After a year of this blog and anticipating heated election year debates, there are a couple “rules” to consider. First, it is appropriate to criticize politicians and government policies where they interfere with freedom and individual rights, but not simply because of party affiliation or mere disagreement. Second, we need to adhere to proper definitions in discussion; that can lead to greater agreement.
It is a fact that taxing the rich more will not even begin to solve our debt problems; but it will lead to a reduction in private jobs and harm the economy. If we have even begun to be lazy as Obama wants us to believe, it would only be because of attempts to redistribute the wealth and to punish our producers. Blame Obama’s statist policies (that discourage innovation and production) for the most prolonged economic downturn since FDR.
The Occupy WS gang did not materialize due to under-taxing the rich. A Marxist group organized it with the explicit goal to continue the fight for statism. Their call for “social justice” is merely a call for the use of force to obtain the unearned; that is injustice.
Government cannot create a net job gain. Government jobs are created at the expense of more efficient private jobs; the net is reduced productivity/jobs and economic harm. Thus, all of Obama’s “job creating” proposals are theoretical failures. He wants to “eat” private jobs and have them too.
Education is a critical factor in job opportunity: unemployment today for college graduates is as low as 1/3 the rate for the non-educated. It is government’s interference in education that causes increased college costs and student loans - thus reduced opportunities.
Carol evaluated opportunities for success in our culture in a recession context - exactly what I said we can’t do. In the broader context, opportunities are not worse than they used to be; expectations are simply greater. People want to eat their cake while expecting more of it left.
American exceptionalism is still real, not a “fashionable phrase” for Republicans. But growing statism is a sure way to destroy it and the individual opportunities it affords. Let’s hope that Americans will continue to believe that individual freedom is more important than forced egalitarianism, multiculturalism and the welfare state.
Remember “hope and change”? Perhaps now you can see that “hope” was ‘hope we don’t see Obama’s ideology and tactics to implement it’, and “change” was ‘implementation of statism’.
“The defining issue of our time” per Obama is growing inequality in the US
He invoked Theodore Roosevelt’s “new nationalism” while asking for “fairness” for the American people. He argued that the Republican party is one of narrow self-interest with no consideration for working-class Americans, and that it says “we are better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.” He believes that “we are greater together than we are on our own”, and that we can’t have winners because everyone can’t be a winner. This is a good place to begin the new year.
