Putting the cart before the horse

If ever there was a case for the national news and entertainment media putting the cart before the horse, it is the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States.
Never before has the American media literally drooled over a candidate as story fodder the way it has over the junior Illinois senator about to be sworn in as President No. 44.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why, either.
Barack Obama is not white and he’s a liberal—two of the chief reasons why he is getting so much undue attention. Bottom line.
Had Hillary Clinton been elected president instead, she would be receiving the same kind of treatment because she is a woman and a liberal. But you can bet your bottom dollar that the only attention Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would have attracted as vice-president is the same attention she got during the campaign: Everything tabloid and nothing serious. And we all know why. She’s a white conservative Christian. The fact that she would have been the first female vice-president might make an interesting sidebar.
But that’s neither here nor there. The election is over and it does no good to think about what might have been. It is what it is, to quote a phrase.
I am not so much troubled over the attention Obama has received as our nation’s first black president as I am with how the press has been canonizing the man as a national hero, a saint and, dare I say, a savior before he has even been sworn in and had a chance to do anything.
The Thanksgiving turkey barely cooled out of the oven when the major alphabet networks began to pawn off commemorative DVDs covering Obama’s life and his historic election to the public. There is also a commemorative coin graced by the President-elect’s visage.
Barack Obama is being treated by the press like the No. 1 NFL draft pick. He’s been anointed and corpulently hyped before having even put on the uniform or taken the field. Heck, he was anointed and hyped before he even wrapped up his party’s nomination. Kind of like the Heisman Trophy winner leading the field of draft contenders.
Historically, though, No. 1 draft picks have a poor track record of living up to the hype heaped on them and the expectations placed on their shoulders by others.
The President-elect has an awful lot of promises to fulfill: Not just his promises, mind you, but all of the hope and promise that his campaign generated over the past two years. And if he doesn’t deliver, that’s going to be all right, because he’ll get a free pass by a press corps that has all but enshrined him into the presidential hall of fame.
If things go bad during the Obama administration, the media will simply blame everything on Bush, a tactic that has seemed quite popular over the past few years. Nothing will be Obama’s fault and he will be treated like the favored son in a family. That’s because he is.
He can do no wrong in the eyes of the media that succeeded in carving a larger than life image out of an ordinary man and a common Chicago-style politician, who, once upon a time, flashed a multi-billion dollar smile toward the cameras.
And for the press, it was love at first sight.
The Obama presidency will be a match made in Washington: A president who relishes in the attention and a press corps that longs to lavish him with it.
To tell you the truth, I’m actually anxious for Obama’s tenure to start, because there’s nothing like a media orgy to show just how biased objective journalism can be. Get ready for blatant subjectivity on the part of the press as it swoons over Obama like legions of Elvis fans have done over the King.
Of course, media bias is nothing new. Conservatives have been aware of the questionable objectivity of the national press since the days of Kennedy Camelot bliss. It only got worse during Watergate, Reagan and the Clintonian White House. The Kennedys were loved (and still are), Nixon hated (and still hated), Reagan made fun of (and still roasted) and Clinton treated like a rock star (and still is).
Bush has been vilified (and probably will be indefinitely) and new President-elect Obama is being worshipped (and will continue to be into memoriam long after his time).
I don’t think I would have as much of a problem over Obama’s historic presidency if not for all of the obvious media bias in his favor. I saw it on the faces and heard it in the voices of virtually every commentator on nearly every channel during election night. They were, to quote Ebenezer Scrooge, “giddy as a schoolboy” over Obama.
Never before had the election of a president caused such a stir of emotions among members of the objective press, which has always beat its own drum with regard to neutrality. This is because the media is neither objective nor neutral. It has just been successful creating that illusion.
The truth is the national media tends to be left-wing in its political views, so it naturally favors left-wing politics and politicians. Obama’s liberalism is the big draw for the press, and his election is akin to pulling up triples on a slot machine. The fact that his skin is not white, though, is like striking gold, because now, the press can build him up without appearing biased toward his left-wing views. All the media has to do is focus on his skin color and repeat over and over the historical significance of America’s first black president.
But a savvy conservative knows that the media would not be making such a big deal about an historic first if a conservative republican like Palin, J.C. Watts, Ward Connelly, Clarence Thomas or Alan Keyes had been elected president instead. A conservative republican certainly wouldn’t be memorialized on a collector’s coin or canonized in a movie. Rather, he or she would end up like Thomas, forever linked to a sexual harassment scandal that was invented for the sole purpose of denying him senate confirmation to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, because the liberals did not like the idea of a republican conservative with other than white skin in a position of power. It took away their thunder and, frankly, tainted their credibility over claims that the Republican Party consisted exclusively of racist, white country club types. Although Thomas was exonerated of any wrongdoing with Anita Hill, his accuser, the negative impression still exists in the media today.
The same can be said for Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor who, quite literally, came out of the wilderness to be placed on the national republican presidential ticket. Instead of lauded as a woman running for vice-president of the United States, she was painted as boorish, shallow and, frankly, stupid—all because of a single, nervous interview she gave to a second-rate morning show host-turned news anchor. One interview.
One interview and Sarah Palin was dismissed as quickly as a back-up quarterback throwing an interception on his first pass of a ballgame.
Had that been Barack Obama—God forbid—all we would have heard from the mainstream press was that he is inexperienced giving national interviews. He’s not used to it. We ought to cut him some slack.
No, had the next President of the United States been a conservative republican, skin color or gender would not be enough of an excuse for anything. But for Obama, it can excuse anything short of pressing the red button to start World War III.
The media’s royal treatment of Obama is setting a dangerous precedent. He is being placed on a pedestal where no American really belongs. The President of the United States, after all, is not a ruler, but a representative of the people. He is elected by the people and, thus, duly represents them before Congress, the armed forces and before other nations of the world. But the way Obama is being touted, he could ostensibly place a crown on his head and not one member of the press corps would say a word ill of it.
In fact, they would probably kill one another over being the first to write the story about it. To heck with the republic and the Constitution. If the story sounds better with Obama as king, then so be it. The story—and not the truth—is really the only thing that matters to the media. After all, there's money in a story; but not in the truth.
And that, sadly, is the truth.

Much ado about nothing

There has been a lot of chatter over President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009. The loudest voices are coming from the gay community, which has painted the pastor as a homophobic hate-monger because of his opposition to gay marriage. Not only do they regard Pastor Warren as the devil incarnate, but many of them are souring in their support of the President-elect.
Not to worry. Barack Obama’s invitation to Pastor Warren is nothing more than good public relations—extending the proverbial olive branch to the conservative Christian right, whose support Obama largely did not receive in the election. In fact, one might argue that the President-elect is already thinking four years ahead to the next election. If he hopes to gain support from conservatives, then he will need a feather in his cap. The Pastor Warren invocation is a feather.
The invitation has nothing to do at all with Obama’s political views. If he thought his re-election was already assured without conservatives, he wouldn’t even bother with the olive branch.
Make no mistake: This is a politically motivated and calculated move, and not the betrayal that homosexuals claim it to be.
As far as Christian conservatives are concerned, the invitation to Pastor Warren is a feeble attempt, at best, to woo them into the fold of Obama faithful. Just because the President-elect has invited Pastor Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration ceremony does not mean the former has had a sudden change of heart and is moving to the right of the political aisle. He is neither becoming conservative, nor will he govern that way.
Besides, Pastor Warren isn’t a complete political conservative, either. He tends to be more socially progressive—meaning leftist, left-wing, liberal—and he appears to have bought into environmentalism, in particular man-made global warming propaganda. As such, he isn’t exactly the poster boy for conservatism.
For the gay community to react with alarm and consternation toward the President-elect for Warren’s invitation is unwarranted and, frankly, out of line. It isn’t as though Pastor Warren was chosen for a Cabinet position and will be involved in forming public policy in the Obama Administration. He’s just going to deliver the inaugural prayer, for Heaven’s sake!
For what it’s worth, I applaud President-elect Obama for having the courage to extend the invitation, knowing full well the fury it would cause within the gay community. He could easily have chosen a more liberal and “enlightened” cleric with softened views toward homosexuality. But he didn’t, and for that, I give him kudos—even if it was politically driven.
Giving Obama the benefit of the doubt, I would go even further to say that I appreciate the President-elect’s gesture as an effort to include Christian conservatives in his inauguration.
But that isn’t the way gays see this. To them, Pastor Warren’s mere presence at the inauguration is betrayal of the lowliest kind. It might as well be heresy.
So get over it already.
If homosexuals can’t handle having a Christian conservative present at inauguration; if they can’t tolerate any person who disagrees with their lifestyle; and if they have to resort to scare tactics, fear-mongering and intimidation to confront their opponents, then that just goes to show how open-minded, tolerant and embracing they really are.
Just as a good liberal should be: Open-minded to their views only.
Last I heard, though, Pastor Warren is not in favor of denying Constitutional rights to homosexuals. These are rights they already have and share with the rest of us by virtue of the Bill of Rights. He’s not propagating violence against gays, he doesn’t condemn them, and he doesn’t blame them for the problems of the world.
In fact, he’s committed to fighting against HIV-AIDS, a disease that has infected a large segment of the gay community.
But the mere fact that Pastor Warren does not condone homosexuality automatically places him on the black list.
Truth be told, the gay community is so uptight, so paranoid and so fearful of their opposition that it literally pains them to have to see the faces or hear the voices of anyone who disagrees with them. If you are not 100 percent on board with the gay agenda, then you are part of the problem and nothing more than a right-wing parasite that needs to be silenced. Any opposition—any at all—is tantamount to bigotry and hate-speech, as far as the gay community is concerned.
But there’s good news for gays: A cure for christoconservatophobia does exist. I believe folks on the left call it “tolerance.” They should try practicing it.
On the other hand, they could always give themselves enemas. That is a guaranteed cure for whatever is stuck up their craws.

Don’t live in the past, be the past

Philosopher George Santayana once advised, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Unbeknownst to me, I took his advice to heart in my youth. I was in the seventh grade when I developed a great interest in the subject of history. Of course, at that age, I was not aware that the content I found so fascinating had a lesson behind it.
But by the time I graduated from high school, I was reciting the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address in my head, not so much because I found these subjects fascinating, but rather because I understood there was a purpose behind them. They stood for something. They had meaning to me and to the world around me then, and they still do today.
I have come to rely a great deal on history to reinforce my points of view, to give me comfort in uncertain times and to remind me that there is still work to be done.
Anyone who reads my posts can see that I invoke a lot of history in my writing. Consequently, I have been accused by other bloggers of living in the past. Unfortunately, they see only that I write about the past and not that I am trying to apply the past to the present.
The truth is I live very much in the present. I have a great understanding of the issues of the day and I have sound opinions on most of them. I recognize the challenges we are facing today as well as those ahead of us. I see where we have made mistakes and where we continue to make them.
I am much more three-dimensional than my critics give me credit for, because I invoke the past to help me through the present and to prepare me for the future.
But if living in the past means reflecting on what was, then I am guilty as charged, because I do this a lot.
When people today look to the government to solve their problems, I want to tell them, “No, solve your own problems. That’s what our ancestors did.”
To which I am usually rebuked with something like this: “But we live in an entirely different time, with different needs, different issues and in a different culture. Our ancestors did things on their own because they had to in order to survive. We don’t.”
Admittedly, this is a good rebuttal. However, it misses the point entirely. Based on the past, and the history of what has already happened, I am convinced that the human spirit transcends the variables of changing times. Because the Wright Brothers successfully flew the Kitty Hawk when nobody else believed they could; because Henry Ford produced automobiles for the common man when others thought it would put him out of business; because Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, phonograph and motion picture (among many other inventions crucial to the present) when no one said he would; and because President Abraham Lincoln preserved the Union when all seemed lost, I believe that a person facing today’s problems can persevere because of the remarkable buoyancy of the human spirit.
Human strengths and weaknesses tend to be consistently the same regardless of time period, culture, issues or needs. There has been wickedness and righteousness, avarice and charity, foolishness and wisdom, ruthlessness and kindness, corruption and honesty, evil and good, defeat and victory, and tragedy and triumph existing in one form or another throughout the history of human civilizations. These traits don’t change just because the times do.
All that changes are our perceptions and points of view.
And this is precisely why I am so passionate about history. I can see where the good and bad of past human experiences can be applied to the present and in the future. Because of this, I believe we can overcome our personal, individual obstacles just as those before us did. We can rectify our mistakes and move on. We can do what has been done before. We can duplicate the successes and failures of the past. And we can achieve great things today just as great things were achieved yesterday.
I don’t want to end up like my critics, who would dismiss history as only a subject of study, and do not regard it as the object lesson that it is. History is not something merely to read about. It is a skill and a discipline designed to be absorbed because of the lessons within that can be applied to the here and now.
Those who see history as a marker having been passed tend to make decisions based on their perceptions. They fail to see history as a guide for either how to or how not to do something. Instead, they act on perception rather than prescription. Not too much unlike winging a recipe instead of following it to the letter; or estimating the amount of medicine needed as opposed to following the prescription or directions. Winging it might seem like more fun, but more mistakes are bound to be made this way. There’s a reason why prescriptions and directions exist; because of mistakes that were made in the past.
Without more than a little regard for history one is bound to make more mistakes, because precedents would otherwise be ignored. If we don’t learn from our mistakes, then we are liable to repeat them. That is the essence of Santayana’s sage advice and the reason why I try to follow it so religiously.
But just because I use history as a benchmark does not mean I live in the past. There is a big difference between living in the past and being the past. The latter requires that we live in the present and be acutely aware of what’s going on around us. Being the past also means regarding history enough to learn the lessons that are there to teach us.
Being the past means that I try to learn from history, so I can avoid making the same mistakes twice and steer clear of those mistakes that others before me made. Being the past means recognizing that what had once been done before can be done again; that there are parallels to human behavior throughout history, regardless of the changes of time; and that what we do or don’t do today because of what we learn from history can have a profound impact on our future.
Being the past means being a whole, three-dimensional person who understands the relationship between past, present and future. It is unhealthy—and unwise—to be too much one way or another.
Thanks to history and my reverence for it, I have a compass to guide me through life’s murky quagmire. It won’t keep me from making mistakes or poor decisions, but it is there for me to use any time and any where, regardless of whether or not I have the wisdom to use it.

Czars belong in Russia, not Washington

Now that Congress appears well on its way toward approving a $15 billion bailout of the Big Three American automakers—GM, Ford and Chrysler—industry leaders are raising concerns about the amount of government oversight that the legislature is proposing.
A little late, aren’t we?
I mean, shouldn’t the Big Three have thought about this before begging on their hands and knees for cash?
What did they expect? That the federal government would simply give them the money without strings attached? Come on, guys, even the financial institutions bailed out earlier weren’t given the money unconditionally. There will be a sizable amount of oversight within the financial industry, too, as a result of Uncle Sam investing himself into the business.
Such will also be the case with the automobile industry. If Uncle is going to give them money, he is going to invest it and not simply loan it or give it away to charity. The investment is that the government will make more money on the backs of the industries and companies it agrees to bail out because it will retain its leverage over them.
Don’t think for a minute that Congress is going to give the financial power back to those entities that have lost theirs once the crisis is over. No. Expect Uncle Sam to keep his hands wherever he is allowed to grab.
Since the Big Three have seen fit to ultimately sell themselves to the government, then they can expect to remain owned by the government indefinitely. This is simply because there is more money to be gained from ownership and profit-sharing than taxation.
The oversight being considered by Congress will likely include a committee headed by what some are calling a “Car Czar.”
Officially, he or she will be the eyes and ears of Congress in the boardrooms of the Big Three. This “Car Czar” shall be the person that the American auto industry reports to under the terms of its loan agreement with Uncle Sam. Kind of like the enforcer to a bookie or a loan shark.
In reality, the “Car Czar” is going to be yet another in a long line of useless career bureaucrats whose jobs are legitimized and justified by other career bureaucrats.
Frankly, oversight is really just a sugar-coated and water-downed term for “control.” Why else would the head of this oversight be called a “czar” if the purpose was not control?
In Russian, the term “tsar” means Caesar, which is the namesake of ancient Rome’s first Dictator-For-Life. And the Roman Caesars that followed in succession did not maintain their power with oversight. They did it with control. And that is precisely what the U.S. government has in mind for the auto, financial and any other industries that it ends up bailing out of the recession.
Make no mistake about it. We’ve seen the last of free-enterprise capitalism in the financial and automobile industries. These will now become permanent wards of the state, so to speak, forced to produce for the good of the state instead of choosing to produce for the good of the consumer.
All I am waiting for now is a line in front of the Capitol—a line of other industries, corporations, companies, businesses, entities and even local and state governments all waiting with their hands out, trying to get a piece of the bailout pie.
There is just one question on my mind regarding this: How is the United States government going to pay for everyone that has their hands out?
Taxpayer and sovereignty beware.

The Juice ain’t loose any more

That the number thirteen is unlucky may be just a superstition to many, but to O.J. Simpson it is reality. Precisely thirteen years after the Hall of Fame professional football player and celebrity was acquitted for the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Browne Simpson and her lover, Ronald Goldman, he was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to prison. The event that precipitated his adjudication happened to occur also on September 13, 2007. If The Juice doesn’t loathe the number thirteen now, he probably will in nine years when he’s eligible for parole. The whole thing might become eerily ironic if his parole is denied until after his thirteenth year in the cooler.
There are a few ways to look at this irony: either as a coincidence, bad karma, poetic justice or a combination of the three. I think most people are as convinced that Simpson’s conviction and sentence is justice being served as they are of his guilt in the 1994 double murder case.
And what reasonable person would argue with that?
This is a man who beat his ex-wife on multiple occasions, including at least once to a bloody pulp. He also fled from authorities before he could be arrested and booked for the murders. Heck, the blood left all over the crime scene, in and around Simpson’s now-infamous white Ford Bronco, and even at his own house should have been more than enough DNA evidence to implicate him beyond a reasonable doubt.
But, without going over the particulars of the trial and the case as has already been done ad nauseum, we know that legal technicalities and threats of racial backlash ultimately acquitted The Juice and handed him his freedom.
Unfortunately, ineptness within the Los Angeles Police Department overshadowed Simpson’s evident guilt and turned what ought to have been a slam-dunk case of a man with a violent streak finally snapping into a courtroom farce complete with shenanigans that would have embarrassed even the Keystone Cops.
The tragedy in the aftermath of the Simpson acquittal was that the lives of Nicole Browne Simpson and Ronald Goldman became vested in controversy long after their violent deaths instead of being allowed to rest in peace, because the work of justice remained unfinished.
Until now, that is.
Justice has caught up with their killer. The only tragedy now is that O.J. Simpson isn’t going to serve the time he really deserves, in my opinion.
Had this been any other ordinary person committing armed robbery, the sentence would probably have been 25 years to life in prison. But this is O.J. Simpson we are talking about; not Joe Six Pack. He’s being let off rather easy in my opinion because of who and what he is. O.J. Simpson is a black man, whose race has been a factor in far too many injustices in this country and it’s high time, by gosh, to tip the balance in the other direction for a change, right?
Such was the motivation behind his murder acquittal. Let’s be honest about it. There were a lot of minority voices crying foul and inciting others to protest what they perceived to be just another racist lynching. As such, certain voices threatened to duplicate the 1992 race riots that literally set Los Angeles on fire. Because of race, and the threat of revenge, an evident killer was set free.
Frankly, I think this lingered on the minds of the jurists and the judge who handed down the conviction and passed sentence, respectively. They wanted to avoid touching off a powder keg, so they gave O.J. another break.
The other part of this is simply that The Juice is a celebrity, and our culture has been conditioned to put such a person on a pedestal—even with regard to crimes and punishment. We don’t want to be too harsh on him now and appear as though we were being vindictive in our envy, do we?
The bottom line is that O.J. Simpson beat the system once, but he pressed his luck once too many. And this time, as luck would have it, his had run out—with the number thirteen no less. As the old adage goes, “Fool me once shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you.”
In the thirteen years since his murder acquittal, The Juice obviously hasn’t learned much about second chances, remorse and how to put them to good use. I doubt in his arrogance and narcissism that he has ever cared to. The violence coursing through his veins on the night of June 12, 1994 returned on September 13, 2007. Instead of a knife, he pulled a gun. The men who were robbed ought to thank their lucky stars that they were not added to Simpson’s body count.
But one thing that concerns me is how in the heck O.J. will be able to search for his ex-wife’s killer while sitting in a prison cell? His pursuit of clues on golf courses around the country proved to be an abject failure. I mean, come on, you don’t really think he was looking for his ball in the tall grass, do you?
If O.J. Simpson is really serious about searching tirelessly for his ex-wife’s killer as he proclaimed shortly after his acquittal, then why doesn’t he just procure a mirror from the prison commissary and look into it.
Not only will his search end, but it will also be just beginning.

Too little, too late

Many of us who opposed Barack Obama’s candidacy for president of the United States did so because we did not want to turn America into a socialist country. Yours truly included.
Unfortunately, our grievances with socialism have been too little, too late. The United States of America has gradually gone all but socialist in its infrastructure and operations since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal came into being 75 years ago.
Today America is a republican democracy in name and presentation only. The dynamics and mechanics of the federal government clearly function as socialism.
Washington, D.C., runs everything that the individual states are capable of and ought to be handling independently. At least that’s how our republican democracy used to and is supposed to work.
Just look at the infrastructure of the federal government today. It dictates policy on every imaginable industry and element of society: From education to health care, insurance to banking, housing to human services, food safety to agriculture, from labor to the environment, consumer protection, and so on. All of these used to be managed by the states. The federal government merely served as the intermediary in disputes.
Not any more.
Now the United States government dictates and enforces everything. And the states, once a collection of independent governments under the same constitutional law of the land, have become subjects to one centralized power. All fifty of them, in fact, stand in line with their hands out, waiting for their stipends—also known as subsidies. Not unlike the lines of people in Moscow waiting to get their daily rations under the iron fist of the Soviet Union.
But this is only half of the story.
The U.S. government has taken another giant step backward toward official socialism by bailing out the financial industry. Our esteemed leaders have said that such action was necessary to avoid collapse and catastrophe. But the consequence has been that now other industries are lining up with their hands out. Heck, even individual states, counties and municipalities have resorted to begging from Uncle Sam to give them money.
If this trend continues, then the federal government will have invested itself into every major American industry and company therein. It will effectively become the majority stakeholder and have the right to make decisions autonomously.
Can you see just how close we are coming to being state-run and state-owned? Dangerously close.
And frankly, the longer this recession lasts, the closer we will continue to get. It may only be a matter of time before the federal government is the end all, be all of American business and industry. If or when that day comes, then we might as well hold a funeral service for free market capitalism and republican democracy and bury them permanently, because there will be no turning back at that point. Once the state has control of the money it will also have all the power.
One thing that is as sure as death and taxes is that once Uncle Sam gets his sticky fingers into something, he never, ever lets go. In fact, he keeps grabbing for more. FDR’s New Deal is a perfect example. President Roosevelt intended his reforms to be only temporary, short-term solutions meant to address immediate problems. Once the economy stabilized and the Depression declared over, then the New Deal programs were supposed to go away and America would return back to normal.
But a great many of the programs established by the New Deal are still in existence today. In fact, they have grown enormously bigger since their inception.
So, I would not expect the fed to simply relinquish control over the industries it bails out when the crisis has passed. Rather, I expect this control to continue and, in fact, metastasize like a cancer.
All of us who have been so vocal against socialism during this last presidential campaign ought to be ashamed of ourselves. We had plenty of chances in the last 75 years to put an end to this procession toward state collectivism. But instead we chose to sit on our thumbs and complain about it.
Consequently, the gradual shift to the left and toward socialism has picked up so much steam that nothing short of an outright revolution can stop it. Now I fear we may be too late to do anything short of declaring open rebellion to halt the final advance.
We know what the Civil War did to this country. God help us if we have given ourselves no other alternative.

What's wrong with socialism?

Such is the question I’ve heard from many who have jumped on the Barack Obama bandwagon. But rather than ponder the question themselves, they ask it assuming that socialism is really not that bad.
If you are one of these people that accept socialism at face value simply because you follow Obama, then you have my deepest sympathies. I would encourage you to consider the question yourself and decide whether or not it is in America's best interests. I advise against taking any one else's word on it.
Now, what is so bad about socialism? That’s like asking, “What’s wrong with stealing?”
Dyed-in-the-wool leftists would disagree with me on this point, but the fundamental concept of collectivism is the same as stealing. You have something that somebody else wants, but doesn’t have, so they take from you—without your permission—in order to get it. Likewise, you may have more money than somebody else, who wants more, so he turns to the government to get it for him. The government, in turn, dips into your pocket—without your permission—to give more money to the guy who has less than you. As a result, you and the other guy now have the same amount of money and either is better or worse off than the other. This is all done in the name of social justice, fairness, and equity.
The socialist creed, after all, is “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” What this means is that the government takes as much as you are able to produce and distributes amongst everyone else to meet their needs.
In the animal world, socialism can be likened to the lives of ants and the bees, whose work is done for the collective good. But they have no individuality, identity and no uniqueness about them. Their ingenuity is borne not out of inventiveness, but rather out of conformity, assignment and the repetitive toiling therewith. Their strength lay in the unison of their work. As long as each does its job, the unit, the colony, the hive is safe and secure.
By contrast, consider the coyote, a scavenger and a rogue, but one of the most adaptable creatures on earth. A true non-conformist and pure opportunist, the coyote may choose to run with the pack or go into business for himself the way an entrepreneur does. While he lacks the safety and security enjoyed by the ants and the bees, he has freedom to choose his role in life: Either as a member of the pack or as a sole proprietor.
Unlike the toiling ants and bees, the coyote is able to make his own way, seek out opportunity, pursue it and reap its rewards.
Life may be feast or famine for him, but at least he has his freedom.
I believe socialism is bad for America because it is the antithesis of freedom, liberty and opportunity, the foundations upon which our nation was established and subsequently flourished. Collectivism runs counter to concepts of “life, liberty and [especially] the pursuit of happiness,” which form the basis for the fundamental rights of man.
How can we pursue our individual happiness if the government takes away the means with which to launch our endeavors? How can we be truly free if the government takes care of our every need? And how can a person really be alive if they are unable to live life on their own terms?
The answer is not socialism, which, simplified, means public-owned and public-run. The term public, of course, refers to government bureaucracy and not the people.
Not as extreme or militant as communism, socialism still awards ultimate, final authority to the government over all matters public and private.
Under a true socialist system, all organizations are run by the government in some way or another; either owned outright and managed directly or invested and maintained through bureaucratic supervision.
This means that the state is the majority stockholder on the Board of Directors of every business, industry, company or corporation, all charities, institutions, leagues, coalitions and other non-profit organizations that generate money, funds, and revenue. The state then collects this revenue and decides how best to distribute it throughout its infrastructure.
The growth, maintenance, persistence and sustainability of any organization within a socialist system is at the sole discretion of the government; meaning that the freedom to invest and expand is prohibited without government consent.
With regard to individuals, a socialist government is involved in everybody’s lives from womb to tomb. From our child care to elder care, from early education to career preparation, from what you earn to what you are allowed to keep, from investments to retirement, from health care to the basic essentials of human need—food, clothing, shelter—the government is there as your provider. You don’t have to worry about the uncertainty and risk that comes with freedom and opportunity, because your safety and security is more important. Ensuring that you have food to eat, clothes to wear, and a roof over your head to sleep under takes priority over the yearnings of the human spirit, the human heart. That is the socialist way.
But it is not the American way.
The United States of America did not grow into the wealthiest, most prosperous and arguably the most successful nation in the history of the world because of socialism. It did so because of the partnership forged between republican democracy and free market capitalism.
These two philosophies go together like meat and potatoes.
Both promote individual freedom because they respect the individual by affording him the liberty to govern and support himself, make his own way, to create and build his own legacy, and invest in others.
All of the good that America has done in the world, all of the charity that she has spread to other nations during her relatively young existence has happened because of freedom, liberty and opportunity.
You can't have any of these virtues under the thumb of government ownership and control, because authoritarian rule naturally shuts them out.
How else could an ordinary person go from a miserable failure to an incomparable success without the opportunity to take the risks that liberty and freedom offer? Sure, there’s uncertainty, even danger. But there’s also a light at the end of the tunnel.
The greatest gifts of American liberty are the freedom to pursue one's dreams, to build the life one could have only before imagined, and to be able to regulate oneself rather than rely on government to do it for him.
It is as much about having the opportunity to fail as it is to succeed, to flounder or flourish instead of being dependent upon a government that strives to ensure the security of mediocre subsistence.
Do you know what the difference between a foreign peasant and a poor American is? Opportunity.
In America, the poor don't have to stay poor. If they choose, they can pull themselves out of poverty simply by pursuing a better life. And they can do this because of opportunity; not government. The poor in other countries don't have opportunities to pursue a higher quality of life for themselves and their families. They are forced instead to accept their lots in life, to toil and spin in poverty from cradle to grave. Meanwhile, those in power, those in government rule over them in comparative luxury.
And therein lay the greatest contradiction, the gravest injustice of socialism, or any authoritarian system of government for that matter. While collectivism promotes fairness, sameness and social justice, it also summarily suppresses the masses from reaching the same level of affluence enjoyed by those in power.
Sound familiar?
We fought a revolution against a hierarchal system, because it rewarded people based on their position in government and society instead of on merit. And it punished those who were not so fortunate as to be a member of the nobility.
By comparison, the government leaders of a socialist society are the nobility. Anyone desiring to join their ranks is met by a very subjective process, with the qualifications of membership resting solely at the discretion of those seated firmly in power.
The likelihood of an ordinary working person being accepted into such an exclusive echelon would be about the same as a pauper becoming a prince.
Not a chance.
At least under free market capitalism and a republican democracy we have the chance because we have opportunity and liberty, both of which judge a man by what he does and not by who he is. The odds of an average person becoming a millionaire are probably comparable to those of a pauper becoming a prince…with one notable exception: Opportunity.
Here, at least, in America we have the opportunity to build castles and kingdoms out of nothing, to cultivate and produce abundance from impoverished soil, to become somebody who once was nobody.
If we give up our current political and economic systems in favor of socialism, then we will forfeit our freedom. It’s as simple as that.
Benjamin Franklin said it best when he wrote, “Those who would give up essential liberty for a little temporary security are deserving of neither liberty nor security.”
If after all this you still don’t see anything wrong with socialism, then you may indeed deserve what you get.