Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
Tags: central-planning, Dr. Robert Owens, enlightenment thinking, liberty, Political philosophy, political theory
If we knew everything in the past and the future there would be little need for freedom. If we could accurately know all that preceded our fleeting moment upon life’s stage, if we could know all the consequences of our present desires, and if we could know what we would desire in the future we could then chart a course to perfection without any detours and so freedom of action would be unnecessary and central-planning would make sense.
Freedom would not only be unnecessary it would be very inconvenient. One free agent on this express to perfection would be the fly in the ointment and the monkey wrench in the gears. That one free person would rage against the machines, and would inevitably make an unforeseen choice and all the perfection would silently slip away.
In order to have the freedom to succeed there must also be freedom to fail. We all need the freedom to act upon circumstances that we don’t fully understand to attain goals whose consequences we can’t fully appreciate. Without this there is no freedom. We can pretend as the progressive advocates of central-planning do that we can accurately predict the consequence of every action; however this is contrary to our real-world experience.
The reason failure is so prevalent is due to the fact that every individual is operating with imperfect knowledge of what is best or of what will eventually yield the best outcome that we must allow people the freedom to act upon their ignorance. In this way the independent and competitive choices of many individuals will eventually lead through trial and error to the development of the best. Since so many times the best emerges through accidental or unforeseen results of actions taken without complete knowledge of what the outcome would be we must leave room for accidents often guided by ignorance so that knowledge can grow.
It is an incontrovertible fact that as the fund of human knowledge grows the percentage that any one person can effectively know becomes smaller. In other words, as general knowledge increases individual ignorance also increases. Add to this the constantly increasing complexity of our civilization and it becomes obvious that people must be allowed to act upon the knowledge they possess without regard to the vast amount of knowledge they do not possess. Otherwise no advancement would be possible, and we would live in a static society doomed to eventual demise.
It is this freedom to act in ignorance of all the consequences of their actions that allows the space for individual innovation. The greater the freedom of individuals to interpret the world according to their imperfect knowledge and to organize their efforts based upon their understanding of the world as they see it the greater the opportunity for the accidents which make up the majority of progress. If we take away the freedom to act upon our imperfect knowledge, if we take away the freedom to fail we will also take away the engine of progress and condemn ourselves to a stagnant world of limited possibilities.
As one person tries something another may build upon their result whether it succeeds or fails. The ability to learn from and build upon the experience of others is the seedbed of innovation and the font of discovery. It is our ignorance of all but a small fragment of reality that causes probability and chance to play such a large portion in our activities. It is within this realm of probability and chance that the future grows.
This applies to social as well as technical fields. The favorable accidents which become the building blocks of a vibrant, successful society do not just happen. They are the result of someone taking a risk, doing something that hasn’t been tried before without the complete knowledge of what the result will be. They include the chance of failure as well as of success and often the success achieved is not the desired end result of the action when it was initiated. Freedom increases the opportunity for risk and opens the door to possibility.
When we look at the vast amount of knowledge that makes up the common store of information in the modern age and then look at the miniscule percentage that any one person could possibly gain, retain and understand we see that the difference between what the wisest knows and what the least wise knows is comparatively insignificant. Everyone is operating based upon imperfect knowledge and the acceptance of grand assumptions.
To tell you the truth I am not really sure how electricity works. Yet most of my life and lifestyle is predicated on the availability and use of electricity. Most people have no idea how the economy works yet we all base our lives upon the fact that it does. If we refused to act in areas where we had less than perfect knowledge we would do nothing. One of the big differences between an advocate of liberty and an advocate of central-planning is that those who see liberty as man’s natural state understand that no one person or group is wise enough to make all the decisions for everyone. Central planners by definition believe they are wise enough to do so.
The case for liberty made by such Enlightenment thinkers as John Milton and John Locke provided the philosophical foundation for the Framers as they wrote our Constitution. They based their arguments for liberty on the realization that human ignorance and our need to act in the face of ignorance is a basic component of reality.
Every application of the tenants of Liberty reflect our need to give these actions based upon ignorance the widest possible scope to interface with chance and probability not certainty. Certainty is unattainable in this life outside of a cultural straightjacket that restricts choice and eliminates the freedom to fail. Such a society will be stagnant, stunted and doomed. Without the freedom to fail on an individual basis and then fall forward from that failure a society has short-circuited the conveyor belt of individual success and charted the course to eventual systemic failure. The former USSR was a text book example of this scenario.
If we wish to avoid the trash heap of History we must be wise enough to learn that though acting upon ignorance may increase the odds of failure if we try to eliminate failure so that everyone gets a trophy and everyone succeeds we have consigned ourselves to the dead end that always awaits anyone or any society that believes perfection is attainable on this earth.
For it isn’t failing that marks a failure it is the refusal to rise from failure and move on to success. We learn by failing. We achieve by using our freedom to fail as a launching pad for success. We fail because of our ignorance. We succeed because of our failures.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
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Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
Tags: central-planning, collectivist, communist, Dr. Robert Owens, fascist, progressive, socialist, Utopia, utopian schemes
When my grandmother was born a horse was the normal means of transport. When my granddaughter was born the International Space Striation was the brightest light in the night’s sky. In other words, things change. When I sat on the couch and watched the first man walk on the moon with my grandmother she didn’t believe it was real. When I tell my low information neighbors that the International Space Striation is the brightest light in the night’s sky they don’t believe it is true. In other words, human nature doesn’t change.
To allow our leaders, our fellow citizens, our own kith and kin the charitable label of misguided dreamers is the closest I can come to innocently explaining their roles as either accomplices or instigators of our national decline. I try to tell myself they are as Lenin and Stalin are reputed to have called them, “Useful Idiots:” well-meaning people who genuinely believe central planning will help the needy. I try not to let myself think the Progressives and their supporters are actually extremely corrupt and evil people who are actively attempting to transform our beloved experiment in freedom into another forced labor camp striving to achieve Utopia.
The problem with utopian dreams is that they always end in dystopian realities. Lenin’s dream of a worker’s paradise transformed itself into Stalin’s nightmare of the gulags, starvation, and the eventual destruction of their nation. Mussolini’s dream of a return to the glories of Rome led directly to the loss of the empire they had and the destruction of their nation. Hitler’s dream of a Thousand Year Reich led directly to the Gestapo, the holocaust, the worst war in History, and the destruction of their nation.
How can we believe we can follow a dream of utopia to any other end than the one everyone else has arrived at: the dust bin of History?
Some may say, “But we are Americans, and we have always done the things others could not do.” You will find no more ardent believer in American Exceptionalism than I. I truly believe, not that diversity is our strength but instead that the blending of all into a uniquely American hybrid has created the most talented, most dynamic, and most successful nation the world has ever known. It is not the will or the talents of our homegrown American collectivists that I question; it is the very nature of collectivism that I maintain makes the accomplishment of their utopian dream impossible.
People can have the best of intentions; however, if they believe they can take from Peter to pay Paul without making Peter resent the fact that he has less than he had before they don’t know Peter very well. And if they think they can set Paul up as a perpetual recipient of the swag taken from Peter without creating a pool of Paul’s who constantly want more and who resent those who do the distributing they have never worked in a soup kitchen, a food bank, or a giveaway store for more than a day.
The vast majority of people are not by nature altruistic milk cows, and they resent it when that is how they are viewed by the nameless faceless bureaucracy necessary to make the machinery of utopia crank out the shabby imitation they deliver. Conversely the vast majority of people are not by nature perpetual mooches content to stand with their hands out waiting for the nameless faceless bureaucracy to deliver the bare minimum needed to survive which is always the bounty that actually drops from the utopian extruder.
I contend that a collectivist redistribution Utopia whether it is called Progressive, Socialist, Communist, Fascist, or merely the right thing to do is contrary to the nature of humanity.
People by nature want to be self-reliant. They want to make things better for themselves and their children. People want to strive for something noble, and they want to feel as if their lives matter. Yet in an industrial world divided into haves and have nots it is easy to understand how the frustration of being a have not can convince someone that there needs to be a more equitable division of the material goods which modern civilization abundantly provides.
Having come from a blue collar family and having spent the majority of my life as a self-employed boom or bust house painter I can well relate to not having health insurance because you can’t afford it, I couldn’t. I can relate to having mornings where you don’t know what you will feed your family that night because I have had those days. I know what it is like to be a high school dropout who can’t get anything except a menial low paying job, because I have been that person. Yes, I can relate to the situations which might make a person believe we need to spread the wealth around.
I also know what it feels like to have to get food stamps and other things from public and private assistance just to make it through the day because I have done so. I know how the welfare people make you feel, the way they treat you as if you are trying to take their personal money or the condescension of pity.
What I can’t relate to is either thinking it is a good thing to consign our fellow citizens to such a life or to being satisfied with such a life.
Not only does a welfare state corrupt both the dispensers and the recipients it carries the seeds of its own destruction. Eventually the recipients will want more than the dispensers are willing to give, and revolution or collapse will be the end result.
In addition, since redistribution as a state policy always means stealing from Peter to pay Paul, ultimately the thief will need a gun. Though Peter may be a nice person and at first say, “Sure I can contribute something to help poor old Paul,” if poor old Paul never gets back on his feet sooner or later Peter will wonder why Paul doesn’t start providing for himself. At that point the contributions are no longer voluntary and they must be taken one way or another. There is also the question of how many Pauls can Peter carry without either shrugging like Atlas or becoming a Paul himself in self-defense. As Margret Thatcher taught us, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
Plunder empires always collapse. Utopias always end up eating the goose that laid the golden egg. Central planning and collectivism: the Progressive dream for a Great Society has never, can never, and will never succeed. It just isn’t natural.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
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Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
Tags: central-planning, Dr. Robert Owens, fundamentally transform America, Obama’s agenda, Progressive agenda, socialist agenda
How do you fundamentally transform a nation from what it has been to what a clique of ideologues wants it to be? The easiest way is to convince the general population that what the would-be masters want is what the people want. Those seeking to subvert a culture must take a long view. They must realize that this will be a multistage project that will take generations to achieve.
As an example that will strike home and ring true to every engaged American let’s look at how the Progressives have incrementally moved us from the best educated, most politically engaged population in History to a flock of militantly apathetic fans. Couch potatoes waiting for the next game or reality show unaware how our government operates and impatient with anyone who tries to explain it to them. How did they nudged us from the most self-reliant people in the world to a line of people waiting hat in hand for the next transfer payment?
The first goal was the educational system. Capture that and it was possible to raise up generations who either thought as they did or who didn’t think at all. Dumb it down, exchange confused thinking for critical thinking and soon the people who once asked hard questions will swallow easy answers. The best place to start is at the colleges and universities. If you can convince a generation of teachers that the snake-oil you’re selling will cure everything you will soon have them indoctrinating generations that the sickness is really the cure.
A target of particular interest is of course was journalism schools. Once these schools become factories churning out carbon copies it isn’t necessary to have an official propaganda ministry. The journalists themselves will self-censor anything that doesn’t fit the reality they imbibed along with the Kool-aide. Once the editorial boards and the human resource departments are filled with clones none but clones need apply. Today the portals of American media are filled with people who don’t even know someone who is pro-life. They don’t know anyone who sympathizes with the Tea Party. So those on the other side are always the other. There is no understanding or compassion for thoughts and ideas they find foreign and alien even though they represent the thinking of the majority of Americans. So as we cling to our Bibles and our guns the megaphones of the public discourse represent mainstream America as a fringe while holding up a cross section of the Jerry Springer Show or the Gong Show as the new normal.
The next target in America’s transition from a society built upon individualism, self-reliance and innovation into a centrally-planned experiment in utopian collectivism might have been the hardest or it might have been the easiest: capitalism itself.
As layer after layer of regulations entangled the economy there came a tipping point. This was reached when government interference in the economy became the dominant feature. Then business decisions were no longer made because they were right but instead because of how they intersected with government policy. Look at the stock market today. It no longer moves due to innovation or even speculation it instead moves like a marionette to the strings pulled by the Federal Reserve. It reacts to real, perceived or imagined government actions.
No longer do we have Henry Fords or J. D. Rockefellers moving and shaking the economy to build industries. Now we have crony capitalists who use their connections to get sweetheart deals, tax subsidies and bailouts. Too Big to Fail has replaced Laissez-faire and it is no longer what you know but who you know that brings success in America.
The most insidious aspect of this incremental transformation of America is what it has done to truth. Once thought to be an objective reality, in a centralized utopia truth must become whatever endorses and supports the efforts to reach the designated goals. If necessary, good becomes bad, up becomes down and dark becomes light if that is what is required to make the assumptions and conclusions of the planners plausible.
War becomes peace. Inequality becomes equality. Pork becomes stimulus. Stonewalling and taking the fifth becomes the most transparent administration in history and the destruction of the greatest health system ever known becomes affordable care.
As the meanings of words change it becomes increasingly hard to hold an intelligent conversation, because no one is sure what anyone else means. This cannot be viewed as the natural evolution of language. This is a direct by-product of the effort to centrally-plan a society. Since all efforts must be bent to the centrally directed goals all thoughts must be shaped to conform to the politically correct thoughts of the leaders. All other thoughts become suspect and are held up to ridicule.
The prevailing mood of cynicism and the general intellectual climate that this produces brings about the loss of even the meaning of truth. Truth becomes relative. It is wholly dependent upon political considerations as the spirit of independent inquiry itself disappears. Under the constant barrage of the all-embracing central government and their willing allies in the media the belief in the power of rational conviction fades from view and only the official line seems to make sense to those who through either apathy or complacency swallow the party line and march in lock-step from freedom to serfdom.
The desire to force people to accept a creed and to salute the flag is nothing new. What is new is the justification for doing so that lies at the basis of our current round of communal thought control. It is believed by some that there is no real freedom of thought in any society at all. The thoughts of the masses have always been and will always be shaped by what we now call propaganda or governmental advertising by the laws and regulations of the leaders and the example of the upper classes. Those who wish to regiment thought and control opinion act as if since this is so it is incumbent upon them to direct the thoughts of the masses into a desirable direction. Or in other words a direction that supports the movement towards the goals and objectives previously chosen by the central planners.
Incrementally, step by step, inch by inch the highly individualistic descendants of the pioneers have become a mob clamoring for bread and circuses. Dependent upon government for their very livelihood a large portion, perhaps a majority of the electorate, eagerly embrace the thinking needed to justify robbing their fellow citizens through transfer payments to subsidize their lifestyle. Society becomes rigid and any deviance from the proscribed way of thinking is ostracized. Any attempt to break free of the stranglehold of political correctness on the thoughts and opinions of a once free people must be punished. The best that we can hope is that since we have gone step by step and inch by inch eventually, slowly we will turn.
In George Orwell’s classic 1984 it was the thought police that monitored and directed the thoughts of an entire nation. On a smaller scale the sadistic captain of the chain-gang in Cool Hand Luke phrased it this way when referring to people who tried to break out of the system, “You run one time, you got yourself a set of chains. You run twice you got yourself two sets. You ain’t gonna need no third set, ’cause you gonna get your mind right.”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
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Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
Tags: Capitalism, central-planning, collectivism, Democrat agenda, Dr. Robert Owens, Obama’s agenda, Progressive agenda, socialism
Failure to plan is planning to fail. This truism has been a guiding light in my life and in the lives of countless others. Without planning we would never accomplish much in life. The haphazard serendipity of chance rarely adds up to a consistently positive result. We all know people who seem like they can fall into a sewer and come up smelling like roses. Most of us come up smelling like something quite different if we take the same fall.
On an individual basis planning is absolutely critical. For society some things also need planning such as coining money, defending the nation, and delivering the mail. All of these require planning and for all of these things it is possible to plan realistically and effectively.
There is no argument between the citizen supporters of constitutionally limited government and our perpetually re-elected Progressive collectivists and the fellow-travelers who support them about this. Some planning is both necessary and good. However, this is where we part company. Those who believe in a constitutionally limited government do not believe that it is possible or advisable to try to run an economy and a society through central planning.
The very attempt to use central planning short circuits the myriad of personal decisions which make up the routine functions of a free economy and that is the bedrock of a free society. Every group that advocates central planning, no matter what they call themselves are Utopians who believe that they can do a better job making decisions for everyone than everyone can make for themselves. That is the essence of the Nanny-state: government knows better and must protect us from our own bad choices.
There is one common feature that is clearly a part of all the various collectivist systems no matter what they call themselves. They all call for the deliberate organization of society to accomplish identifiable social goals. That a free society lacks this focus and its activities are guided by the personal whims and feelings of individuals all seeking their own good is always the complaint of the Utopians.
This brings the basic difference between the collectivists and the advocates of personal liberty into stark relief. The different types of collectivists: Socialists, Communists, Fascists, and Progressives may differ as to the specific societal goals towards which they want to drive their populations, and they may differ in their methods depending upon the amount of control they exert over the choices of others. However much they differ from each other they all uniformly differ from the advocates of individual freedom in that they wish to regiment all of society and all its resources to achieve whichever set of goals their particular brand of collectivism sees as the pathway to Nirvana.
Whatever the social goal is whether it’s called the great leap forward, a worker’s paradise, a classless society, the common good, the general welfare, or the Great Society it doesn’t take much reflection to see that these terms are so vague it’s impossible to determine their exact meaning so that any specific course of action could be decided upon. It’s like a war on terror, or drugs, or obesity how are you supposed to know when the goal has been reached or victory achieved?
The welfare and happiness of people cannot be measured on a scale of more or less. There are too many variables. There are too many possible combinations of circumstances that can become either negatives or positives depending upon another set of widely diverse situations. The “good” of any society cannot be expressed as simply or succinctly as the collectivists pretend. It is just too complex.
To direct all of society’s energy and resource by one plan assumes that every need and desire is given a rank in order of importance and a place in order of time. It also assumes that an absolute lineal order of occurrences must proceed from every action. If this happens that will automatically occur. Besides asserting through action that it is possible to order all things as one desires it also inherently expresses the idea that there is one universal set of ethics by which good and bad are obviously seen by the planners. All of these assumptions, assertions and expressions are not only false they are obviously false. No one is as smart as everyone.
The very idea of having a universally accepted and complete code of ethics is beyond the scope of human experience. People are constantly choosing between different values as they go through their daily life. What is best today in this situation may not be best tomorrow in that situation. However, when all of society and all of its resources are to be harnessed and driven in one direction toward a preselected set of goals such a universal and complete set of ethics are not only a necessity they are a prerequisite for success. Since this is unattainable success is also unattainable. If this sounds harsh please view the tattered hulks and broken lives which litter the history of all Utopian collectivist societies.
Only God can plan the end from the beginning. Only God has an ultimate and a true ethical code that is universally applicable to all people in all situations. Only God has a right to order events to suit His purposes. He created all things, and all things exist because He holds them up. All things are His, and He has the ability and the right to do with them as He pleases.
The problem we face is that collectivism puts the state in the place of God. Collectivists believe that government, through its bureaucracy, can make decisions and take action that could only work if designed and carried out with the aid of omniscience and omnipotence neither of which qualities have ever or will ever belong to government.
A scientist once said to God, “You’re not so much. We have learned how to make life in our laboratories.”
God answered, “Is that so.”
The scientist proudly said, “Yes it is and I am willing to have a contest with you right now to see who can make life faster and better.”
“All right,” God said, “let’s go.” With that God stooped down and picked up some dirt and started molding it into a man as the scientist grabbed his test tubes and started pouring liquids from one to another.
Just as God was about to blow the breath of life into His creation, he looked at the scientist and said, “Hey! Get your own dirt.”
There is one thing I have learned in this life: God is God and I am not and neither is anyone or anything else. Sounds like a pretty basic lesson; however, it took me about half of my life to learn. If we could only get those entrusted with our government to learn the same thing maybe we would stop our slow slide into that long dark night.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
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Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
Tags: central-planning, Dr. Robert Owens, election 2012, Obama agenda, Progressive agenda, socialist agenda
People learn by moving from the known to the unknown. An analogy inherently proposes the idea, that if things agree in some respect they probably agree in others. Secular prophecy uses knowledge of the past and the present to predict the future. The past is the womb of the present and the present is the History of the Future. As the past may be interpreted and the present may be misunderstood the future is never certain. Platitudes may outline the shape of something, but they can never define anything.
If Michelle is like Marie Antoinette to whom shall we compare Barack? The thought that he’s Louis XVI is unthinkable. George III is too easy. All of the megalomaniacs or despots of the twentieth century would be politically incorrect in the extreme. Some would be considered too far left and some too far right though in reality the extreme on both sides meet at the intersection of totalitarianism and brutality. Since he rode a wave of secular messianic fever into power and since he won a second term due to the devotion of his disciples perhaps an appropriate paraphrase from the Good Book would be, “Who does he say that he is?”
First, who do others say Mr. Obama reminds them of?
His rapid supporters have finally gone the extra mile. During his first presidential campaign they merely treated him as if he was their messiah. After his second victory they are shouting it from the roof tops. At the BET Soul Train Awards show Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx actually called Barack Obama “our lord and savior.” Some will say he’s a comedian and this was said tongue in cheek. From the reaction of the crowd it was received like a proclamation from Mount Sinai. The wild cheering brought down the house. If this isn’t a cult of personality what is?
I heard a woman who fled Venezuela to escape Hugo Chavez and his democratic revolution crying, “Obama is doing the same things as Chavez! He’s following the same path, going to the same place, but now we have nowhere to run.” Someone who escaped the USSR told me, “I’ve seen all this before. Obama is like Nikita Khrushchev. He says he brings hope and change but really he’s just blaming the past because he hopes to rule the present while destroying the hope of the future.” According to an escapee of East Germany, “Obama is like Leonid Brezhnev. He promises security, pensions and benefits but all he brings are taxes, regulations and more bureaucrats, always more bureaucrats.”
I cannot bring myself to compare an American President to Hitler, Stalin, Mao, not even to Mussolini. To who shall I compare this man who brings the crest of the century-long Progressive wave crashing against the American experiment? Instead of doing the comparing myself let’s explore who he and his unpaid media arm in the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Press compare himself to.
President Obama announced his run for the presidency in Springfield, Illinois on the steps of the old state capitol building. Choosing a setting in Springfield where Abraham Lincoln once gave a speech condemning slavery and calling for the United States to unite prompted the Progressives at ABC News to observe, “Springfield allowed Obama to immodestly and continuously compare himself to Lincoln.”
Immediately after his first victory the cover of Time magazine depicted the President-elect as FDR riding in an open car with his trademark cigarette holder clamped tightly in his smile. So we know his promoters in the press want us to compare him to the four term president-for-life who until now has been the epitome of a Progressive president. But does President Obama make the comparison himself? According to Politico, “President Barack Obama compared himself to FDR.” What does History tell us about FDR? Major portions of his New Deal were declared unconstitutional, many economists believe his policies prolonged the Great Depression, his advisor Alger Hiss really was a communist spy, and at Yalta Roosevelt gave Poland, whose freedom World War II was fought to preserve, to Stalin who initially invaded the country as an ally of Hitler. If we forget the facts I guess comparing yourself to FDR is a good thing.
During his first campaign the Washington Post said that Mr. Obama, “Sells Himself as the New JFK.” At the time other news outlets noted, fellow Progressive’s disputed the comparison using the headline, “Hillary to Obama: You’re No JFK.” Undeterred Mr. Obama continued to cast himself as the successor to Camelot. In a review of his first term we could agree his glorious adventure in Libya as revealed in Benghazi makes him the rightful heir to such shameful military adventures as the Bay of Pigs or his much proclaimed victory over Al Qaeda to such questionable victories as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Turning to JFK’s most memorable phrase Mr. Obama, as any good Harvard trained lawyer would do, has parsed the meaning of “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” In Progressive newspeak this becomes, “If you’re a non-tax payer let me tell you what I’m going to do for you –if you’re a tax payer let me tell you what I’m going to do to you.”
President Obama also compares himself to the icon of the anti-Progressives: Ronald Reagan. According to Politico in an interview with a print journalist the President, “made the case that his movement is as much about a national moment as about him as a ‘singular’ individual” also noting “he drew a rather odd analogy for a Democrat: Ronald Reagan.” President Reagan told us, “government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.” President Obama told us, “Only Government Can Fix the Economy.” President Ragan told us, “We are today, the last best hope of man on earth.” President Obama told us, “America is no longer what it could be, what it once was.” That’s not even comparing apples to oranges it’s more like comparing truth to fiction, good to bad, or freedom to dependency.
All the people mentioned above who escaped socialism, left homes, families, and countries seeking freedom remind me of something else Ronald Reagan said, “If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.”
The Americans devoted to constitutionally limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom may have lost a battle. We may finally accept that we have become a minority in our own land. However, we will never accept serfdom and we will never accept the permanent imposition of socialism in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Now is the time for all good citizens to come to the aid of their country. Educate yourself regarding the History of our Republic. Learn so that you may teach. We must educate new generations of patriots to carry the torch so that the light of freedom is never extinguished. A slender majority of our fellow voting citizens may have chosen the path of central-planning and collectivism. Most through ignorance, some through avarice, and a few through pure evil have diverted the American experiment into an economic and political dead-end, but like all dead ends it will eventually end. The empires of looters always collapse when the loot runs out and another day will dawn.
That same Good Book tells us, “the evil man has no future; the lamp of the wicked will be put out.” And it also promises, “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” So the Progressives may have followed their play book to a worldly victory. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to follow that Good Book to an eternal one.
Keep the faith. Keep the Peace. We shall overcome.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
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Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 