Politics and Insights from History

September 18, 2009

Dear Mr. President,

Your speech to Congress on the 9^th was nothing more than a rehash of the weekly primetime speeches you have given promoting you health care bill. You love to say that we are in the “worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.” But there you are wrong. The 1970s under Carter’s failed administration were far worse than what we are facing now. Then there was double digit unemployment, rising inflation, cost of gas and oil rose exponentially.

You continue to talk about the success of your stimulus bill. Well, if an unemployment rate of 9.7%, money going to ACORN, pig farms, and the building of nonexistent infrastructure is success then I congratulate you. You succeeded in failing to revive the economy. But then, economic revival was not your goal was it? Your bill was designed to waste money and fund government programs meant to keep people dependent on the government. It was meant to make people desperate so that when you proposed universal healthcare we would accept it. But it didn’t work. Yes, unemployment is up and we are far from economic recovery, but we do not want government healthcare. Many have learned what it entails and the sacrifices we would have to make, but you politicians get to avoid it. The people have learned that the proposed health care bill has nothing to do with ensuring people have access to health care, which they already do, but has everything to do with controlling the economy. You know as well as I that if the government controls 1/6 of the economy and controls the health of the people, it controls the nation and its people. The people will be slaves for your government regime. That is something Americans do not want.

You are shocked by the protests and are speechless. You first claimed you knew nothing about it. When that didn’t work you played the race card painting the protesters as dumb, ignorant, hillbilly, right wing, Nazi loving, racist extremists. (Or at least your supporters did and you never condemned them for saying such things.) When that didn’t work, you and your people insisted that we are the minority and that the “silent majority” support you. The thing is, Mr. President, we are the silent majority, but we are silent no more.

You accuse the opposition of using scare tactics in order to stop reform. All we have done is tell the truth about what has happened in other countries that have done what you propose. It is you who is using scare tactics. You portray our current health system as a crisis. You are telling the American people that we need your health reform in order to avert catastrophe. You did the same thing when it came to passing you stimulus bill. You portrayed our current economic situation as a crisis. You droned into our heads the belief that if the government didn’t do something, we would go bankrupt, unemployment would go up, more jobs would be lost, more homes foreclosed on. Well, the people listened and allowed you to pass you Recovery Act, as you are now calling it, and the country is bankrupt, the deficit is higher than ever, more jobs have been lost, unemployment nearly doubled, and more homes have been foreclosed on. You took a crisis that did not exist and turned it into one giant mess. Now you want to do the same with our health care system.

Whenever the government gets involved in the free market, it chokes it, until the government is the only one left to provide what the private sector used to. You know this, and that is your goal. So you and your cronies dismiss us as liars and as a violent angry mob. The truth of the matter is, Mr. President, you fear us. You are afraid of the people. You fear an armed uprising. The truth is you have an insatiable need for everyone to love you. You have an enormous ego and need people to worship you.

You say that you do not want Canada’s system of health care. Then why are you pushing for a bill that creates exactly that? You are attempting to play the moderate who isn’t for a complete takeover of the health care system, but is for tighter regulations on insurance companies. In the end, no one knows what you are for or against. But again we know the truth, don’t we? You are, and always have been, for complete government takeover of the health care system because once you get control of that it will be easy to take control of everything else.

You brought up Theodore Roosevelt in an attempt to garner support for your supposed reform. However, Theodore Roosevelt never specifically called for health reform. In 1912, he did run on the Progressive Platform for president and one of their platforms was universal healthcare. However, the people voted against it then and have ever since.

You constantly talk about the increasing cost of health care and how people are being forced to pay for “somebody else’s emergency room and charitable care.” Well, isn’t that what your universal health care would do? Government run health care forces people to pay for someone else’s health care. Government welfare is forced charity.

The bill you propose will dictate how much coverage insurance companies will have to provide, whom they can cover, whom they cannot, and put price controls on prescription medication. These measures will force insurance and drug companies out of business. These are businesses. They have to make a profit to stay in business. They have the right to cover whom they choose and to put caps on how much they will cover. But by forcing these companies to provide more than they can afford you force them to close.

Next you propose a bill that requires everyone to carry insurance whether they want to or not. This is not freedom of choice. This ensures that everyone will be on the government plan because those who lose their insurance when their current provider disappears will be forced onto what the government offers.

The thing is, not carrying insurance, companies denying coverage, drug companies wanting to make a profit, these are not the causes of the increase cost of health care. Part of the cause is newer technology and innovation. But the real culprit is the government. Government regulation of insurance companies forces their premiums to rise. Medicare and Medicaid are government run insurance programs. The bureaucracy they created and the amount of paper work that has to be filed takes money. This is where the waste is. The majority of the waste is on the part of the government, not individual people or companies.

You want us to believe that a health bill costing nearly $900 billion dollars will not add to the deficit. Tell me, how can spending $900 billion when we have no money not add to the deficit. Mr. President, you are spending money we do not have. It will add to the deficit. Do not insult our intellect. You say spending cuts will pay for this. What cuts? What government spending will be cut to pay for it? Once again you cannot give us specifics. Only generalities.

It is ironic that you would mention that the “unique and wonderful things about America has always been our self-reliance, our rugged individualism, our fierce defense of freedom and our healthy skepticism of government.” You are correct. These qualities are what make America great. Yet at the same time you are a hypocrite. You are proposing a bill that will kill these characteristics. You are proposing a bill that will make Americans dependent on the government, stripping away our individualism and liberty and stretching the government far beyond the boundaries that our Founders intended.

You talk about a collective responsibility earlier in your speech that Americans have to provide affordable health care for all. You said that we all share the costs, the responsibility, the successes and failures. You say that social justice is the character of our country. Social justice is code for socialism and redistribution of wealth. Social justice is the antithesis of freedom, rugged individualism, and the American character. Social Justice led to Social Security and Medicare, two programs that you claim are great achievements. Mr. President, they are utter failures. After nearly 70 years Social Security went bankrupt; after 40 Medicare has suffered the same fate. And they are but the tip of the iceberg.

Your speech, like so many others you have given in the past, was nothing more than pious rhetoric. You intend to fool the public with deceptive altruism. Mr. President, when are you going to stop campaigning and start leading? Anyone can deliver a speech especially when they have a teleprompter in front of them. In the past three years you have taken the campaigning to a fine art. But not everyone can lead. To be a leader you must be honest, honorable, possess integrity, and sacrifice (privately). You are none of these. Mr. President, you are nothing but a soulless man in a fancy suit.

Sincerely,

Lady Liberty

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.