RUTHFULLY YOURS

Does humanity learn from its mistakes? The record doesn’t show it. Paging through history, time and again we find instances where people have ignored both facts and reason by entrusting their lives to a “savior” — a Marx, a Hitler, a Khomeini. And time and again we have ended up paying the price for our folly. Barack Obama is merely the latest of a long line.

To illustrate how mistake-prone we are, a few examples will suffice. In order to address economic disparity, a pivotal concern of humanity, aKarl Marx appeared trumpeting his battle cry: “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Marx announced that the proletariat is the producer of wealth and that capitalists are leeches robbing them of the fruits of their labor.

In effect, Karl Marx originated the concept of class warfare — the poor against the rich. He urged the workers to rise up, rid themselves of the rich, and take full possession of their own self-produced goods. Humanity’s poor masses found their messiah in this ideologue, rallied behind him, and got to experience a Marxist paradise. While Marx’s summons was aimed at the laboring class of industrial Europe, the peasantry in both Russia and later in China enthusiastically answered his call. The results: many of the “rich” went to early graves, only to be replaced by a new class of overlord apparatchiks, and the poor continued to be poor. In the process, the disciples of Marx and Lenin such as Stalin and Mao subjected over 100 million to death, and untold millions suffered for many decades while the promised worker’s paradise never materialized.

Obamanomics and Incentive

Disincentive was the Achilles heel of Marxism. Except for the ruling class, whether you worked hard or loafed, you basically got the same incentive under Marxism. Obamanomics is basically the same as Marxism: a failed economic philosophy, in a poorly disguised form, that Obama has been relentlessly pushing throughout his presidency. Obama’s redistribution of wealth does nothing but disincentivize an individual’s prime motive force: “self-exertion” for “self-reward.” Obama feels that the rich have too much and the poor should simply get a far bigger share of what the rich have. If that is not Marx’s failed philosophy, then what is it?

While Marx’s workers’ paradise continued struggling and failing miserably to deliver its promises, offshoots such as European Socialism and now American Redistributionism under Obama are still aimed at creating a society where those who succeed in generating wealth turn over the major share of their earnings to those who don’t.

Disincentivizing individual exertion through confiscatory taxes is the surest way to reduce the overall wealth of any society. The rich resort to strategies that shelter their wealth and become discouraged in investing their funds, and as a result, the overall wealth of the society declines. It is investment by those who have funds that creates wealth and jobs. And it is jobs that are the best way to help the have-nots, not government handouts.

In order to address economic issues effectively, government policies should facilitate all individuals and companies to create more wealth, not penalize those who have managed to create and acquire wealth by overregulation and excessive taxation. The last thing any government should do is use the ineffective deadly weapon of classism, pitting the poor against the rich.

Hitlerian “Salvation”

Not long after the launch of Marxism, another “savior” by the name of Adolf Hitler rose to power on the promise of fixing humanity’s economic and other problems at their very foundation based on nationalism. Specifically, he proposed ridding the world of its burden of undesirables and unfits, with Jews at the top of his list. Marx’s trump card was class warfare. Hitler flashed the ethnic-race card. He claimed that the Aryan race was the cream of humanity’s crop, bringing nothing but good to the table, while Semitic, black, and yellow people represented exploiters and aberrations to be eliminated. For good measure, he lumped in the mentally challenged, homosexuals, and the physically handicapped as humanity’s misfits best gotten rid of.

Picking a scapegoat has always worked magic, and even Hitler’s syphilitic brain recognized its value for his campaign of mass genocide. The results: millions died, among them some of mankind’s best-educated and most productive Jews. Hitlerism and Communism, for all intents and purposes, either died or went on life support, providing ample opportunities for other saviors.

Islam to the Rescue

In no time at all, Islam, long fractured, lethargic, and dormant, found a new vitality under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, who raised the Black Standard and promised Allah’s paradise to the totality of mankind for the simple price of accepting his Shiite brand of Islam. A naïve dreamer of an American president, Jimmy Carter, hailed Khomeini as a saint-savior — an answer to a prayer, so to speak. Not to be left out, shortly after the Shiite Khomeini’s lightning success in Iran that deposed the shah and established the Islamic Republic, a Sunni Muslim, Osama bin Laden, launched his campaign to bring about a worldwide caliphate as the sure cure for humanity’s ills.

In contrast to Marx’s class warfare and Hitler’s ethnic-race rallying cries, Khomeini and bin Laden hoisted the ever-effective battle cry of religion. The very concept of religious faith that stands for uniting people has been subverted, time and again, by clever and devious opportunists as a means of pitting people against each other.

America at a Critical Point

America, the great nation of all nations, is at a critical point and crossroads. The present administration’s performance under the direction of President Obama has been abysmal in all areas vital to our nation. Obama’s foreign policy, based on weakness, retreat, and apology, has been an unmitigated disaster. Islamist jihadists are on the march, and democracy is in retreat. The Islamic Republic of Iran is rapidly moving toward acquiring nuclear weapons capability, and Egypt, the beneficiary of billions of our tax dollars, is presided over by a member of Muslim Brotherhood, that grandfather of all terrorist groups.

Domestically, our house is in a shambles. The national debt is staggering. With Obama at the helm, the nation’s debt has exceeded that of our obligation under all other previous administrations combined. Four more years of this economic disaster is something we cannot tolerate. Our children and grandchildren will have to service this debt at backbreaking rates. Even today, forty cents of the federal tax dollar goes to servicing loans — much of it to China and other foreign entities.

It is imperative that we, as a nation, live within our means, the way families do. Just as families cut back on everything they can in order to live within their means, the federal government needs do the same. It must reduce the size of government and eliminate hundreds of bureaucracies that are redundant or completely useless.

Government at all levels must act as partners with people and companies, rather than adversaries, as has been the case with the present administration. The Department of Justice, for instance, should focus on fighting criminals rather than lodging lawsuits against state governments. Government should release and support the genius of the American public in creation of wealth in such a manner that maximizes benefits to society without compromising its integrity.

Time for a Change

It is high time that Obamanomics (or is it “voodoo economics”?) be abandoned in favor of pursuing an economic policy that offer incentives for people and companies to take risk. Without such incentives, the economy stagnates. And when the economy stagnates, more and more people suffer, and societies collapse. To avoid this, we need to change course.

Let us learn from our mistake of four years ago. The “change you can believe in,” trumpeted by another “savior,” has turned out to be the change we need to change. And we have the opportunity to do so, come November 6.