The country is broke. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are all firmly on the road to insolvency. Large states are on the verge of bankruptcy and we are largely at the mercy of the Chinese when it comes to financing nearly anything we want to do. Never in the history of our country have we fallen to a low this dangerous and embarrassing. Even during the Great Depression, we never put ourselves at risk by allowing a relatively hostile foreign country to gain enough control over our economy that they could collapse us if they saw fit. And still, the Democrats in Congress have decided to drastically increase our national debt ceiling. This comes from party members led by a President who very recently touted “fiscal responsibility”. One wonders when we can expect that to start.

 Our economic maladies are not the result of ‘Wall Street greed’ nor are they a failure of free market capitalism. A massively coordinated effort by Democrat politicians and their allies in the MSM and academia to portray our current plight in this light has been successful to the point that you have to grieve for the collective American intellect. All one needs to pinpoint the source of our economic collapse is to isolate the primary cause- subprime mortgages- and then determine the catalyst that spawned these economic cancers- government sponsorship of universal home ownership. If government had maintained its rightful role in the housing market- none- we would not be wondering right now whether we have reached the point of a permanent American decline.

 Government interference in free markets is no solution to any of our problems. In fact, it is more often than not the actual source. Government ‘action’ deepened and prolonged the Great Depression and the Obama administration is doing its best FDR act to follow suit. Talking about recovery doesn’t mean we’re recovering any more than talking about X-ray vision allows you to see through walls.

 This is why it is so stunningly stupid for our Congress to go along with the obviously destructive policy agenda of the Obama administration. Government does almost nothing right, let alone efficiently. Despite that undeniable fact, Congress is gearing up to hand over control of our health care industry to government. Great idea! I have asked for someone- anyone- to cite for me a large-scale government program outside of military operations that has ever been a success, even a minor success. To date, no one’s been able to give me a satisfactory answer. And also to date, nothing in the Obama agenda does anything other than turn over more control of our economy and our lives to the same incompetent government. We are edging up to the definition of insanity.

 If we take any action to cripple our economy by foolishly regulating harmless CO2 emissions, we will have crashed the insanity party with lampshades on our heads. Not only are our CO2 emissions a tiny, miniscule fraction of what nature emits, they have an imperceptible effect on global temperatures. The warming alarmists have adopted the old Communist technique of branding dissenters as fringe lunatics. The only difference is that the Commies would actually throw dissidents in mental hospitals. The warmists merely destroy the careers of their skeptic colleagues regardless of how compelling the contrarian findings of the ‘deniers’ might be.

 Warmists have also adopted all of the propaganda techniques of Nazis and Communists. They have used hyperbole and false imagery to make their cases and they’ve assembled what appears to be a monolithic movement. Now, they have begun the process of indoctrinating schoolchildren with their propaganda, utilizing highly emotional tools like images of drowning polar bears and children being swept away in fierce, man-made floods. They have turned belief in global warming into the 21^st century equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition. A near-religious fanaticism infects their movement with high-profile skeptics and ‘deniers’ being silenced, shunned and even threatened with death.

 Finally, the discovery of the Climategate e-mails establishes that the men at the forefront of warmist alarmism are so invested in their work and their belief that they are willing to go to possibly criminal lengths to shut down dissent and gin up their statistics. For these people, our government is willing to cripple our economy and hand over hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to Third World despots in the name of ‘environmental reparations’. On a near-daily basis, we hear references to the future victims of coastal flooding in Bangladesh due to the climate change ostensibly caused by greedy Westerners. What an unmitigated crock! As I sit back and ponder the numbers of people who buy into this nonsense, it begs the question; how utterly sheepish and moronic has Western society become?

 As Obama’s popularity circles the drain, there is hope still that the US is emerging from its flirtation with Stepford wivery. I can’t say I have any such hope for Europe, which appears content to scuttle its own society in favor of Muslim immigrants and Sharia law. Perhaps within another generation or two, we will experience a second great wave of immigration from Europe. This time it will be the indigenous population fleeing religious persecution at the hands of their Muslim rulers. By that time, one can only hope that we will have abandoned our ill-advised self-flagellation and will get on with the business of behaving- and voting- like real Americans.    

 It is time to resume unashamedly pro-American policies and behavior. When our foreign ‘allies’ begin bleating like sheep and delivering bleeding heart calls for Western mass suicide in the UN, our leadership needs to smack them across the face and tell them to snap out of it, figuratively of course. Better yet, we should tell them to take the UN and get the hell out of our country. We won't be joining any suicide pacts, especially when we're compelled to pay for them all. When liberals demand that we equalize outcomes for all Americans and muzzle the majority to benefit a tiny and ungrateful minority, we need to send those liberals back to the private sector where their talents cannot harm the rest of us. Until America rejects the anti- American progressive, liberal agenda once and for all, we will be at risk of the collapse they have planned for us.

 As a child, I recall thinking that none of the world’s ills needed to exist. To eliminate the collective evils that plagued mankind, each and every member of the human race would need to pull together and work towards the common goals. Surely, the sheer strength and will of a unified world population could solve any problem we faced, no matter how dire it seemed. After all, it was the 1960’s. We were putting a man on the moon and we were instilled with a lot of ideas that were hatched and viewed through rose-colored granny glasses. As I grew and learned more about the world and its harsh realities, I came to realize that my beliefs as a child were erroneous- even silly.

 At the same time that I was recognizing reality, I noticed that not all of my peers had abandoned the raw and naïve optimism I had eschewed. They clung stubbornly to the beautiful vision of a unified and peaceful world free of hunger, disease and poverty and war. They wanted to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, dammit, and no one was going to tell them they couldn’t. I soon came to understand that these adults who believed they could overcome all of the world’s ills had a name- Liberals.

 Three very distinctly different types of liberals became apparent. There are the voters, enormous in number and infinitely variable in beliefs, and there are the politicians, of whom there are very, very few. The voters are split into sub-categories. The liberal elite are the academics, the media, entertainers, athletes and the old-money socialites. These folks are comfortably well off and frequently have the ear, and the votes, of the politicians. Finally, there is the underclass. Their collective voting and purchasing power are formidable but by and large, they are undereducated and easily swayed with simplistic and paternalistic thinking.    

 Liberal voters believe that society has a collective responsibility to provide. Providing, of course, means for all people, animals, plants, environments, etc. In their vision, we are all stewards of the earth sharing in its upkeep and maintenance. Of course, many people who would otherwise be expected to share in the responsibility to provide are excused for various reasons. They may belong to certain classes of humans who have suffered harm at the hands of their fellow man. Whether it be by discrimination, war, political oppression or whatever other reason, there is a rather large percentage of the population who simply cannot be expected to chip in their fair share in providing for the earth because they are deemed victims of one kind or the other. This class grows constantly and new categories of victims are added regularly. For reasons that remain to be explained, membership in this victimocracy is permanent. A member of a victimized class can rise above and become spectacularly successful but is forever imbued with the perpetual right to play the victim card. In short, liberal voters are split between the liberal elite, the class of morally, socially and intellectually superior providers, and the liberal victims, the class for whom providing is prescribed.

 The other types of liberal, upon whom all others depend, are the politicians. These are the ultra-elite and they are masters of their craft. Most are lawyers so they know precisely what our system of government will and will not tolerate. These people are generally highly educated and one can only presume that they clearly understand economics and history. This presumption is what makes the liberal politician a deeply disturbing conundrum. If they truly understand the lessons of history and economics, then their actions as political leaders can only be explained in one way- they are focused on the subjugation of their subjects.

 Most intelligent people recognize the superiority of the capitalist system over the socialist model. Capitalism thrives on the incentives that are laid out for the most motivated members of society. The initiative and ingenuity and of these people drive our economy and raise the standard of living for us all. Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison and Bill Gates are the type of insightful people who have made our country great. They also amassed great fortunes as a result of their efforts, laying the path for the great inventors and industrialists of future generations. These men deserved to accumulate great wealth because they gave to society far more than they took. The capitalist system has within it the potential to enrich all of its members unless they turn their backs on the system itself.

 In recent years, liberals, led by the politicians, have turned on capitalism in an attempt to blame “the system” for the plight of the “victims” who make up such a large percentage of their base. In the mold of 20^th century communists, liberals have launched all-out class warfare, branding those who have thrived under capitalism as greedy and unprincipled, living the high life on the backs of “the poor” and the working class. These liberal politicians artfully whip their base into frenzy, feeding on envy and a thirst for “economic justice” in the form of wealth redistribution. This practice dates back centuries and is little different than that employed by the architects of the French Revolution. Never is it mentioned by advocates of class warfare that the targets of their venom are the real producers in our society; the people who are primarily responsible for creating most of the jobs on which we depend to maintain the world’s highest standard of living.

 It is difficult to imagine that most liberal politicians do not grasp the lessons of economics and history; however warped their lessons were by liberal elite college professors. It doesn’t require a degree from the Wharton School to determine that FDR’s policies under the New Deal were an unmitigated disaster for the country and the primary driving force behind the Great Depression. Recognizing the destruction caused by the forced redistribution of wealth takes little more than a glance at the history of communism in the 20^th century. If wealth redistribution was inherently a good idea, the USSR would still thrive and hundreds of millions of people would yearn for a life under that brand of socialism. In foreign policy, the lessons of Neville Chamberlain at Munich should be enough to prevent us from ever again resorting to appeasement in dealing with dangerous enemies. These examples are so clear, so unequivocal, how then can liberal politicians justify defiance of their lessons? 

   The aim of the liberal politician is to amass and retain power, not to enlighten or educate the people. These people are fully aware that their policies are destructive to their voters and to the country. They simply don’t care as long as they and their lackeys, the liberal elite, retain preferred status in society. Can anyone really make the argument that Stalin or Mao truly believed that their policies benefited their societies as a whole? These people knew the difference between their countries and Western societies. They also knew that giving their people freedom, both economic and social, would end their dictatorial powers and their elevated and pampered status. They chose power for themselves and their inner circles at the expense of hundreds of millions of their citizens. Liberal politicians in the US aren’t terribly different.

 The current administration harps endlessly about social and economic justice for classes of Americans who they have deemed ‘victims’. While it would be wrong to claim that there no longer exists discrimination in America, it is worse to suggest that it is so pervasive that tens of millions of our citizens are held back by it and are entitled to some form of compensation or reparations as a result of it. Demonizing corporations and their CEOs along with small businesses and their owners has become a favorite tactic of liberal politicians. It is easy to get ‘the base’ riled up and ready to exact retribution for imagined wrongs done to them by people of means. The more that ‘the base’ is led to believe that they will receive some of the wealth they have not earned, the more likely they’ll be to continue to support the liberal politicians who promise them other people’s money. In an example of just how thoroughly disingenuous liberal politicians have become, the legalized theft of people’s money in order to hand it out to others is now known as “economic justice”.

 What incentive is there for liberal politicians to encourage their constituents to better themselves through the system of free enterprise that we enjoy in this country? If this constituency transforms from a dependent underclass to a class of independent entrepreneurs who are also taxpayers, what incentives will they then have to continue voting for liberals whose goal is to confiscate their earned wealth in order to give it away to those who have not earned it? Liberal politicians not only know that their socialist policies are bad for the country; they also know that the success of their constituency will result in their removal from power. Therefore, it is clearly in the interests of liberals to maintain an underclass who are kept in a state of dependency through subsistence-level handouts. The perpetual continuation of these handouts is traded for votes. This is precisely what we saw happen under FDR and later under LBJ, two of the most destructive liberal politicians in American history.

 It would be erroneous to continue to refer to liberals as if they are a monolithic movement or bloc. They are not. The reality is that the vast majority of liberals are people who are “on the take” in one way or another. Their underlying belief is that society somehow owes them. They know that in order to get the loot they believe they deserve they need to vote for people who can get it for them legally. The politicians are there for that purpose. A massive network of academics, media figures and celebrities exists to propagandize the masses for the benefit of the politicians. For their work, these liberal elites are handsomely rewarded and allowed access to the politicians’ inner circles. This entire apparatus is immeasurably destructive to societies where it exists. It always has been and always will be and has been demonstrated as such repeatedly throughout history. Sadly, liberal politicians couldn’t care less.       

 In my personal experience, I notice that there are small percentages of people who fall in the categories of “exemplary people” and “problematic people”. Speaking strictly on a non-scientific basis, there seem to be about 10% of people who are the kind of folks who you want as friends, who you’d trust with your home, your family, your finances or your livelihood. These are people who are decent, moral, hard-working and upstanding citizens, who don’t bad-mouth others behind their backs and who represent the best of what makes ours a great country. On the other hand, you have about 10% of people who are the opposite. They are the lazy, shiftless, liars and criminals who drag us down. They spend more time scheming ways to take for themselves than they do contributing to a civil society. These are the people you would cross the street to avoid and steer clear of their neighborhoods. Working or socializing with them is the last thing you’d want to do because of their untrustworthy or volatile natures.

 In the not-too-distant past, societies had draconian measures in place to keep ‘problematics’ in line. Criminal justice was more exacting and severe. Parents of generations gone by were stricter disciplinarians, fearing that their children would become ‘problematics’ and thus a disgrace to the family name. Serving prison time was not some rite of passage but a mark of shame. The number of children raised during the Great Depression who overcame crushing poverty to better themselves and emerge as the Greatest Generation is a testament to the diligence and perspicacity of their parents who struggled through unprecedented hardship to steer them right. Those who could not be steered paid a steep and certain price.

 The hard-left turn that our country took in the 1960’s created a generation of hand-wringers who began questioning the ‘root causes’ of anti-social behavior and the time-honored methods of countering it. Eschewing corporal punishment of children became de rigueur. New approaches to ‘corrections’ systems made ‘rehabilitation’ the goal rather than punishment. News stories of violent crimes involving perpetrators in their 20’s with dozens of prior convictions on their records are common. Sixty years ago, they’d have been locked up for good or executed for their inability to live within the law. Today, they are portrayed as ‘victims’ of one kind or another, more often than not of some sort of childhood abuse, real or imagined. Obsessive-compulsive do-gooders insist on trying new age remedies for habitual criminal behavior. There don’t appear to be many success stories; certainly not any number that justifies allowing violent criminals back out on the street.

 The poor are nearly always portrayed as noble, hard-working souls who are merely down on their luck or who have had an earth-shattering tragedy strike their lives. Indeed, liberals and the press (sorry for the redundancy) go out of their way to parade poor folks in front of cameras when tragedy does strike them. This helps to hide the fact that the overwhelming majority of poor people seem to have a deeply ingrained propensity for making incredibly bad life decisions over and over again.  

 When you take a look at the percentage of people in poverty or who are high school dropouts or who are chronically unemployed or who are drug addicts or who abuse their children or any number of other examples of miscreant behavior, it is remarkable how their percentage of the population seems to hover around 10%. It will vary higher and lower with the times but for the most part, it does seem that the percentage of trouble-making ne’er-do-wells in society falls somewhere around that 10% mark. You   would think that it would go without saying that this tiny minority would account for an awful lot of the resources that society sets aside to assist the poor but this is nearly never pointed out by their advocates in liberal government and the media.

 Think about it for a second- the entire criminal justice system; courts, lawyers, prisons, police- is only necessary because of a tiny minority of cretinous citizens. The entire government apparatus for assistance to the poor; AFDC, WIC, LIHEAP, Section 8, Food Stamps, Medicaid, etc.- is only there to provide hand-outs to a small sliver of the population, most of whom condemn themselves to their plight through repetitious poor judgment and decision-making. Roughly ninety percent of us toil everyday to carry ten percent who cannot or will not help themselves.

 Now, I am not saying that no one is worthy of help. There are truly disabled people who need our assistance. A society’s greatness can be measured by how it treats it’s least fortunate members. But laziness, stupidity or criminality are not disabilities. At some point, a line needs to be drawn on who gets assistance and why.

 Right now, our Congressional delegations are home listening to the concerns of their constituents over healthcare reform or health insurance reform (they haven’t settled on what they want to call it). Advocates of Obamacare want to destroy our existing system of providing health care in order to provide insurance for 47 million Americans who don’t have it. They will not point out that about 32 million of those people are either illegal aliens or Americans who choose not to purchase health insurance or who have failed to sign up for existing government assistance programs. That particular statistic doesn’t suit their purpose so it isn’t cited. This leaves around 15 million people, or about 5% of the legal population, who are without health insurance who would like to have it. In short, Obama wants to take away the existing health care most of us have (HR 3200 has provisions to make sure your private coverage will be short-lived), increase our taxes (middle tax increases are a foregone conclusion with profligate spending like this), and hand out ‘free’ coverage to his most loyal bloc of voters, the poor.  Of course, that bloc comprises an awful large percentage of the 10% who are dragging the rest of society down. Is it any wonder people are steaming at these town hall meetings?

     We are allowing the 10% to destroy what’s left of our country that is good. It’s time to grow a national backbone and tell them to sink or swim. They are an anchor around our necks and if we don’t cast them and their enablers off next year, we will see this country fall faster and harder than any great civilization in history.

 Is it any wonder that President Barack Obama has such a large and loyal following? After all, who else has ever had the capability of providing the wonderful array of government services that Obama plans to offer? Who else could ever unilaterally transform the entire world from a hostile and belligerent place to a harmonious and cooperative conglomeration of benevolent and compassionate nations? Who in the past has managed to inspire millions of young people to envision a world devoid of the senseless problems created and nurtured by their parents and grandparents? No one has ever been able to effect these changes throughout history but Obama’s enthusiastic supporters are fully confident that he can do it with the help and support of a Democrat supermajority in Congress. The expectations of Obama are high- probably the highest bar ever set for an American President.

 Barack Obama has captivated large numbers of Americans with his promises of a new America. Universal health care will give all Americans  (and a lot of non-Americans, too) access to high-quality, free health care that will actually save the country money as it reels in runaway health care costs under the private sector. Everyone will be healthy and equal and unburdened by concerns over medical care.   

 Obama’s energy policy will virtually eliminate our dependence on energy imports as we shift our economy to wind and solar power. Carbon emissions will disappear and the sea levels will recede and polar bears will live free of the threat of drowning. By dismantling the fossil fuel industries, he will have eliminated the oppression and pollution brought on by these purveyors of evil who have victimized the world for so long. Wind and solar will employ millions and millions of citizens and they’ll never run out and they’ll never pollute our planet and we’ll all get our power from these sources at practically no cost to anyone.

  Anyone who cares to better themselves will have full access to a free college education and all that will be required of them will be a couple of years of government service doing something we’re not quite sure of yet but you can bet it’ll be just great for the country and the world.  These new college grads will inevitably secure good, high-paying jobs and poverty will virtually melt away.  Anyone experiencing any kind of financial difficulty will have free access to government assistance to see them through without all of the onerous restrictions and limitations of the past. We’ll have the most highly educated and productive citizenry in the world because they won’t have to worry about hardship and there won’t be medical bills or pollution to worry about either.  

Twelve to fifteen million undocumented workers will enjoy a path to citizenship that will be quick and fair and they will become loyal American citizens in no time, surely supporting the flawless policies that allowed them to come out of the shadows and join their fellow Americans as ‘citizens of the world’. All people of all races will live in peace and harmony, showing mutual respect as we build a color-blind society that barely even recognizes that there are any cultural differences amongst us because all of our cultures are equally important and valuable.

 With so many people so highly educated and learning to respect each other’s cultures, there will obviously be a massive drop in the crime rate. With crime no longer a problem, there will be no need for guns or prisons and we can convert those industries into something worthwhile like more windmills or solar panels or cultural appreciation centers. Former criminals can be employed at the free universities making large salaries lecturing on how Obama has solved all of the country’s problems at virtually no cost by simply making these few little adjustments that virtually anyone with a brain supports unquestionably.

 Foreign enemies will cease to exist as America shows its new-found respect for all nations and cultures. By admitting that we are not and never have been any better than anyone else and that most everything done in the name of the US before Obama was wrong-headed war-mongering, our enemies will surely see that we are not to be feared or loathed. They will lay down their arms in order to accept the aid that we send them to solve all of their problems in the same manner we solved all of ours. With our enemies pacified and brought into the Obama fold, we will no longer have any use for armed forces. Of course the hundreds of billions that will be saved by dismantling defense can be used to enrich the poor or can be donated to the UN to begin the implementation of one world government that will be just and fair. America can take her place alongside Albania and Antigua as equals.

 All citizens of the world will intuitively know to stay within bounds of WWOD (what would Obama do?) For this reason, all pollution and hostility and angry words and dirty looks will stop. No one will go to bed hungry or wonder where they’ll get money for things they want and need. There will be no lack of information about what government services are available because the government will always be there to see the citizenry through every phase of their lives. No one will stumble and fall because everyone else will be there to catch them on the way down and set them back on their feet. Since every child will have been raised by a village, everyone will know and love and respect everyone else.

 Everyone will have their own room where there will be kittens and rainbows and unicorns and all the free ice cream and cotton candy you ever want.

 Oh, and the Democratic Party will be the only one allowed to exist and people who disagree with The One’s teachings will sort of just disappear.