” health care, the Republicans are going to take it away? I don’t think so.
The question is, will there be a change in party again or are we becoming, effectively, a one party country? Exhibit E. There is a two pronged approach to securing power among the Democrats. The first is to silence the opposition. This will be done through some form of the “Fairness Doctrine”, even if it is called something else. Most of the media is already in Lord Obama’s pocket, no better than the Pravda of the old Soviet Union. The media makes the party look good whenever possible and will defend or minimize mistakes. Talk radio, unfriendly media outlets and the Internet must be controlled or silenced. The Democrats and liberal Republicans will then be able to get their message out and count on a friendly media to destroy their opponents. The second prong is to expand their voter base. Both parties have been fighting for the illegal immigrant vote but with more goodies to hand out, the Democrats will win this one. This can be the only reason both parties have refused to control illegal immigration even though it has proven destructive to the economy, violent and divisive. If twenty million illegal are given amnesty under the Democrats, there is no doubt those that aren’t already registered will do so as Democrats, many in Texas, Arizona and other “red” states. Then there is the expansion of unions under the so called “Freedom of Choice Act” which is just the “Freedom to Bully People into Joining a Union Act”. If this passes, unions will muscle there way into a myriad of other businesses, prices will go up and competitiveness will go down. Just compare domestic car plants run under the UAW and those that aren't. Which are competitive and which are not? Add all those union workers to all the federal union workers that will be added to run all these new programs and the voter base for the Democrats and the amount of money they receive will increase exponentially.
Finally, Exhibit F. The willful destruction of the American Character. I will define the American character as a mix of rugged individualism, moral strength, compassion, and a puritan work ethic. These are things that made this country great and these are the exact opposite of the characteristics any dictatorial power wants in its people. Dictators want sheep, stupid sheep who will follow without question and believe the government knows best. That the public education system, the ACLU and liberal Hollywood have sought to destroy the intelligence and moral character of Americans for decades is not in question. We have already mentioned that by punishing charitable giving the Democrats are trying to co-opt compassion and make it the sole property of the Federal government. Democrats and their “it takes a village” approach have been trying to infect our minds with collectivism forever. Now there is an all out assault on the hard work and innovative spirit that make this country prosperous. The fact is that the Democrats want to reward irresponsible behavior and punish success. This is unlike FDR’s New Deal which gave jobs to people after they lost everything or even welfare that provide the basics for people who have nothing. This is an attempt to do to the middle class what the welfare system has done to the poor-make them dependent on government and specifically, Democrats. They are destroying incentive. “Why should I work to pay my neighbors mortgage, credit card bills or car loan? Where’s my bailout?” Once that last question is backed by a real expectation in the majority, all is lost. Government will gladly jump in and provide whatever we think we need. All we need to do is vote away our freedom. Citizens become subjects, power becomes more concentrated in Washington, more freedom is lost and....then what? I suppose the best result would be that we follow the Scandinavian model. We put up with high unemployment with a horrendously expensive social service network and we all remain satisfied with our lower middle class lives, letting the government take care of us. What is to keep us, however, from following other one party totalitarian regimes like Germany or the Soviet Union? We have a constitution, you say. So? Stalin’s Russia had a constitution that guaranteed all kinds of rights. It was ignored. We have ignored much of ours in the interests of filling our bellies and now we will find it difficult, if not impossible, to reverse that trend. There is a revolution taking place and the United States is changing more rapidly than we can imagine, and not for the better. We need a counter-revolution before our country is lost forever. We need to find the courage to stand up for the American Character no matter what the personal cost, stop looking for handouts and learn to stand on our own two feet again. We need to find our voice now, before its too late. For if we don’t shout now, we may find it necessary to shoot later. Sweeden or Stalin, we don’t know where this road will end up. I’d just as soon turn around and embrace Washington and Jefferson again. What about you?
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