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The Lie and Not the Lying

 

Recently everyone has become preoccupied with Obama’s big lie about Obamacare.  The whole focus is on the details of this lie. But this misses the point. This lie is but a small part of a much bigger problem. This is not a localized issue related to Obamacare. Liberalism is destroying  American democracy not only through reckless spending and debt accumulation, but also through its abandonment of reason and honesty.

Obama began lying even before he completed the oath of office. He promised to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Before running for office Obama made clear that he did not like the Constitution. Whereas the Constitution restricts the powers of government, he believes the power of government should be expanded. His actions as President have done great damage to the Constitution as have his Supreme Court appointments. His whole campaign for the Presidency in 2008 was also a lie. Obama promised to be balanced, transparent, and against ideological rigidity, but obviously has not lived up to these commitments.    After taking office, he has lied relentlessly on Benghazi, the IRS targeting of conservatives, the NSA scandal, and on Obamacare. It is thus amazing that only recently so many all of a sudden have become aware that Obama is lying.  And even now the focus is only on the Obamacare lies, not on the overall pattern and history. The Left and the press have been able to get away with this deceit up until now, but the flagrant failure of the launch of Obamacare which has hit people in a very direct and personal way, impacting their health care and their pocket books, makes this no longer possible.

The larger issue, however, is that liberalism requires lying and deceit. Obamacare, which affects one sixth of our economy, would never have passed if it had been presented honestly. History is clear that liberal policies and experiments with collectivism have been a dismal failure. It is only by shutting off the light of reason and the pursuit of the truth that these failures can be ignored. Liberalism cannot be sustained without deception. This is a clear and present danger to America as democracy cannot survive when politics are practiced through deception and dishonesty.

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Rubio for Vice President?

Rubio not only understands the importance of the American dream; he is living it. He believes in the uniqueness of America and is infused with a Reaganesque optimism which this country sorely needs now.  Moreover, being of Cuban background, he has seen the damage that socialist policies can wreak on a nation. Liberalism is a serious threat not just to America, but to the western democracies in Europe as well, so it is critically important that our leaders understand this very real existential threat. Rubio feels it in his blood and family history. Too many politicians, including many Republicans, are beguiled by the liberal rhetoric of good-intentions and the slow, but steady, creep of liberalism to see the real danger. Rubio is different.

People do not comprehend what a great country we have. Americans have not traveled enough to realize what it is that we have here. They do not understand the poverty and misery that surrounds us in the world. We are the envy of the world and our own citizens are looking down on what we have. Civilization is very tenuous. We can easily lose what we have.

The founding fathers sought to create a country protecting the rights of the citizens from the government. The Constitution was predicated on this principle. For the liberals of today, like Obama, this is anathema. They do not like the Constitution, seeing it as a constraint on what the government can do. Their interest is in expanding the rights and powers of government to the detriment of citizens. The War of Independence and the Civil War as well as the two World Wars were fought to preserve our traditions and ideals, but liberalism is now surreptitiously taking them from us from within.

Liberals, like Obama, do not like this country. They want to change it. You would think that someone like Obama who has risen from nothing to become President of the United States would see the greatness of this country. You would think that he would appreciate that we are truly the land of opportunity where anyone can achieve their dreams. But he does not. He sees only unfairness and injustice. The contrast with Rubio could not be more stark.

Unfortunately, many of our leaders as well as our citizens have lost an appreciation for the greatness of this country. Sometimes it takes a foreigner or an immigrant to understand what long-time citizens have lost sight of. This is one of the things that makes Marco Rubio such a promising new political figure. As a young, Cuban-American, he is a classic example of what hard work can do for you in this country.

He recognizes and appreciates that only in a country like America could he have risen from nowhere to be considered as a possible Vice Presidential running mate for Romney. He understands who we are as a nation. He would like to build on our strengths, not transform us into a European type socialist state.

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Liberalism and “Economic” Justice

America since its founding has been all about political justice. To this end the founding fathers established the democratic foundations of this country. Since FDR, however, there has been a fundamental shift in the nature of justice. Liberals have been pushing hard for economic justice, and they have been willing to sacrifice the pillars of our democracy to pursue it. In essence political justice is now being sacrificed for “economic” justice.

Economic justice for liberals means redistribution of income and wealth. For them it is not right that some should have more material wealth than others. They are uninterested in who creates wealth and of the nature of economic growth; they are solely interested in the distribution of wealth. For liberals this is economic justice. It is not justice that people get what they contribute to the economy and in meeting the needs of others which is the notion of economic justice created by our founding fathers and which is embedded in our market oriented economy. For liberals someone who does not want to work and is a drain on the community should get rewarded out of the fruits of the labor of others.

In talking about the redistribution of income to help the poor, it is important to understand what we mean by the poor. It is recognized in this country, unlike in most of the world, that in talking about the poor we are not talking about people worried about survival. They have food, shelter, and health care. Almost all also have television sets and many other modern conveniences. What we are talking about then is not survival, but rather seeing to it that most everybody has the same level of wealth and material well-being. We are talking about relative, not absolute, wealth and well-being. Where does this stop? Should everyone have a Mercedes, a mink coat, a house? Of course, it is the latter, the attempt to see that everyone would have a house which caused the financial crisis of 2008, but this of course does not divert the liberal from his course. The massive damage done even to those they purport to trying to help does not seem to register.

For liberals the government should deliver economic justice through taxation, public spending, and regulatory action. Government can impact both vertical and horizontal equity; that is it can lead to redistribution away from higher income earners to lower income earners, and can also shift income and benefits between people of equal economic status. Regarding horizontal equity, government intervention has favored public sector employees over private sector employees, and those who willingly do not work and act responsibly. You have public sector employees deliberately underperforming on the job and overusing sick leave, because they know they cannot be fired. You have people deliberately dropping out of the labor force to collect unemployment insurance. You have people in the underground economy receiving their income in cash and evading taxes, while at the same time collecting benefits and financial assistance from the government.These problems of inequity between people of roughly the same economic status should cause liberals to wince, but one does not hear concern from this quarter.

Liberals are only concerned about vertical equity; you never hear them complaining about horizontal equity.  Liberals do not complain about this, perhaps because they do not want to draw attention to the shortcomings of government and also because they do not want to risk offending some their constituents, the takers or parasites on society who game the system out of selfishness. Moreover, to the extent that this kind of inequity helps grow the government, this is to the liking of liberals who are bent on growing the power of the State and the ruling class.

Taxation for the purpose of income redistribution can be considered as a theft of a person’s labor. In paying taxes most of us are in effect working several months out of the year for the government. Does the State own me or do I own myself? Do I have a right to the output of my own labor or does the State? Most of us would argue that we own ourselves and likewise are entitled to the product of our labor. If the State can’t take one of my kidneys or one of my eyes to help someone who in their judgment needs them more than I do, why can it take the product of my labor to give to someone else?

The record for liberal efforts to impose economic justice has been dismal. Liberal anti-poverty programs have been a well-acknowledged failure. Horizontal equity problems have been significant and cannot be justified. Economic growth and prosperity have been adversely affected. And the threat to liberty from massive government intervention is a clear and present danger to our democracy.

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