It's no secret that America is on the decline. Perhaps the election of a statist in 2008 was merely a reflection of the decline. Perhaps it was a successful propaganda campaign by the enemedia. The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America.
He is a disaster of unimaginable proportion.
The degree of statism in a country’s political system, is the degree to which it breaks up the country into rival gangs and sets men against one another. When individual rights are abrogated, there is no way to determine who is entitled to what; there is no way to determine the justice of anyone’s claims, desires, or interests. The criterion, therefore, reverts to the tribal concept of: one’s wishes are limited only by the power of one’s gang.
“The Roots of War,”
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal,
Statism—in fact and in principle—is nothing more than gang rule. A dictatorship is a gang devoted to looting the effort of the productive citizens of its own country. When a statist ruler exhausts his own country’s economy, he attacks his neighbors. It is his only means of postponing internal collapse and prolonging his rule. A country that violates the rights of its own citizens, will not respect the rights of its neighbors. Those who do not recognize individual rights, will not recognize the rights of nations: a nation is only a number of individuals.
Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production.
Today Obama went in for the kill. He went after the producers, the country's only hope.
Ayn Rand said, "The political expression of altruism is collectivism or statism, which holds that man’s life and work belong to the state—to society, to the group, the gang, the race, the nation—and that the state may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good."
Krauthammer’s take on Obama’s budget address: ‘I thought it was a disgrace'
“I thought it was a disgrace,” he said. “I rarely heard a speech by a president so shallow, so hyper-partisan and so intellectually dishonest, outside the last couple of weeks of a presidential election where you are allowed to call your opponent anything short of a traitor. But, we’re a year-and-a-half away from Election Day and it was supposed to be a speech about policy. He didn’t even get to his own alternative until more than halfway through the speech. And when he did, he threw out numbers suspended in mid-air with nothing under them with all kinds of goals and guidelines and triggers that mean nothing. The speech was really about and entirely an attack on the [Rep. Paul] Ryan plan.”
Krauthammer offered up an example and showed in one scenario, the tax rates in Ryan’s plan were higher than what Obama’s own deficit commission had recommended.
“I’m going to give you one example of how dishonest it was – he went on and on how the Republicans want to steal from your grandma to lower taxes on the rich,” Krauthammer continued. “And he talked about the Bush tax cuts and how much he is going to stand on the bridge and oppose any extension which is what he knows how to do. He has done it over and over for the last six years. The Ryan plan is not about the Bush tax cuts. It transcends them. It’s what the deficit — what Obama’s own commission recommended, strip out loopholes and lower rates for everyone. It’s not about whether it’s the Bush rates or Clinton rates. It’s a whole new approach by which the Simpson-Bowles Commission recommended itself. In fact, Bowles had recommended in one of its scenarios of a high rate of 23 percent. Ryan is at 25 percent. Obama did this knowing that this is a way to play to his base. It was a speech that was quite remarkable in how demagogic it was and I say that with all due respect.”
That's Obama, slavemaster.
The Wealthiest in America Aren’t “Fortunate” – The Poor Areby Duane LesterWhile I was reading President Obama’s budget speech today, I noticed a recurring meme, one that he and others on the left have used time and again.
It was his use of the word “fortunate.”
Here’s where he used it today:
As a country that values fairness, wealthier individuals have traditionally born a greater share of this burden than the middle class or those less fortunate. This is not because we begrudge those who’ve done well – we rightly celebrate their success. Rather, it is a basic reflection of our belief that those who have benefitted most from our way of life can afford to give a bit more back.
I say that at a time when the tax burden on the wealthy is at its lowest level in half a century, the most fortunate among us can afford to pay a little more. I don’t need another tax cut. Warren Buffett doesn’t need another tax cut. Not if we have to pay for it by making seniors pay more for Medicare. Or by cutting kids from Head Start. Or by taking away college scholarships that I wouldn’t be here without. That some of you wouldn’t be here without. And I believe that most wealthy Americans would agree with me. They want to give back to the country that’s done so much for them. Washington just hasn’t asked them to.
Whenever President Obama discusses the wealthy, he refers to them in a manner that assumes they simply fell into piles of money and didn’t have to work for it. They are just “fortunate, ” or “benefitted most from our way of life.” He even refers to Warren Buffet as a fortunate American who wants to “back to the country that’s done so much for them.”
Warren Buffett isn’t fortunate. Warren Buffett has hustled for every dime since he was a kid:
Even as a child, Buffett displayed an interest in making and saving money. He went door to door selling chewing gum, Coca-Cola, or weekly magazines. For a while, he worked in his grandfather’s grocery store. While still in high school, he carried out several successful money-making ideas: delivering newspapers, selling golfballs and stamps, and detailing cars, among them. Filing his first income tax return in 1944, Buffett took a $35 deduction for the use of his bicycle and watch on his paper route.[16] In 1945, in his sophomore year of high school, Buffett and a friend spent $25 to purchase a used pinball machine, which they placed in the local barber shop. Within months, they owned several machines in different barber shops.
Buffett’s interest in the stock market and investing also dated to his childhood, to the days he spent in the customers’ lounge of a regional stock brokerage near the office of his father’s own brokerage company. On a trip to New York City at the age of ten, he made a point to visit the New York Stock Exchange. At the age of 11, he bought three shares of Cities Service Preferred for himself, and three for his sister.[17][18]While in high school he invested in a business owned by his father and bought a farm worked by a tenant farmer. By the time he finished college, Buffett had accumulated more than $90,000 in savings measured in 2009 dollars.
Say what you want about the guy, but he earned his money. It wasn’t fortune that built the Oracle of Omaha. It was focus, drive and sweat.
But this doesn’t fit the message, which is the rich are nothing but a bunch of care-free, trust fund children like Paris Hilton. They deserve to be fleeced because they inherited the money they have while you, the poor American, have to actually work to pay for that flat screen television you just put in your living room.
Well what about the actors or athletes, Duane? They have natural ability. That makes them fortunate.
Not so much. They also had to hone their talents to be one of the best. Hours in the gym or on the court. Night after night standing in the back of a scene in an off Broadway play. This is called work. It’s called earning your way.
It’s not a matter of being fortunate. It’s about making your own luck. It favors the bold because they don’t wait for someone to give them something they didn’t earn.
The rich aren’t fortunate. The poor are.
Read the rest.
OT but related: 550 million spent in Libya to to date -- and France/Europe gets their oil.
