Politics and Insights from History

The past several months have been filled with disturbing coincidences. These coincidences coincide with the principles of Marxism. Looking back on history and comparing it to recent events there is a pattern. For the past 76 years or more the United States has slowly moved toward socialism. The people never noticed because the move has been slow and behind the scenes until now. Since Obama took the oath of office he has set about to complete the task and is doing it at an exponential rate.

Obama said during the election that he would “remake America.” And he is. The problem is, most people thought that the change Obama promised us was to remove the special interest, stop out of control government spending, implement fiscal responsibility on Washington’s part, and more economic freedom, all of which has been lacking for decades. Instead, Obama brought Chicago politics to D.C. and is turning the United States into the Socialist’s dream. We have more special interests than ever in Washington, Congress continues to spend what they do not have and Obama urges them to do it. Obama has surrounded himself by Marxists (his czars and advisors) people who would never be elected to anything.

Barack Obama is following the steps to socialism as laid out in The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. (The Communist Manifesto pp. 30)

The Stimulus Bill Obama signed into law destroyed private property. The government took over ownership of General Motors, and Chrysler a few months later. After taking ownership of the two companies, the Obama administration fired their CEOs and appointed new ones. The guy appointed to head GM has had no experience in managing a company or any business experience. On top of that, dealerships that had contracts with GM or Chrysler were shut down. Many of these dealerships had belonged to families for 10, 20, even 30 years or more. Also, the majority of these dealerships that were closed by the government were profitable. The ones that lost money annually were allowed to remain open. These dealerships were privately owned businesses that just happened to have a contract deal with GM or Chrysler. The government refused to allow them to sell their stock. Eventually some of these dealerships were allowed to reopen, but only as used car lots. Many are still closed because they lost too much money when the government took over the two car companies.

Now Obama is pushing for a bill that will allow him to take over the internet and shut down privately owned businesses that conduct commerce on the internet in case of a national emergency.[i] This bill would give him a “kill switch” which would “shut down online traffic by seizing private networks.” This is all being done to prevent a “cyber-emergency.” However, the government fails to define what a cyber-emergency is. If this bill passes, all Obama has to do is declare a state of emergency and he can shut down the internet and all privately owned networks. This also means that businesses that conduct transactions online will be shut down as well as people’s emails and private correspondence. Social Networks such as Facebook would be closed. This bill gives the president overwhelming power over the internet and people’s private lives. (And is similar to what China has.)

This bill would also require national licensing standards for “cybersecurity professional.” Most of those in cybersecurity work for privately owned companies. Our internet security is very effective in protecting against hackers and malicious internet viruses. We have never had an internet threat and the likelihood of there being one is slim. But one thing is certain, if the government takes over the internet, its quality will disappear, internet security will decrease, and the likelihood of an internet threat will increase. The government can use this newfound power to hack into people’s bank records, medical records, emails, and business records.

This government takeover is unconstitutional and violates the principles of American freedom. One of these principles is the right to property and to keep the fruits of one’s labor. When the Obama administration took over GM and Chrysler and people’s own private businesses, it violated this principle. But they do not care because they believe that America is an evil country that must be destroyed. They believe that the rich should be stripped of their wealth, except they themselves refuse to give up their own wealth.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax

We have had a progressive income tax since the nineteen teens, since the days of Woodrow Wilson. Every year, Americans pay more in taxes and are allowed to keep very little for themselves. We already pay about 35%-39% of out income to the Federal government. After that we still have to pay taxes to our local state, county, district, and city. By the time all these groups are done taking “their share”, you have probably paid roughly 60% of your income in taxes alone. Also, every service you use and product you buy is taxed. That leaves very little to live off of.

Obama wants to raise the Federal Income Tax to 60%. And he will if Congress lets him. Supposedly this tax increase will pay for universal health care. But we all know that the Federal Government never spends our tax dollars on what they say they will. It always goes to some bureaucracy or pads the pocket of some politician. Canadians pay about 80% of their income to the state in taxes and their government run medical system is bankrupt. So is the country.

Why should we have to pay so much of our hard earned money to the government? We shouldn’t. The less the government gets, the better. No one should have to pay a higher percentage in taxes just because they earn more. Being pushed into a higher tax bracket negates the purpose of getting a bonus, a pay raise, or extra income of any kind because the government just takes it.

The point of a graduated income tax is to leave as little money as possible in the hands of the people. The less an individual has, the more he is dependent on the government for help.

3. Abolition of all right of inheritance

The estate tax is an attempt on that. When you die, the government taxes whatever you try to pass on as an inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

Obama’s administration is trying to paint anyone who does not agree with him as right wing extremists, terrorists, or even rebels. Janet Napolitano basically called the Tax Day Tea Party attendees a bunch of gun-toting terrorists. If they succeed, there is nothing to stop them from taking the property of these people and arresting them. By confiscating the property of those who might rebel against the state, the government has stopped a rebellion before it ever began.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

The FDIC passed by Franklin Roosevelt was one of the first steps in bringing the banks under government control. Now with the bailout money that the Obama administration has given to the banks, many of them are controlled by the government. That money came with strings attached. Some of the banks that received TARP money tried to pay it back, but the government refused to take it. Once a corporation, business, or an individual takes money from the Federal Government, they are indebted to it forever.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

If the state controls the means of communication and the transport, then they control what you say to your friends and family and where you are allowed to move to within the country. The state will also know what you are saying and thinking and they will know where you are at all times.

The proposed bill to give Obama the authority to shut down the internet is a means to controlling communication, considering that most people communicate by email of social networking.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

A possible example could be the Environmental policies that ban the drilling for oil in areas that are deemed to have an endangered species. For example, Anwar up in Alaska and the ban on offshore drilling.

Another example is that our farms are under government control through subsidies. These farm subsidies have been in place since the 1930s. The modern farmer is forced to take a subsidy because of the price controls imposed by the federal government. If farmers did not take the subsidy they would be forced to raise the price of their crops and would not be able to compete against the subsidized produce that is sold at a lower price. (This is why Organic produce costs more in the grocery store. Many organic farmers do not take government subsidies.) Farmers are forced to give a percentage of their crops to the government every year. Supposedly these crops are used in the production of biofuels such as ethanol, but most of it sits in a storehouse until it rots and becomes unfit to eat. Farmers are also told by the government how many acres they are allowed to plant per crop. Federal agents are sent out to make sure that they are complying with regulations. The Federal Government mandates which pesticides and fertilizers farmers are allowed to use on their land. They are also forced to keep a certain acreage unplanted. Anyone who fails to comply with these mandates lose their subsidy and their farm.

Currently in California’s Central Valley farmers are losing money and their business because of some environmental regulation. There is a little fish that gets caught in the irrigation system that is used to water these farms. It has now been classified an endangered species. The irrigation system has been shut off, causing the cultivators to lose about 90% of their water.[ii] The farms are dying. The crops are dead because of lack of water. This part of California has been in a drought for years. These farms also produce a majority of the produce people buy in the grocery store. Since the government forced the destruction of these farms and the food produced, the cost of groceries is going to rise.

Many of these farmers have been forced onto unemployment because their farms are losing money and they are well on their way to bankruptcy. Farming is a business and these farmers have lost their livelihood due to government environmental regulations.

8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

Obama has stated repeatedly that he intends to establish a civilian task force that would be military trained and could be activated when a threat arises. This task force would be under the command of Barack Obama. (Can we say Hitler Youth? S.S.? Roman Emperors’ Praetorian Guard?) We do not need a civilian task force at the beck and call of the President. We have a military to protect this country from foreign threats. We have the FBI, U.S. Marshals, and local police to protect us from domestic threats.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.

As right of now the government does not appear to have gotten to this.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of child factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

Though abolishing child labor is a good thing, Marx did not want it done because he cared about the children. He wanted children placed in a public school system controlled by the state so that all kids would be taught to worship the state, to look to the government for help, and to be good little Marxists. A great way to stamp out opposition is to teach children to not think independently, but to instead trust the government to think for them.

We have had a public school system since the beginning days of our country. However, for the longest time the schools were run by the local town or county. It wasn’t until the creation of the Department of Education that our schools fell under Federal control. Since then the quality of education has declined and continues to decline every year. We are graduating students from high school who cannot read, cannot do basic math, or even form a proper sentence. Many of our nation’s universities fare no batter. They are also under government control through government grants and loans. The majority of college graduates know less on graduation day than they did on their first day as a freshman.

Obama has given more money to unions, especially teachers’ union, and has shut down many charter schools. The teachers’ unions control the public schools. They are some of the biggest lobbyists in Congress. They spend more time demanding pay raises and that the schools comply with their demands, than they do educating students. As a result, we have teachers who are not teaching subjects like math or reading, in charge of educating our kids. Instead they teach global warming and that America is an evil, racist nation controlled by white supremacists.

The Charter Schools are privately run and the government has no control over them. They are producing students who can read, write, add, and think critically. Students from a charter school routinely outperform those in public school. The teachers at charter schools are required to meet academic standards or they are fired.

Compare this to a public school where the majority of the teachers belong to a union and cannot be fired despite what they do. As a result, we have public schools full of teachers who sit on their lazy butts teaching politically correct BS, and things like creative math and spelling. They have no incentive to educate their students because they are not punished for failing to do their job.

Why is Obama closing Charter schools that actually educate our children and expanding funding for a failed public school system? Simple, he wants America’s kids to be uneducated and ignorant because if they are, the government can tell them anything and they will believe it. Joseph Stalin once said that if a parent gave him their infant child, then in six years he would have a perfect Communist. Many in our Congress want to make preschool and kindergarten mandatory. This is so they can get their hands on your child at an earlier age. The earlier the government gets control over your child, the sooner they can train a future Marxist drone. This was the reasoning behind the Department of Education and Federal control over the school system.

Barak Obama is planning to give a speech to public schools on September 8, 2009. [iii] Supposedly he will be talking about working hard, setting goals, and the importance of education. However, students in grades pre-K-6 are being encouraged by the Department of Education to write letters to themselves on how they can help President Obama achieve his goals. These letters are to be collected and redistributed later in the year to see if the student kept his promise. In grades 7-12 students are going to be asked to ponder over excerpts from Obama’s speech and discuss how it affects them personally, how it aspires them, or challenges them. This is disturbing. It is one thing for the President to give a speech on the value of education, but to turn around and ask students to write letters on how they can help him, or to contemplate his “inspiring” word is fishy. It bears a resemblance to brainwashing children into accepting government policies and then using these kids to convince their parents to go along with the same laws.

Another aspect of Marxism is class warfare. Karl Marx describes history as nothing but a case of class warfare. This is a very clever move. Marx and Engels wrote their Manifesto for the poor working class. They wanted to enrage the poor to become angry with the rich and rise up against them. Marx and Engels believe the philosophy that what people have is not theirs to keep or do with as they choose. Your children are not yours to raise as you see fit. If you believe Marx and Engels then you will think that anything someone else has is rightfully yours. It gives you and those like you an excuse to take from those who are wealthy, whether they worked for it or not, and spread it to those who are too lazy to get off their rear ends and get a job and improve their own lives.

Class warfare is nothing new. It has been around since ancient times. Class warfare played a part in the French Revolution. King Louis XVI was an idiot. He did not know how to govern France. His people starved and lived in poverty while he threw one lavish party after another in his palace. The Aristocracy of France paid little attention to the needs of the peasants. As a result the peasantry rose up in revolt and overthrew the Aristocracy of France. However, things got out of hand really quick. People like Robespierre used the anger of the peasantry to gain control. He constantly fueled the wrath of the poor against the aristocracy. As a result France instituted a national blood bath where they beheaded anyone who was associated with the nobility in any way. A person could accuse their neighbor of helping the aristocracy without any proof. Those accused were killed and their property was divided up. Robespierre himself was eventually executed by one of his own guillotines. The French Revolution began as a revolt from the poor against the rich and gave way to an oligarchy where an elite group was in charge, until Napoleon Bonaparte took over and declared himself Emperor of France. The circumstances of the poor never improved. Many innocent people died.

Class warfare was seen again in the Bolshevik Revolution led by Vladimir Lenin. The peasants of Russia were already angry with Czar Nicholas. Lenin used that to his own advantage. He used the ire of the poor to overthrow the Czar and his family. The royal family was killed and Lenin proclaimed himself the new leader of Russia, changing the name to the United Soviet Socialist Republic. (Notice how every communist country claims to be a republic: People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Cuba, or North Korea calling itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, for example. None of these countries ever had a republic.)

Hitler and the Nazis also used class warfare. Germany after WWI was bankrupt. Many people lost their savings. The Jews in Germany were different. They have always been an industrious people. When they lost what little they had after WWI, they just found a way to earn a living by starting businesses, going to school to become better educated, and marketing what skills they had to make money so they and their families did not starve. Not all of the German people did this. Most wallowed in self pity. Hitler used their desperation and turned it to jealously against the wealthy Jews. He also used it to get elected Chancellor of Germany by promising hope and change. He said he would make Germany great again and that he would bring an end to their poverty.

F.D.R. used class warfare to a degree in order to bring about the New Deal and his precious Social Security. Unlike in Europe at this time, the progressives (who are socialists) in this country were not able to completely overthrow the American government and institute their Utopian dream. Instead, they used the Great Depression to implement government programs that are still in use today. They used people’s desperation to get elected to public office so they could slowly add to their government programs over the years. No we have a giant bureaucratic mess, career politicians who only care about themselves, a country that is bankrupt, and American freedom has been lost.

Today we have Barack Obama using the same class warfare technique to promote his health care plan. He used our desperation over the collapsing housing market to get elected promising us “Hope & Change,” or “Change We Can Believe In.” Instead we got “Despair and Pennies,” and “Poverty We Can Believe In.” He also used our frustration to ram through his stimulus bill which has only succeeded in making the economy worse. In every address Obama gives, his disdain for the rich, who are not liberal politicians, comes through. In many of his addresses concerning health care, Obama loves to tout the story of the poor single mom who can’t afford to take her children to the doctor, or how his grandmother died of cancer because she could not afford the chemotherapy drugs. (Of course, the fact that Obama never bothered to help his ailing grandmother is conveniently ignored.)

He talks about how the wealthiest Americans prosper off the backs of the poor, how the economy favors the wealthy, or how the wealthy never pay enough in taxes. The wealthy in America have always paid the majority of the taxes. A free market economy benefits everyone: wealthy, poor, and middle class. The only people making money off of the poor are politicians. People like Barak Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, even the late Ted Kennedy routinely use the downtrodden and their jealousy to ram through government programs that decreases the wealth of the rich and keeps the poor poverty stricken.

The thing is, Obama, like other statists, believes in equality for all, except for a select few. Those few are people like him, Pelosi, and anyone else who is in a position of power and ascribes to the “proper” political ideology. Obama is reshaping America into a country where we will have equal poverty and the political class of Washington D.C. will have control over us and our lives. This is something Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wanted.

But let’s look at a modern day example of how complete government control ruins nations and cripples people. Take Mugabe the dictator of Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe, who is a Marxist, became president of Zimbabwe in 1980,[i] a tile he has never relinquished even after a presidential election that took place in March 2008.[ii] Before Mugabe, Zimbabwe had been a very wealthy country. The most affluent in all of Africa. Since Mugabe’s takeover, Zimbabwe has sunk into economic collapse. Mugabe has spent his whole career preaching discrimination against whites and getting rid of any vestige of western influence from colonial days. The result: suffering and destitution.

Mugabe systematically took control of everything. He took over the media, law enforcement, schools and the army. Then he took over the economy by redistributing farmland, taking from white farmers and giving to poor blacks. Misled by his rhetoric of moderate reform and his promise to not change Zimbabwe or hurt it’s prosperity, many of these white farmers bought their land after Mugabe became president.

Starting in 2000, Mugabe used his army to forcefully remove whites from their farms, land they owned and worked. These farm owners sendured violent attacks. Some were killed. Their families suffered as well. Some even had children taken hostage. Mugabe then gave that land to blacks, but not any of the blacks that worked or managed the farm under the white landowner. They were thrown out on the streets. These new land owners didn’t know the first thing about running a farm causing it to fall into disarray as production ceased. Zimbabwe has very fertile land, but that land is cultivated by incompetent idiots all in the name of racial justice.

With the destruction of agricultural productivity, Zimbabwe’s exports fell, causing income from those exports to stagger. The country plunged into poverty. Warehouses that once held grain are now empty. People who used to have homes now live in slums and shabbily put together huts. What cattle haven’t been killed by the starving masses for food wander the countryside, much of which have hoof and mouth disease. Hospitals are falling apart and provide substandard medical care. Rampant outbreaks of cholera have killed many people. Those with AIDs have no access to medication. Those who have not died of disease die of starvation. Zimbabwe is now entirely dependent on foreign aid.

In an effort to attack the crippling economy, Mugabe issued edict after edict. There are so many laws in Zimbabwe no one can do anything for fear of breaking one. These laws only treat the symptoms of economic collapse. Not the root cause. (Sound familiar?) The true cause of Zimbabwe’s problem is Mugabe himself and his expansion of government into every aspect of people’s lives. His redistribution of wealth in the name of fairness or justice caused rapid inflation and weakened the currency. Zimbabwe has the highest inflation rate in the world. Compare it to the inflation rate of others countries at the height if there economic downturns.

Highest Monthly Inflation Rates in History
Country	Month with highest inflation rate	Highest monthly inflation rate	Equivalent daily inflation rate	Time required for prices to double
Hungary	July 1946	1.30 x 1016%	195%	15.6 hours
Zimbabwe	Mid-November 2008 (latest measurable)	79,600,000,000%	98.0%	24.7 hours
Yugoslavia	January 1994	313,000,000%	64.6%	1.4 days
Germany	October 1923	29,500%	20.9%	3.7 days
Greece	November 1944	11,300%	17.1%	4.5 days
China	May 1949	4,210%	13.4%	5.6 days

Source: Prof. Steve H. Hanke, February 5, 2009.[iii]

Mugabe’s takeover of schools has increased the literacy rate of children. But the good news ends there. Children are taught hatred of whites, and foreigners. They are taught to fire weapons, build bombs, and to be good little soldiers that worship Mugabe. They are turned into his own, private militia who are then used to pull white farmers off their land, harass the people as the wait in food lines, and crush dissenting opinion and political enemies.

In the twenty years since his seizure of power, Mugabe has managed to take one of the most prosperous countries in the world, and turn it into the most poverty stricken. Africa’s golden gem is now dead weight, a parasite.

Zimbabwe is not the only country whose economy was destroyed by government confiscation of power and a dictator’s disregard for the welfare of the people. We still have Cuba, Sudan, Iran, Nigeria, Somalia and the list goes on.

You should notice a pattern here. Whenever a government becomes too powerful, the people suffer. We lose our freedoms, the wealthy are punished and the poor remain poor. Stalin destroyed the kulak farming class, who were quite wealthy. Hitler shut down the successful businesses of Jews. In Uganda, Idi Amin removed the wealthy Indian commercial class. Mugabe purged his country from rich, white farm owners. And now Obama wants to decide how much money CEOs can make and has taken over the auto industry. The similarities are frightening!

Obama is too much like past and present dictators. He has control of the major media. NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and all of their offshoots have voluntarily thrown their support to him and report whatever he wants. If you watch these networks closely, you will notice how they paint Obama like a god, they almost always give him favorable coverage, they refuse to call his takeover of what used to be private industries for what it is, and they spend most of their time distracting the public by fawning over how good he looks in a suit and how great Michelle Obama’s arms are. You do not find much in the way of dissenting opinion. The only areas where true freedom of the press is still practiced are Fox News, talk radio, and the internet.

That can easily change. Obama, Pelosi, and other liberals want to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine, which is nothing more than censorship. Obama’s appointment of a cyber czar is an attempt to control the internet. He can give excuse after excuse for why we need the government to monitor the internet, but the real reason is to control it, to control the people.

Obama passed his stimulus bill which greatly expanded the size of government, took over the auto industry, the banks, and is trying to force individual states to take money from the federal government. Obama has decreed that only environmentally friendly cars are to be manufactured in the U.S. His administration has decided how much CEOs can earn by putting caps on their income. Obama is now pushing health care reform, which is little more than government run health care. They already decide the quality of health for the elderly. The government owns the education system. It owns your retirement plan. Obama wants to redistribute wealth to bring what he and other liberals call social justice. Class warfare is how they gained power and how they keep it.

The federal government has steadily grown in size since the days of F.D.R. Barack Obama has managed to outdo that by increasing its size at an exponential rate.

Observe the events of the last five months. As you do, think about Hitler, Stalin, Mugabe, Castro, Idi Amin, and every other dictator the world has seen. Think of the French Revolution where class warfare was taken to the extreme as the peasantry slaughtered the aristocracy. Robespierre used the anger of the poor to gain power. Thomas Jefferson said of Robespierre, “The rich were his victims, and perished by the thousands.”[iv]

Obama is doing the same by constantly talking about the amount of unemployed in this country and demonizing the rich. If he succeeds in his ambitions, we will all suffer a loss of our freedoms and an economic collapse. We will become a third world country. Obama, like all liberals, is a parasite. Like all parasites, he takes a healthy body, or in this case a nation, and turns it into an ailing corpse. He feeds off of people’s fears, desperation, and anger.

Obama’s announcement for the need of a cyber czar is another in a long list of endeavors to seize power from the people. He uses the fear of terrorism to win our support for this newly created post. But what we really have to fear is not terrorism, but our own government and Barak Obama.

Obama’s appointment of a cyber czar, and his other government take overs, are very similar to what has happened from past dictators.  Two most notable examples are Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

Hitler was elected by the German people.  With his foot in the door, he was well able to take over the German governmnet.  After securing his power with the Nazi win of the Reichstag election, Adolf Hitler outlawed Communist/Socialist writings and took control of all radio stations. This made it where his propaganda was heard and no dissenting views. Afterwards he proceeded to outlaw the Weimar Constitution of Germany and got rid of any rivals securing his power as dictator of Germany.

Here Hitler began taking control of the social and economical aspects of Germany. He outlawed religion replacing it with the worship of the Third Reich and its leader, him. He controlled the media so the people were unable to have access to any views other than those supported by the state. He provided jobs for the German people by outlawing the Jews from working. Many Germans were also sent to work in public works projects or conscripted in the German Army. Hitler also took over the education system in the country by requiring all children to be involved in the Hitler Youth where they received a steady dose of indoctrination and became good little Nazis. As Hitler changed the German identity and formed the country into what he thought it should be, the German people found themselves with less freedom and no security. Any dissent was squashed by the Gestapo. If suspected of helping a Jew a person and his entire family would be arrested without charge and without warrant. The people quickly discovered that they had been duped by Hitler and the Nazi Party. Hitler promised change and restoration of Aryan glory. The people voted for him as they were desperate for change.

The same thing happened in Russia. Life under the Czars was no picnic. Many people lived in poverty. They were sick and tired. So along come Lenin, and the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks won their revolution, Czar Nikolas and his family were killed and Lenin became the leader of Russia, which was renamed the USSR.

Lenin pushed his communist agenda through economic means. He nationalized all farms making it where the state owned all of the land in the country, the farmers were just allowed to work on it. They took what they thought was excess food and purchased crop at such low prices that the farmers lived in poverty. Some burned their crops and destroyed livestock rather than have it all go to the government. They were severely punished. Lenin also took over ownership of industry and abolished all private trade. Workers were paid with food ration cards instead of cash and even then it was never enough to feed a family.

The result of these two economic changes was continued poverty for the Russian people and famine. So Lenin had to change his policy slightly allowing ownership of private industry.

When Stalin took over the USSR he set about modernizing it. It is because of Stalin the Russia became industrialized, however, everything was owned by the state. He repealed any private ownership allowed by Lenin. He instituted a State Planning Commission which issued orders to industries, small businesses, and farms. In an effort to increase food production, Stalin had all farm collectivized. Farmers pooled their resources and labor, whatever crops produced were sold to the government at less than market price. Any surpluses they were allowed to keep and share among themselves.

Stalin had three five year plans he used to achieve his goals of industrializing the USSR. Though his plan did create roads, dams, and infrastructure necessary in the Soviet Union, it took its toll on the people. People worked in harsh conditions, punished severely for absenteeism, and paid little. This influx of forced industrialization forced many people to move into the cities where there was inadequate housing, poor medical facilities and schools. Consumer goods were in short supply, shops were empty, clothing was scarce, and everyday household items were nowhere to be found. Basically, the standard of living under Stalin’s five year plan fell as people were forced to live in a lower state of poverty than they did under the Czars.

Stalin also took over education. Children were required to go to government run schools where they learned to be good communists. There were also taught to spy on their family, their friends, and anyone they came across. Children made excellent informers when someone refused to worship the state or voiced their discontent with Stalin.

It was only a matter of time until President Obama took over the internet by appointing a Cyber Czar. The name couldn’t be more fitting. Czars are in complete control of things and answer to no one. This Cyber Czar will answer only to Obama, not Congress, not the courts and certainly not the people. In fact the people have no say in this.

Obama says that the cyber czar will monitor online threats from terrorists and keep our internet networks safe. Admirable, but the government already has securities measures in place to keep our internet software safe. “It’s now clear this cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation,” Obama said, adding, “We’re not as prepared as we should be, as a government or as a country.”[i] Obama fails to mention who will be heading this new position and whom he will answer to. Another problem is the chance of this being abused. Too often people have been given positions of great power, such as this, and abused it. This is nothing more than another expansion of the federal government. Once it starts it does not end. We have witnessed this pattern for the last 40 years.

Obama is attempting to frighten the people into giving the government more power. Whenever he opens his mouth and attempts to sell the us on the idea of more government control, he poses a crisis. First it was the auto industry heading toward bankruptcy. Obama promised that if we allowed the federal government to give billions of dollars that it doesn’t have to GM, Chrysler, and Ford then we would save the American auto industry and be spared from an impending crisis. Well, GM and Chrysler have both declared bankruptcy, our money is gone. Obama expanded the power of the government and prevented nothing. He has also presented us with other crises: Americans have no access to health care, global warming rampant, a mounting deficit. His solution: government run health care (it has never worked in any country that implemented it), Cap and Tax (i.e. cape and trade), and introduce more taxes (while at the same time spending uncontrollably).

But we have another threat. A more sinister and dangerous plot. A major crisis! The terrorists might use our digitalized services and our internet against us! Our online services: banking, bill paying, etc. are not safe. Our way of life may be at risk. So Obama dons his red cape and swoops in to save us from another crisis. He will appoint someone to monitor the internet for such threats. Ladies and Gentlemen, do you honestly think that our way of life, our usage of cyber space will be any safer with the government in control of the internet?

We have become so afraid as a society that we are allowing the federal government to assume whatever powers they want because we have been duped into believing it will protect us. We run to our congressmen, our president, even our justices whenever we stub our toe. As a society we fear losing what we have that we allow the government to expand its “protective” arm over us. Just one problem: the government never holds its end of the bargain. When governments get as big and powerful as ours, we will lose everything that we hope to protect. I do not mean material wealth, though we will lose that too. But most importantly we will lose our freedom to do as we choose, to strive for a better life, and to just live. Benjamin Franklin wisely said, “Those that give up liberty for temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” He is absolutely right.

Oh, Obama assures us that the new czar will not monitor private networks or email accounts, nor will he dictate to private businesses how they will conduct their affairs or tighten their digital security. But we have heard these assurances before from past dictators. Remember Hitler, Stalin. They promised their people that there was nothing to fear from the government. The government was going to right wrongs and improve their lives. Millions of innocent lives paid for those assurances.