A GREAT DIVIDE HAS FORMED BETWEEN FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLESNeedless to say that I am concerned by the socialist direction our country is heading if Obama, the most liberal of senators, wins the White House in November. There may be a liberal SUPERMAJORITY in Congress. The change and its effects many highly emotional, often ignorant voters seem to want will be vastly different and greater than anything we can now imagine. It will fundamentally affect business and job creation, education, national defense, religion, health care and freedom of speech, not to mention how the fruits of our labors are used and distributed.
Because it affects the principles that underlie the framework this country was founded and became great on. We may think we are voting for people in this election and so keep the dialogue in the superficial realm of personalities and politics. But what we're really voting for are deeply held principles and way of life.
Like trying to imagine a predicted snowstorm and harsh winter on a warm summer day, it's hard to envision the cold, hard realities of socialism until they hit. The promises of socialism are light years away from the stark realities and far from what any of can now fathom.
The ultimate effect on every human being is a loss of choice and individual freedom to Big Government in every aspect of life. Most voters have no idea what's coming if this charming, smooth talking boy/man espousing socialist principles in the name of 'economic justice' is elected to lead the country. But we'd better and soon, if we want our lives to even remotely resemble what we now have.
Many voters don't care about freedom so much as they care about being taken care of by someone or something outside themselves and their communities, even if it means a loss of freedom. When that indigent voting block becomes the majority and elects leadership that wants to punish individual excellence, hard work and the creation of jobs, and wants to reward failure and victim hood and cotton to the myth of freedom of outcome rather than freedom of opportunity, we have a real problem on our hands. We have a great divide forming among our citizens.
And I mean a real problem, much greater than that of mere glib talk of racism or class warfare: it is a more fundamental difference in the principles we base our lives on: a fundamental question of whether we transfer power from the individual and groups of individuals to Big Government in every area of our lives. It is a fundamental power shift. It is a shift from democracy to socialism. And all of history bears out the toll it takes on all its citizens.
All this begs the question: Does government know better than we, our families and communities how to live our lives, raise and educate our children, make and spend our money? How a person chooses to answer these questions puts him on one side or the other of a great divide now polarizing American as never seen before, at least in my lifetime.
Today the WSJ has a piece that paints a very bleak picture. I hope we will take heed.
I pray that in these last few weeks before the election each of us does some heavy duty soul searching in the dark nights of the soul that goes deeper and beyond superficial politics, partisanship and personalities to the fundamental principles of how we want to live our lives in American today.
Because it affects the principles that underlie the framework this country was founded and became great on. We may think we are voting for people in this election and so keep the dialogue in the superficial realm of personalities and politics. But what we're really voting for are deeply held principles and way of life.
Like trying to imagine a predicted snowstorm and harsh winter on a warm summer day, it's hard to envision the cold, hard realities of socialism until they hit. The promises of socialism are light years away from the stark realities and far from what any of can now fathom.
The ultimate effect on every human being is a loss of choice and individual freedom to Big Government in every aspect of life. Most voters have no idea what's coming if this charming, smooth talking boy/man espousing socialist principles in the name of 'economic justice' is elected to lead the country. But we'd better and soon, if we want our lives to even remotely resemble what we now have.
Many voters don't care about freedom so much as they care about being taken care of by someone or something outside themselves and their communities, even if it means a loss of freedom. When that indigent voting block becomes the majority and elects leadership that wants to punish individual excellence, hard work and the creation of jobs, and wants to reward failure and victim hood and cotton to the myth of freedom of outcome rather than freedom of opportunity, we have a real problem on our hands. We have a great divide forming among our citizens.
And I mean a real problem, much greater than that of mere glib talk of racism or class warfare: it is a more fundamental difference in the principles we base our lives on: a fundamental question of whether we transfer power from the individual and groups of individuals to Big Government in every area of our lives. It is a fundamental power shift. It is a shift from democracy to socialism. And all of history bears out the toll it takes on all its citizens.
All this begs the question: Does government know better than we, our families and communities how to live our lives, raise and educate our children, make and spend our money? How a person chooses to answer these questions puts him on one side or the other of a great divide now polarizing American as never seen before, at least in my lifetime.
Today the WSJ has a piece that paints a very bleak picture. I hope we will take heed.
I pray that in these last few weeks before the election each of us does some heavy duty soul searching in the dark nights of the soul that goes deeper and beyond superficial politics, partisanship and personalities to the fundamental principles of how we want to live our lives in American today.
I agree with your assessment.
ReplyDeleteThis trend goes back about a century. IMO, the graduated income tax was as much to blame as the FDR and LBJ socialism. As the shared burden of government programs became less and less shared, the resistance to leviathan slowly withered.
Mass media, especially television, took up the cause of soaking the rich early on. Even in my 1950's childhood, the boob tube was singing the Robin Hood cry of "Steal from the Rich, Give to the Poor".
I cannot leave the wealthy blameless, however. Corporate leaders in recent years have shown no restraint in their plunder. I have no sympathy for the hired guns, only for the entrepreneurs they will bring down with them.
I'm going to vote McCain, and hope to delay the growth of socialism a few years. But I'm not very optimistic about the long run future.
Nor am I, John. And what is even more upsetting to me is that my children are running headlong into Obama, like chickens voting for Colonel Sanders, who'll fry them before putting them in boxes to eat. It is very, very depressing. At least we can't say we didn't try to sound the alarm.
ReplyDeleteSocialism is a red herring. What we fear most is a McCain/Palin theocracy. Palin is a Christian dominionist and shows the same characteristics that have brought this Republican administration down - cronyism, incompetence, secrecy, and a push to inject religion into law and education.
ReplyDeleteellen,
ReplyDeleteAfter living in the U.S. for the past 57 years, and watching it become more and more socialist, I cannot accept your claim that socialism is a red herring. The welfare state has destroyed for many the incentive to better oneself. The vicoous cycle of dependencey implemented by Democratioc and Republican administrations alike has only served to enslave us - to make us wholly dependent on our government. Government programs ranging from Medicare to Transportation Security Administration have crowded out private sector solutions which would have been far more effective and accountable.
Capitalism works, Ellen. Socialism enslaves.