Leftists, liars, and losers

Leftists are losers. Take one look at any society that has embraced leftism for a long time and you will find the most decrepit, unworkable, poverty-stricken, oppressed, and just plain bad societies on the planet. Leftists are often liars too, with those who are in power claiming great things will come if we only follow their despotic program of ruin and despair.

To a leftist, the ends (having the people wholly dependent upon the state) justifies the means (anything they want to say or do to get us there). They spread a gospel of feelings. How one feels about something is more important than the actual results of doing something. For example, if you feel good that the government is taking money out of your pocket and giving handouts to millions of poor people in America, all in the guise of helping them out of poverty, well, that's good enough. Never mind that programs that urge perennial dependence on welfare have not worked to reduce poverty rates. The actual results do not matter to a leftist. What matters is that it feels good to do it.

Perhaps one might say that those to the right of the political spectrum offer the same dream of unfulfilled hopes and tragedy. You might even be able to provide a few examples of extreme right oppression. Countries in which Islamic fundamentalism rules should be chief among these examples. We cannot discount the effect that extremism has upon its adherents.

Yet leftism has just as many detrimental outcomes as Islamic fundamentalism does. One need only to look at the purges of Mao Tse Tung's China, Stalin's Russia, or the horrific conditions of North Korea and Venezuela to see the evidence mount up that any ideology that doesn't include principles of morality, liberty. and free markets doesn't add up to any place worth living. Corruption and extravagance among the elite is what needs to be purged, not those who have differing religious or political views.

Committed leftists, like Obama, are often misconstrued as weak. Obama isn't weak. He's very strong in his leftism. And if you like the false ideals and solutions promulgated by the left, he is your champion. But everyone must take responsibility for that which they espouse. If and when those who are fighting the left fail to change the course America is now on, then those who are promoting such a course are in fact, guilty of the ruin and despair that will result. If your goal is to turn America into a smoking ruin, then you must reap the results of an America-less world.

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest": Playing out in real time

The story "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" for those who've never read the book, nor seen the film, is basically about a free spirit individualist, named Randall P. McMurphy, who tries to buck the system, pleads insanity for some crimes, and finds himself in an insane asylum. Once there, his individualistic attitude helps to transform some of the other inmates--even improving their lot in life. McMurphy finds himself confronted on every turn by "Nurse Ratched", a power hungry, controlling person who's power comes from forcing other people to conform. (coming spoiler alert) In the end, McMurphy cannot beat this system and finds himself at the wrong end of a lobotomy. He doesn't win his personal war with Ratched, but he inspires one of the other inmates to escape, thus breaking the hold Ratched has upon the escaping inmate.

Much like the story of Randall P. McMurphy, the United States has been a renegade, individualistic nation. There are the Nurse Ratcheds on the left who wish to make all Americans conform to their view of how the world should be. They do this by trying to force gun control laws, by enacting other laws and regulations, causing mountains of paperwork, red tape, and cost at the tax-payer's expense. They do it in myriad other ways, all designed for gaining control over the people, eliminating freedom (for it there is too much freedom, someone could get hurt, they say), and forcing Europeanizing of America.

The question is, who has the most will power? Will the Americans represented by McMurphy win out in the end with their irrepressible desire to remain free? Or will the folks represented by Nurse Ratched end up winning the day? Will we become a nation of children, cared for by a supposedly benevolent government or will we fight for the right to stand on our own two feet and live and breathe as free men and women, taking the consequences of our own actions, being able to make mistakes, then make up for them ourselves? Will we continue down the road of despair and poverty generated by the dregs of socialism, or will we continue to fight for  our grand experiment of a republican form of government, in which liberty wins the day and in which personal responsibility is the key player?

We have a choice. Wake up dear people and make the right one. Start paying attention to what's happening around you. Take action. Write to your Congressmen, march in the streets. Do something positive to influence the world rather than sitting back, watching your favorite tv program, and vegging. The world you fail to fight for, will become the world your children and grandchildren inherit.

What is the problem with our elected officials?

Why do our elected officials continue to mess up? Here’s my analysis. For some reason the tendency seems to be that they want to get re-elected, rather than to do what’s right for the nation. Now, why is getting re-elected so important to them? Perhaps it’s because the majority of people who seek public office are buffoons who need attention and being in the limelight is the only way that they can feel important. If they fail in their re-election bid, then they once again become nobodies–at least, to their way of thinking.

So, they do what they think they need to do to get re-elected instead of doing what needs to be done to make the country stronger and better. In their minds, the best way to get re-elected is to buy votes. They buy votes by giving stuff to people. Thus, President Obama’s administration brags about how many people they’ve gotten on food stamps. The President emphasizes that the goal of his “Affordable Health Care Act” is to get everyone cheaper medical coverage. Others vote on earmarks and pork that will benefit the people of their states, thus buying votes from them.

These kinds of political handouts and freebies are the basis for the financial disaster we’re in right now. Quickly we’re becoming like Greece and other countries in Europe. As we can see from what’s happening around the world, especially in Europe, if you give enough handouts and buy enough votes, within time production slows (because more people are taking advantage of the handouts rather than trying to work), revenues drop (because with fewer workers, there are fewer taxes collected, yet more resources needed), and the country soon finds itself on the brink of a fiscal cliff (like Greece).

What is the answer? It’s not to raise taxes on the rich or anyone else. Raising taxes has its limits. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism, is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” This becomes self-evident in the largest sample of socialized policies in the world–Europe. Greece passed laws to allow themselves to retire at age fifty, and now is getting loans from Germany whose citizens retire at 65. So the people of Greece as a whole are refusing to change their laws so that the retirement age raises, and expecting other countries of the world to work longer to bail them out. That’s their supposed solution.

But we can’t do that. We need to begin with our candidates for public office. We need to choose wise men and women who don’t put getting re-elected at the top of their agendas. Our goal should be to find candidates who are willing to do what needs to be done to get our country back on the track of fiscal sanity, and to stop trying to buy votes with public handouts and public projects.

Should there be a safety net for the truly needy? Sure. We need to do something to help those who through no fault of their own find themselves on hard times. But it shouldn’t be a permanent solution for those families, but  temporary assistance to them to give them time to improve their lots in life. And those whose sole goal is to try and live off of governmental handouts, bilking the system, should be removed from any kind of program that gives them such. As comedian Dennis Miller says, “I’m all for helping the helpless. I just don’t want to help the clueless.”

The bottom line is, that whether it’s programs that feed children at schools during the summer (most of these children are children of parents on food stamps who should be feeding them with the food stamp money they’re receiving , thus they’re getting a double benefit.), or projects that are putting in high speed trains in communities across the country, we cannot afford them. Electing leaders that understand this and more importantly, can explain with clarity what the real purpose of the government is supposed to be, will go a long way toward solving our financial woes. If the people fail to grasp this concept, or are too dependent upon their handouts to tolerate any reduction in them, then like Europe, we are heading for catastrophe.