Dream of Our Forefathers September 18, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: American Dream, Dr. Robert Owens, Progressives
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What is the American Dream? When asked this question most people today are programmed to say “To own your own home.” That may be Freddie and Fannie’s dream. That may be the bubble inflating vote buying politician’s choice for our dream, but that isn’t the American Dream. Owning your own home isn’t the dream people sailed in tiny leaking over-crowded wooden ships across oceans to find. Owning your own home isn’t the dream people fought the Revolution to win and other wars to preserve. We the descendants of the pioneers have been sold a bill of goods. We have embraced a culture of hedonism and self-indulgence financed with a borrowed credit card.
The American Dream is and always has been freedom and opportunity.
This is the Holy Grail for which people have been willing to sacrifice. This is the singularity which made America great. This is the difference which allowed a people who were no people to become a people. Ordinary people from everywhere, members of every race, religion, ethnicity, and culture assimilated and forged into one extraordinary nationality: the American. Freedom and opportunity unleashed the ingenuity and energy of humanity. Rising above the squalid shabbiness of the statists enforced conformity as the citizen began to control and at last benefit from the fruits of their own labor.
By forsaking the dream of our forefathers we have embraced the nightmare of their oppressors forging again the very chains our revolutionary ancestors shattered. From the beginning of time statists of one variety or another have kept their iron heel upon the throat of the general population. Whether they called themselves; chiefs, or kings, emperors or gods those who believe they have a right to command the service of others have always survived as parasites leaching the produce of whomever they were strong enough to compel. Calling them tithes, contributions, donations, or taxes it has always been the same thing, “What’s mine is mine. What’s yours is negotiable.”
Following the chiefdoms of the Neolithic villages Priest-kings combined shamanism and dynastic power to create a world wherein the possessions of all became the possessions of the ruler. In Western Civilization there was a brief anomaly when the people of Greece experimented with a new concept, democracy, power to the people. And although this was always a proscribed definition of who constituted “the people.” None-the-less inventiveness, culture and scientific inquiry exploded into a Golden Age. Soon however, wars and corruption brought the brief respite of freedom crashing into the military dictatorship of the Roman Imperium and the statists once again asserted their right to divine privilege and power.
The corruption, taxes, and inflation which always define a statist government brought about the fall of Rome. Replaced in the East by a successor empire so strangled by bureaucracy and state control its very name, “Byzantine” has come to mean the triumph of red tape over individual freedom. In the West the edifice of Caesar devolved into petty kingdoms and barbarian chiefdoms where life was short, brutish, and enslaved. The common laborer became little more than chattel tied to the land and exchanged between their betters as a mere piece of property. These kleptocracies were eventually consolidated into nation-states by whoever clawed their way to the top of the food chain as the strongest or most ruthless oppressor of all. After a few generations they discovered the theory of divine-right, and by using damnation in the after-life as a whip they did their best to turn this life into a living hell.
An eruption of exploration, colonization, and conquest vaulted Western Civilization to the top of the heap translating a recent and fleeting preeminence in technology and organization into a centuries long reign as the political and cultural hegemonic power of the world. The representatives of the divine rights of European Kings penetrated into every corner of the world where they set-up forts and bought the place for beads. Even the few who escaped actual conquest such as Ethiopia and Japan had homegrown statists asserting their right to deny rights to others. By the end of the seventeenth century the regimented sameness which flows from a lack of individual freedom gripped every portion of what was called the civilized world.
Into this world the American Revolution blazed like a comet illuminating the realms of possibility by the light of a national experiment declaring, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” After fighting and winning a long war against impossible odds the United States, the land of the free and the home of the brave, unfurled its banner proclaiming for the first time in human history that here is a place where divine rights do not belong to kings they belong to all.
For over 100 years the Progressives have sought to supplant our Revolution with their evolution. These radical Evolutionaries have methodically moved America one entitlement at a time from self-reliance and personal responsibility towards the cradle-to-grave conformity which is the hallmark of modern statists. As we face the coming debates, as we prepare for the electoral and legislative battles let us remember that the American dream has always been freedom and opportunity as we reject the materialistic bribes of the Progressive nanny-state. Reject the smothering comforter promised through government programs which will enslave our children and grandchildren and drink once again the heady wine of freedom.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Thugocracy September 11, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Cap-n-trade, Card Check, Dr. Robert Owens, Immigration Reform, net neutrality, TARP
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Extortion, intimidation, and scams: these are the tactics of thugs. On the streets of Chicago there are neighborhoods where the police won’t enter after dark. Gangs of thugs rule the night protecting the neighborhood or engaging in what the police in other places quaintly call extortion, intimidation and other activities common to organized crime.
The difference between the clique that has captured power in the United States and an organized crime family lies more in the magnitude of their scams and the legalized cover which gives them impunity than any other standard. The generational theft and constitutional subversion that the Obama administration and Congress commit on a daily basis is no more morally defensible than the shakedowns and extortions of a local street gang or other community organizers on the Southside of Chicago.
Thugs use intimidation. A liberal application of “Do this or I’ll do that,” as a means of forcing the innocent people, the thugs see as sheep to be fleeced, into doing what they want. The examples of the Obama Administration’s thuggishness abound and are as close as the headlines.
The legal limit of liability for oil spills had been set at 75 million dollars unless gross negligence has been proven. So far nothing has been proven, yet using his tried and true tactic of a bashing with the club of a compliant media and a short meeting behind closed doors President Obama was able to shakedown BP for 20 Billion. Of course, where the 20 billion is and who gets it are items to be filled in later.
The list of beat downs goes on: GM and Chrysler bond holders were pushed into accepting a surrender of their first position so that the companies could be given to the unions and the government. Solvent banks were forced to take TARP money so that consumers would not be able to identify the insolvent banks. After passing a law which mandates who they must insure and for what they must insure them, insurance companies are being pressured not to raise rates to cover their rising expenses and liabilities by the personal intervention of the president. After the BP spill the Obama administration took the opportunity to shut down all American drilling in the Gulf while they lend money and seek to give tax breaks to foreigners to do the same thing. When a federal judge declared the Obama ban on drilling in the Gulf is unconstitutional the Secretary of the Interior announces he’s going to reissue the ban any way abrogating the rule of law.
This highlights the style and tone of our current leadership crew but what’s the goal? Is it personal aggrandizement? Is it systemic change? President Obama has stated that his administration would fundamentally transform America. He has said that he sees himself as a transformative president.
Joining the New Deal, the Great Society, and the Reagan Revolution as a game-changer in American history, the Obama administration’s Progressive transformation of America has passed more major legislation in less than two years than many administrations do in two terms. Building upon TARP, the parting present from the Progressive Bush, President Obama lost no time beginning a spending binge that soon added as much to the deficit as every president from Washington to Ragan.
Within months of assuming power the stimulus bill, the largest spending bill in American History was rammed through a compliant Congress. Its ostensible purpose was to end the recession but which was also meant to take over such diverse things as educational lending and medical records. In the meantime, as the Recession rolls on, the non-stimulating stimulus bill now acts as an election aid for Democrats.
The next shakedown came in the form of an overhaul of the health care industry. This was promoted as the only way to stabilize premiums and insure the mysterious millions the Progressive media tells us are uninsured. Of course now premiums are going through the roof because of the government take-over and according to the Congressional Budget Office the uninsured still will not be insured.
Then came the takeover of the financial industry as a way to save the financial industry. With Senator Dodd adding his, “No one will know until this is actually in place how it works” to Pelosi’s infamous “We Need to Pass Health Care Bill to Find Out What’s In It.” The arrogance of the thugs adds insult to the injuries caused.
Before the electorate have a chance to “throw the bums out” and show them the door in December look for the Cap-N-Tax scam, the card-check unionization bill, net neutrality, open Internet or whatever they want to call a government speed limit on the information super highway, and import-a-voter immigration reform. If these can’t be done legislatively in a lame-duck session before the one-party rubber-stamp leaves town look for a New Year’s present in the form of executive orders or bureaucratic regulation as the vehicle for the change no one hopes for anymore.
These major Progressive goals, both achieved and potential, move the United States from a society based upon free enterprise and personal liberty solidly into the world of the socialist cradle-to-grave welfare state. The only question remaining is will our leaders move from political readjustment to social realignment as America staggers like a battered spouse looking for a shelter in the thugocracy of Chicago’s 51st Ward.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
It’s Easy Being Critical September 4, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, Equal trade, Income tax holiday, school vouchers, untapped oil reserves
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With the Not Ready for Prime Time Players holding court in the White House and the Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight in Control of Congress it is easy to be critical. However, as our beloved Republic drinks the dregs of the Grapes of Wrath in this, the Season of our Discontent, being critical is not enough. Those of us who believe in limited government, free enterprise and personal liberty need to offer an alternate vision of the future or the Progressive who are seeking to prove that the only problem with all former attempts at a regimented collectivist corporate state was that they weren’t the ones implementing the 5 year plan will win by default.
First we must honestly assess our situation.
The American economy was been derailed by a combination of over regulation, over taxation and crony capitalism’s casino mentality. Since the congressionally mandated housing bubble collapsed dragging the phantom investments of the cronies to the casino floor the bureaucrats who mandated the mess have been in charge of cleaning it up. As a result a cyclical recession which according to the precedent of history should have been over in 14 months (May, 09) has been successfully stretched out for 29 months and counting.
In foreign affairs there is military side and the diplomatic. Militarily, our pre-emptive war in Iraq continues no matter what they call it. Afghanistan is swirling down the drain after the Commander-in-Chief decided it was a good strategy to announce his planned withdrawal date while showcasing the implementation of a surge. Our all volunteer military has performed valiantly and brilliantly however, no matter how sharp or strong the point of a spear is it is only as effective as the person wielding the weapon. Diplomatically, our President bows to foreign leaders, insults our friends and is seen as weak and ineffective by our enemies. Even the European socialists who provide the models for his vision of America and who added their voices to his choir back when he was the Progressive messiah have lately lost their enthusiasm for a leader of the free world who is leading them from the first world to the second.
Culturally, the peace, love and egotism of the boomers continue to plunge America into a cesspool of licentiousness and vanity. The culture of death has progressed from abortion to euthanasia. The celebrity worship has progressed from the adulation of actors and artists to the cult of reality TV where people are now famous for being famous. Our education system, once the envy of the world; produces high school graduates who can’t read their own diplomas, our institutions of higher learning are the bastions of anti-Americanism and Marxist thought, and teachers unions demand more for delivering less.
In an essay-sized capsule these are three major areas that need to be addressed. We know from experience the Progressive’s knee-jerk answer, bigger government, more taxes, more regulations and a continued surrender of America’s position as the world’s sole super-power. What are the alternatives? Or to answer the question the best wife in the world keeps asking, “What can we do?”
Economically: If the TARP funds had been used to buy up the toxic assets as we were told they would be when the Bush Progressives rammed that boondoggle through the toxic assets would now be a memory instead of the sword hanging over our heads. A national income tax holiday for sixty days would have cost less than the failed stimulus that is in reality a slush fund for the Progressive’s major contributors. Let people keep the money they earn in their pockets and they will spend us out of this recession. Allowing us to drill for oil on land in our own country where we have massive untapped reserves and where the technology makes it the safest instead of fifty miles out and a mile down would have eased if not ended our dependence on others and kept hundreds of billions of dollars at home. Equal trade instead of a mythical free trade would keep us competitive in our own market, keep jobs at home and preserved if not expanded our industrial base. An announcement right now that the government was going extend the Bush tax cuts, not impose any more anti-free enterprise regulations or seize any more corporations would promote growth and provide jobs immediately.
Diplomatically; stop insulting our friends and embracing our enemies, stop branding our own States as human rights abusers for trying to protect themselves from an invasion the Federal Government is not only allowing but through their own inaction and policies encouraging. In short, stop bowing and stand up for America! Militarily; you can never end a pre-emptive war too soon. In Afghanistan, we should have gone in, cleaned out the Al Qaeda rat’s nest and squashed the feudal state of the Taliban then left with the promise, “Do it again and we’ll do it again.” Instead we have stayed for one more example that nation-building in a nation that isn’t a nation doesn’t work. Declare victory and come home. Put the troops on the borders and make the homeland secure.
Culturally; this must all start at home. Families need to promote a culture of life instead of a culture of death, honor those to whom honor is due and begin to be the examples our young people deserve. Clean the schools out. End tenure. Provide school vouchers that actually move the funding to the schools people want to support. Offer vocational training to all the students who make it obvious they aren’t interested in intellectual pursuits. Teach American History that is inclusive and yet respectful of humanity’s greatest experiment in freedom and opportunity. Teach political science in such a way that students will gain an understanding of what limited government and personal liberty.
When you are bleeding to death the first thing you must do is stop the bleeding. When you are trapped in a hole the first thing you must do is stop digging. There are answers that encourage freedom and enhance liberty. There are answers that preserve our position and protect or independence. There are solutions to the problems which seem to be overwhelming us: let the free choices of the American people lead us back to economic prosperity, Jettison the Empire to save the Republic, and teach the truth.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Restoring Honor 8-28-10 August 30, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: 8-28-10, Dr. Robert Owens, Glenn Beck
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To say that climbing on a bus with fifty strangers to join a caravan of hundreds of other buses jostling our way up the yellow-brick road to Oz put this Historian out of his comfort zone would not be an understatement; it would be a gross understatement. However, having fallen through the rabbit hole in the fifties and taken the red pill in the sixties, the slow motion train wreck that is the Progressive’s deconstruction of traditional America combined with the light speed transformation of our beloved Republic as a European-style nanny-state since the November Revolution of 08 compelled me to go. Stoked by daily doses of Radio-free Glenn and incited by the daily drip-drip-drip of the government take-overs and serial bail-outs the anticipation has built for months.
Now that the GREAT EVENT is over we have to ask ourselves, “What did we go to Washington to see?”
Did we go to see a politician? No! Politicians are people dressed in fancy clothes or people giving eloquent speeches? We can see those twenty-four hours a day on C-Span. The Best Congress Money Can Buy has this down to a science. They know how to look and sound important. They even know how to look and sound relevant, caring, concerned, and informed. The only problem is that time and time again we elect people to change the anti-liberty anti-individual freedom agenda rotting the core of the American Experiment, and time after time we find out that instead of sending in the cavalry we have sent in the clowns and the beat-down goes on. We did not see a politician at the Restoring Honor Rally. So what did we go to Washington to see?
Did we go to see a religious leader? Having been one myself I speak with a certain familiarity if not authority. No! Religious leaders, though they may selflessly and honestly present the message of their particular religion, are members of organizations, and they seek the advancement of those organizations: that is their job. We did not see a religious leader at the Restoring Honor Rally. So what did we go to Washington to see?
Did we go to see a promoter of hate? No! Promoters of hate sent out invitations to their event based on race, saying every one of certain races should come. The people of hate displayed a huge banner with a picture of Dr, Martin Luther King labeled “The Dream” above a huge picture of Glenn Beck labeled “The Nightmare.” The people of hate wandered through the largest crowd I have ever seen holding up signs calling the Americans of ever race and nationality who attended the Restoring Honor Rally the “KKK” and other provocative slogans. We did not see a promoter of hate at the Restoring Honor Rally. So what did we go to Washington to see?
Did we go to see a self-promoter? No! Self-promoters seek to make money and/or build their own kingdom. Self-promoters constantly point to themselves as the answer to the questions they ask, and the solution to the problems they pose. Self-promoters use others as props and always shine the light on themselves. Self-promoters make it big then live large leaving others to calculate how much those serial-vacations cost as they send us the bill for one more glittering gala in the midst of a crisis too good to waste. Self-promoters wag their finger in our face saying we should realize we can no longer lead the world as they cozy up to our enemies, insult our friends, and walk all over our Constitution. We did not see a self-promoter at the Restoring Honor Rally. So what did we go to Washington to see?
Did we go up to see a prophet? Yes! We went to the Restoring Honor Rally to see a prophet and more than a prophet. A Prophet is never a person who declares themselves to be one, but instead is a person others recognize as one. I am calling Glenn Beck a prophet. He is seeing beyond the present and pointing to a horizon others cannot see. He is drawing together people of all faiths, races, and nationality and is pointing the way out of a wilderness of our own creation, through the sea of bureaucratic newspeak, to the promised land of limited government.
Some may ask, “Who is Dr. Owens to proclaim Glenn Beck a prophet?” I am but the chronicler of the History of the Future and my discernment that Glenn Beck is a prophet will mean little beyond the narrow pale of my columns and websites, but many hundreds of thousands of my fellow Americans echoed this discernment by traveling from all over this country to see Mr. Beck and hear what he had to say.
And what he had to say was a reminder that long ago God told His people if they ever strayed from His path the way back was found in the wisdom of His word, “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Whose Responsibility is It? August 21, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Capitalism, Dr. Robert Owens, Internationalists, Natural rights, Progressives
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Having spent time describing the three unalienable rights of life, liberty and property upon which our Republic was founded and from which all others flow it is necessary to speak of the natural responsibilities which form their inverse image. Peering through the looking glass at original intent we try to make sense of the present wonderland where rights and responsibilities are never what they seem.
There are five natural responsibilities. First, we’re responsible for our actions. No one can make us do anything. Even when forced it is still us who must make our muscles move and make our voices speak. We are responsible for the validity of our word and it should be our bond that we will do what we have said we will do when we have said we will do it. Second, each person is responsible for their own sustenance. We should provide for ourselves not expecting others to meet our needs or supply us with the comforts we desire. Third, we are responsible for our children. It is the duty of every parent to provide for the physical, emotional and spiritual support of our children until they are old enough to care for themselves. Fourth we are responsible for the fulfillment of all contracts we have freely accepted. And fifth, everyone has a responsibility to a social system which provides them freedom to use their own talents and energy for their own goals.
As stated earlier these natural responsibilities are directly linked to the natural rights of humanity to life, liberty and property. A person’s right to life inherently carries a responsibility to provide for them self and for their family without making demands upon the goods or time of others. This responsibility to care for our family extends existentially in both directions. Just as it is incumbent upon all of us to care for our own children, each of us, initially claims the support of our parents, therefore it is equally incumbent upon us to care for our parents if they can no longer care for themselves. As we have the liberty to use our time and talents for our own improvement we are inherently responsible for how we use them and for any consequences that flow from their use. And since legitimate government exists to protect our natural rights we are responsible for contributing to its ability to fulfill this function. This would include reasonable taxes and public service.
This is the extent of our natural responsibilities. Once we move beyond these we enter into the realm of moral or religious responsibilities. While natural responsibilities like natural rights are objectively arrived at by the nature of humanity moral or religious responsibilities are by their nature subjectively learned. Consequently the fulfillment of natural responsibilities flow logically from life while in most cases unless moral or religious obligations are personally perceived and agreed upon they must be fulfilled through the application of law and its ability to compel compliance.
As these secondary type responsibilities are most properly the purview of a moral code or religion and as each moral code or religion may carry different obligations it is presumptuous of government to impose upon its citizens what should instead be a free choice. For, the imposition of one moral code or religion could possibly transgress or ignore the moral obligations of another the sanction of one moral code or religion over another inherently restricts the citizen’s enjoyment of their unalienable rights.
Today our ever-expanding government invents new responsibilities and then force feeds them to a powerless public. These include responsibilities to the nation and the world. On a daily basis we hear of our responsibility to the poor, the uneducated, or the uninsured. And these new responsibilities do not just extend to our fellow Americans. Through the continuous imposition of these constantly proliferating rights internationalists seek to transfer the wealth of the United States to the third world as their open borders policy invites the third world to come here to claim it. Using our tax money the government seeks to care for everyone’s needs from cradle to grave. The inefficiencies of bureaucracy ensure that a large percentage of these resources get flushed down the sewer while we fall deeper into debt.
These newly invented responsibilities are not natural and our government must violate the natural rights of its citizens to fulfill them. They do this by expropriating our property and the enjoyment of the fruits of our labor which diminishes our lives from all they could be to what they allow them to be. In addition, the only way the government can expropriate these things and distribute them from who earned them to who they believe deserves them is to increase their power by diminishing ours.
If not from nature where do these government enforced responsibilities originate? They spring from ideology and the quest for power. By preying upon the gullibility of the uninformed, the culpability of the greedy and the lethargy of the uncaring the Progressive clique has gained control of the American experiment. It has used the ideology and terminology of extreme socialism, “From each according to their ability to each according to their need” to construct a conveyor belt transferring wealth from producers to consumers. The Progressives buy votes and continued support by dividing the swag from their plunder of American capitalism. Even though the government’s propaganda arms drone constantly about these enforced responsibilities still the majority of Americans instinctively know the difference between natural responsibilities and government mandated ones. If we don’t demand a stop to this proliferation of imagined responsibilities and the expropriation of resources needed to fulfill them we will lose our natural rights and the ability to fulfill the natural responsibilities which flow from them.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Between Barack and a Hard Place August 14, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, FDR, JFK, President Obama, Ronald Reagan
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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 perhaps an appropriate paraphrase would be, “Who do men say that he is?”
Recently a woman who fled Venezuela to escape Hugo Chavez and his democratic revolution was heard 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. He’s 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, “He’s like Leonid Brezhnev. He promises security, pensions and benefits but all he will do is bring taxes, regulations and more bureaucrats, always more bureaucrats.”
Not a Hitler, not a Stalin, not a Mao, not even a Mussolini to whom shall we compare this man who has brought the crest of the long building Progressive wave crashing against the American experiment? Perhaps we should see who he compares 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 inspired even the Progressives at ABC News to observe, “Springfield allowed Obama to immodestly and continuously compare himself to Lincoln.”
Immediately after his 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.” Major portions of FDR’s new Deal were declared unconstitutional, .many economists believe his policies prolonged the Great Depression, Alger Hiss really was a communist spy, and at Yalta Roosevelt gave Poland, whose freedom World War II was fought to preserve, to Stalin. If we forget all that comparing yourself to FDR is a good thing.
In the words of the Washington Post when running for the presidency Mr. Obama, “Sells Himself as the New JFK.” While at the time other news outlets noted, that even fellow Progressives disputed the comparison using the headline, “Hillary to Obama: You’re No JFK.” President Obama continued to cast himself as the successor to Camelot. While he may be the rightful heir to such military adventures as the Bay of Pigs or such questionable victories as the Cuban Missile Crisis he has parsed the meaning of “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” In 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 your country is 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.”
All the people mentioned above who escaped socialism, who left homes, families, 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.”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Too Many Rights on the Left August 7, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, Enlightenment, life liberty and property, Natural rights, Second Bill of Rights
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The United States was founded as a representative republic inspired by the soaring philosophy of the Enlightenment. As humanity clawed its way out of the depths of the Dark Ages thoughts of freedom found root and germinated in the minds of thousands. Rising from this rebirth or Renaissance came the realization that humanity inherently possess certain rights and that among these are the right to life, liberty and property. These foundational rights are not conferred by government they are endowed by God. A godly government acknowledges them. An ungodly government claims to be the arbiter of rights. These fundamental rights are part of the original design and necessary for humanity to reach its full potential. Without them we are but a shadow of what we’re meant to be. The leader-molded citizen of any earthly tyranny is restrained from success in ways alien to the free citizen of nature and of nature’s God.
The fundamental qualities of these rights speak for themselves:
Who can possibly obtain the legitimate possession of the life of another? How would they obtain that possession? Over thousands of years of darkness many societies granted the right to own the lives of others. The dismal slave blocks and markets of shame, and the wasted lives and stunted relationships of both slaves and masters attest to the fraudulent nature of this barbarous custom. According to the Theory of Natural Rights the life we hold we hold in trust. It has been endowed, and it is unalienable, which means even the legitimate possessor does not have the right to discard it or count it as a commodity to be sold or bartered away. This being true, how could any third party ever legitimately advance the idea that they can own the life of another? Life is sacred and without the right to life no other rights have any meaning.
Without liberty there is no ability to choose one’s own course of action or to make real-time decisions pertaining to relationships. Without liberty individuals are but pawns in the game of others: grist in the mill of history. Without the freedom to choose society is locked in a culture of command which restricts the free flow of ideas and materials thus throttling creativity and erecting artificial bottlenecks. In societies where bureaucrats try to replace the free choices of individuals there are always shortages, because no one can accurately predict how many widgets others want. They can only decree how many should be made to fit what they believe will be the demand. In other words, person A can never really know the thoughts or desires of Person B. They can only estimate and guess, thus a command economy and a regimented society always have maladjustments of production and distribution. Without liberty life is stunted and prevented from reaching its full potential.
Without the full and free use of property life and liberty are held within a death grip which leads to a mere caricature of reality, shadows of people pretending to be motivated, marching to the leader’s arbitrary drumbeat and saluting the flag. Or as the hopeless drones of the USSR used to say, “We pretend to work because they pretend to pay us.” This necessity for the full and free use of property in order to make meaningful life and practical liberty possible is absolute. It can operate at 50% but then it is only 50% effective while at the same time being 50% defective. As the right to use the property we create or earn is taxed and regulated away so is meaningful life and practical liberty. If the state has abrogated to itself the power of God to decree what portion of life and liberty is applicable to that portion of humanity within its grasp then it will gradually take more and more of the properties of its citizens until only serfs are left. Partial tyranny begets absolute tyranny just as sure as night follows day, for once the plundering begins its appetite is never abated until it has drunk the dregs.
These are the three fundamental and unalienable rights, life, liberty, and property. These are the rights recognized and enshrined by our founders. These are the rights meant to stand as the guardians and facilitators of American society. And for hundreds of years they have done so. The blight of slavery, which obviously ran counter to the ideals upon which this country was founded, was abolished, the rights proclaimed by our constitution were eventually guaranteed to all and today all but the unenlightened seek to judge each by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. These three rights provide the fertile soil that birthed the greatest nation ever to exist, the one nation all the world seeks to either immigrate to or to imitate.
However, today a glut of imagined rights advanced by demagogues to ply the emotions of hyphenated voting blocs threatens to smother the three which make everything else possible. The Progressives have actively attempted to push these bogus rights upon the nation since FDR in his fourth Inauguration speech proclaimed a Second Bill of Rights to include; “The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation; the right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; the right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living; the right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; the right of every family to a decent home; the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; the right to a good education.”
All of these sound good and it’d be wonderful if everyone had them, but this is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse. These self-proclaimed rights are benefits which may flow from the exercise of our three unalienable rights but they are not rights in and of themselves. If they are rights then government must violate the three real ones to provide the rest of the imagined ones. To provide the laundry list of progressive rights, the life, liberty, and property of all must be suppressed to generate the funds and the power to manufacture and allocate these benefits for those who have not earned them on their own.
Leave the bogus rights of the progressives to be allocated by tyrants to serfs who have no possibility of earning them for themselves because they have bartered their inheritance for a handful of promises. Instead give us the freedom and opportunity provided by our natural right to life, liberty and property and America will be great again.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Watchmen on the Walls July 17, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, Glenn Beck, Patrick J. Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh
2 comments
As a Professor of History I can understand why most people dismiss History as boring. It is usually presented as a static jumble of dates, names and events that must be memorized, regurgitated and with luck forgotten. I have often marveled at the ability of students who can tell me how many points their favorite athlete scored in a mid-season game ten years ago or how many horsepower their favorite driver had under the hood five seasons back can’t seem to remember the relationship or the difference between the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution.
Instead of this rigid collection of repetitious minutia, History is a dynamic flow of reality that changes every day. Not only is there more of it every day, thus changed by addition, it is also open to new interpretation and comprehension every day, thus changing by multiplication and division.
In Patrick J. Buchanan’s ground breaking book Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War the author presents the case that the Second World War was not precipitated by Germany’s attack upon Poland it was instead precipitated by the worthless guarantee given by Britain and France to an authoritarian Poland, which prevented it from avoiding war by returning the German city of Danzig to Germany. A move even Neville Chamberlain thought would be fair. Then when what would have been the fourth partition of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union did occur it is forgotten by all that it was France and Britain that declared war on Germany not the reverse. No matter whether you agree or disagree with this presentation of the same facts presented in opposite order as in American History classes or not, anyone would admit at least it made you think.
Rush Limbaugh catapulted from being a self-admitted multiple failure to being the greatest broadcaster in the history of radio by doing nothing more than as he often repeats, “What comes naturally.” He says what so many others think. He aptly sums up the collective observations of millions and acts as a prism for the sensibilities of the here-to-for silent majority. Performing his host duties 99.8% perfectly, Rush gives voice to the common sense and inherent belief that if you work hard and play by the rules you should prosper. He points out the hypocrisy of leaders leading people where they don’t want to go and the frustration of followers who know they’ve been had but don’t know how to out organize the organizers.
Glenn Beck, after decades in the trenches, shot like a meteor to the top by realizing his position wasn’t just to have fun it could instead really mean something at a pivotal time in History. The morning zoo became the people’s think tank as we watched Glenn learn the difference between Socialism, Communism and National Socialism. We cheered as he kept his sense of humor while holding aloft the torch of individual freedom in a world swirling down the collectivist drain. His television show has transformed the afternoon blah hour into the University of Beck as he and his chalk boards do what all of the teachers and professors have failed to do: make the average American interested in History. Glenn’s greatest service may turn out to be his impartation of the knowledge that “You are not alone,” which sparked the 9-12 movement and launched the tea parties. Or it might yet be that an informed electorate will not go quietly into that dark night.
History is often the chosen discipline of those who seek order in a world they find confusing. A system or frame upon which to place the events of time avoiding the yawning maw of random oblivion. A way to bring meaning and importance not only to the Battle of Waterloo but to our own personal Waterloos, which may be a symbol of defeat but is also the symbol of victory still celebrated as a holiday marking liberation by everyone but the French.
As a Professor of History I’ve studied, taught and written for years hoping to make some contribution to the historical literacy of my generation. I’ve long believed it’s the lack of a historical perspective that’s doomed our generation to walk through the looking-glass into a wonderland where none dare call it treason to subvert individual liberty in the name of collective security. Now I have found the lens which brings the fog of current events into the focus of historical understanding. The key which unlocks the meaning of seemingly random events uncovering a pattern discernable and comprehensible to all who will follow the chain of events to their logical conclusion.
Our overly centralized nationalist government, though limited at its inception, has grown through the accretion of time and tradition ultimately becoming that which it was never meant to be: a colossus standing with its steel boot upon the throat of freedom.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 