Parsing Obama

Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:

To grasp the scope of the national debt Obama (and his Republican predecessor) has been ringing up, a comparison should help illustrate the task. Bernard Madoff’s robbery and defrauding investors of some $50 billion can be represented by the diameter of the solar system. The federal government, using the same scamming tactics, is amassing a debt about the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy. Madoff’s scheme can be measured in millions of miles. The federal government’s, in almost limitless parsecs. That measurement ought to suffice to dramatize the scale of the hole he is deliberately digging for the country in his role as Community-Organizer-in-Chief.

Since it is only productive work -- whether in a factory making widgets, or in a research lab creating new medicines or computer software -- that gives the dollar bill its value, Obama’s galactic debt will be expected to be funded from taxes paid from the productive, private sector. I make that distinction because the government is non-productive; it produces nothing, not even the paper its one hundred thousand commandments are printed on, not even the pens with which presidents sign legislation into law. That growing, astronomical debt, however, will serve to shrink the productive sector and make it less productive in exponential leaps and bounds -- off a cliff. It must inexorably reach a point that the productive sector can no longer sustain the debt it is expected to pay. Then we will have reached the economic status of, say, Zimbabwe.

The sentencing of Madoff to 150 years in prison for his crime elicited an outpouring of sanctimonious news coverage, complete with quotations from angry victims of his scheme and a sated passion for justice. Of course, Madoff deserved his sentence. Given his age, 71, perhaps he will serve just ten of it before dying in prison.

What clashes with the news media coverage of Madoff’s trial, conviction and sentencing for his crime is the studied obtuseness of the news media for the same crime being committed by the government. Madoff, you see, was “greedy” or “avaricious,” and that, according to the morality of altruism and selflessness, is immoral and antisocial. The government, however, is committing the same crime, but that is in order to “do good.” So its orgy of debt-creation, its extortionate policies of roping all Americans into a “dog-eat-dog” welfare state, and its targeting the most productive and the wealthiest in society for special punishment, are all acceptable and laudable.

Even though the news media has knowledge of this multi-trillion dollar scam, that knowledge elicits not an iota of outrage among the photogenic news anchors and highly paid print pundits. No respectable TV or print journalist even thinks of the scam in terms of a continuing and expanding bilking of Americans from their wealth, investments and taxes. (Except, perhaps, John Stossel of ABC, whose “20/20” report on the cost and dishonesty of the proposed socialist health care program was conveniently cancelled and replaced with a special on the life and death of Michael Jackson -- as though we weren‘t already gagging on the nonstop adulatory and scandal sheet coverage of this very disturbed person.)

"There is no plea agreement,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Litt said at the hearing, meaning Madoff must plead guilty to 11 counts that he now faces in a criminal information filed today. Madoff is charged with securities fraud, investment advisor fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, false statements, perjury, false filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and theft from an employee benefit plan, Litt said.

No one is calling for the indictments of Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Christopher Dodd, Henry Waxman, and all the usual suspects in Congress and the White House, even though they are all parties to the same crime. Examine the definitions of each of the counts with which Madoff was charged and convicted of, and ask how the actions of the co-conspirators differ any from what Madoff was found guilty of. One fundamental difference between Madoff’s crime and the federal government’s is that Madoff did not employ direct, legalized force to take his victims’ money. Another is that it was not in Madoff’s agenda to make his victims dependent on his benefice. In court, when he faced his victims, he (rather belatedly) apologized to them, and did not say, “But I did it for your sakes.”

The U.S. government gets funds in three ways. It can look for increased revenues (through higher taxes). It can look to cut expenses (through lower spending). Or it can borrow by issuing new Treasury bonds. Replacing old bonds with new bonds is called “rolling over the debt,” and is done every day by households, businesses, and governments.

Which of these ways will the Obama administration adopt to raise revenue? Count out number two. The productive sector of the economy will be expected to fund numbers one and three -- for as long as it survives.

On July 4th, President Barack Obama sent a holiday greeting to his supporters, via the Democratic National Committee. Obama’s presumptuousness, of course, knows no bounds or limits. His July 4th greeting was all about the importance of Independence Day. This commentary will examine the fallacies and fabrications contained in his greeting. At first glance, the message appears vacuous and commonplace. But beneath its blandness is poison.

This weekend, our family will join millions in celebrating America. We will enjoy the glow of fireworks, the taste of barbeque, and the company of good friends. As we all celebrate this weekend, let’s also remember the remarkable story that led to this day.

The story that led to the 4th of July is not merely “remarkable,” it is epochal. It is the story of men who decided that the idea that they owned their own lives, and not a tyrant, must be taken seriously enough to severe all political ties with that tyrant. What is Obama doing today? Taking actions to guarantee that our lives are tied to his whims and wishes, just as they were with Old World tyrants. If he had any valid recollection of that “remarkable story,” he would see that he is the villain.

Two hundred and thirty-three years ago, our nation was born when a courageous group of patriots pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to the proposition that all of us are created equal.

No. They pledged themselves to the proposition that men (not politically correct “all of us”) should exist in a state of freedom and not in one of subservience. Here is an instance of how disconnected Obama and his allies in Congress are from not only history, but from reality -- and how indifferent or hostile they are to that history and to reality. It is precisely the lives, fortunes and sacred honor of Americans that they are so busy expropriating, redistributing or destroying. The certain rights of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and property are to them not unalienable, but disposable and eminently open to violation in the name of the “public good.” It is their operating premise that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the ends of government, that is, to securing individual rights and deriving its limited powers from the consent of the governed, the people have no right to alter or abolish that government, or even to criticize it.

Our country began as a unique experiment in liberty -- a bold, evolving quest to achieve a more perfect union. And in every generation, another courageous group of patriots has taken us one step closer to fully realizing the dream our founders enshrined on that great day.

No, the United States did not begin as a “unique experiment in liberty.” It began as an assertion of that liberty. No, a “more perfect union” was not the end of the Founders, but the establishment of a government that could best guarantee life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. A “more perfect union“ to Obama is all Americans marching in lockstep to an ideal collectivist state. “Quests” do not “evolve,” not unless one is not certain of one’s end. And ever since the Civil War, generations of politicians and political thinkers have been moving away from the end that our Founders sought to achieve. It takes no courage to advocate slavery and servitude to a confused and ignorant citizenry.

Today, all Americans have a hard-fought birthright to a freedom which enables each of us, no matter our views or background, to help set our nation’s course. America’s greatness has always depended on her citizens embracing that freedom -- and fulfilling the duty that comes with it.

It is that “hard-fought birthright” which Obama the constitutional “scholar” is busily cheating us out of with the skill of a shyster lawyer. Ideas set a nation’s course and determine its future or its fate. Freedom and duty are literal antipodes. No one has a duty to sanction his own servitude or slavery, which is what Obama is advocating as the “price” of the freedom he is hurriedly destroying and which he hopes we do not embrace so selfishly that we will not relinquish it to satisfy the democratic mob and to perpetuate the comfort and peace of mind of a corrupt, prostituted Congress.

As a free people, we must each take the challenges and opportunities that face
this nation as our own. As long as some Americans still must struggle, none of
us can be fully content. And as America comes ever closer to achieving the
perfect union our founders dreamed, that triumph -- that pride -- belongs to all
of us.

Obama’s challenges and opportunities to expand federal power are not those of Americans who value their freedom. Americans must always “struggle” to achieve their personal happiness, and can be content with having achieved it without being asked to live for the sake of others. That happiness cannot be achieved if men are chained to each other’s needs.

So today is a day to reflect on our independence, and the sacrifice of our troops standing in harm’s way to preserve and protect it. It is a day to celebrate all that America is. And today is a time to aspire to all we can still become.

With very best wishes, President Barack Obama July 4th, 2009

Yes, many Americans are reflecting upon their independence, not only on that of this country, but on their independence from each other as individuals who own their own lives and pursue their own happiness -- which is not what Obama is asking of either our troops or any Americans. Sacrifice for unselfish, altruist ends is what he promotes -- not the defense of this country, not its prosperity, not its freedom. That reflection by many thoughtful, concerned Americans has been deemed “right wing extremism” by the Department of Homeland Security deserving of surveillance, scrutiny, and police action.

In summary, one must agree in spirit with conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer that is not Obama’s words that one must pay attention to, but what he does. But one must disagree with Krauthammer because collectivism is what he and the Democrats have been quite obviously preaching for the last two years. One merely needs to read between the lines and the lies.

Crossposted at The Dougout