High Tech Lynching

High Tech Lynching

“High Tech Lynching” was the way that Clarence Thomas described the venomous attacks on his character by the establishment Democratic Party and their allies in the so-called mainstream media.  It was an accurate description of the attacks orchestrated against him by the Democratic Party apparatus. They were in a full-blown panic.  They executed a character assassination like one never seen before.  It was driven not by any concern for truth or accuracy, but by a fear that the elevation of a black conservative to the high bench would mortally wound the Democratic Party. 

Today the Democratic Party is an embarrassment to its name.  It’s not the Party of Harry Truman or John F. Kennedy.  This noble old political party has been captured and subverted by far left ideologues that previously populated the fringes of American politics.  The interlopers come from the Socialist Party of Norman Thomas and the Communist Party of Gus Hall.  Their base has its roots in the violent Weather Underground of Barack Obama’s good friend, Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernadette Dohrn.  Ayers, as you may recall, helped to launch Barack Obama’s political career after he was released from prison for his bombing of the Capitol Building (he was released on a technicality).  Ayers still brags about the bombing and has expressed his regret that it wasn’t more successful.  Bernadette Dorn is known as a Red diaper baby because she is the daughter of Communist Party members Bernard and Dorothy Dohrn.  It is not unfair to characterize people like Ayers and Dohrn as the core of today’s Democratic Party.  Sadly, today’s Democratic Party is a far left fringe political party that is dedicated to undermining and replacing the principles of America’s founders—a limited government of laws designed to minimize governmental intervention into the lives of American citizens and to maximize the individual freedom of its citizens. 

The words “High Tech Lynching” can also be aptly used to describe the current frenzied attack on Republican front runner, Herman Cain.  The success of Herman Cain and his possible election as President of the United States threatens to drive a terminal stake into the heart of the Democratic Party Plantation.  Democrat operatives know that the only way to maintain political control over millions of black Americans living in poverty is to keep them in poverty.  It is one of the most cynical, heartless political strategies ever undertaken by a major political party.  These operatives of the Democratic machine understand that they must have nearly monolithic control of the black vote in order to maintain political power.  In fact, without it, there is no future to the Democratic Party.  As long as they can control those African Americans living in poverty through hand outs and outrageous lies, they can keep winning elections.

They and their black Congressional overseers are willing to sacrifice the welfare and future of their loyal followers in order to continue their manipulation of them on Election Day.  No act is too low to be undertaken to keep them on the Democratic Plantation—lies, threats, payoffs—the betrayal is complete and devastating.  The results are in plain sight for all to see—70% drop out rates in high schools, 16% unemployment rate, and a future filled with misery and without hope.  This is the manifestation of more than a half century of cynical manipulation and abuse by the Democratic Party political bosses.

This fear, this panic by the Democratic Party bosses is the sole and only reason for the attempted “High Tech Lynching” of Herman Cain.  The Democratic Party fears Herman Cain more than any other candidate for President of the United States.  Just as they made up unfounded and unconfirmed lies to destroy Justice Clarence Thomas, they have begun a vicious smear campaign against Herman Cain.  They know a Cain election would spell the end of today’s Democratic Party.  They know and fear that it would also be the beginning of a true post racial society in America, one that would feature racial harmony, instead of the racial division that is currently encouraged by Democratic leaders.  While Obama and the Democratic Party seek to divide the races, Herman Cain would not only open the doors to black prosperity, but also promote racial harmony.  It’s a political formula that doesn’t work to the advantage of the Democratic Party.

I predict the attempted “High Tech Lynching” of Herman Cain will not only fail, but will result in an unprecedented backlash that will add momentum to his drive to the White House.  Moreover, Cain will not only win the Republican nomination for President and defeat President Barack Obama, he will shatter the monolithic control the Democratic Party has exercised over the black community once and for all time.  Mass political desertion from the Democratic Plantation will spell the political end of today’s Democratic Party.  The liberal establishment has already witnessed the mass exodus of the black intelligentsia from their ranks.  Walter Williams, Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, Carol Swain, along with scores of other college professors and PhDs left the Democratic Plantation long ago.  That horse already left the barn.  It was only a matter of time until black political leaders rose to the forefront of the Republican Party and sped away from the Democratic Plantation. 

The late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. often quoted the words of the famous Negro Spiritual, Free at Last, by J.W. Work.  The words of that spiritual remind all of us the true source of our freedom, no matter our race or ethnic origin…

Free at last, free at last
I thank God I'm free at last
Free at last, free at last
I thank God I'm free at last

Way down yonder in the graveyard walk
I thank God I'm free at last
Me and my Jesus going to meet and talk
I thank God I'm free at last

On my knees when the light pass'd by
I thank God I'm free at last
Tho't my soul would rise and fly
I thank God I'm free at last

Some of these mornings, bright and fair
I thank God I'm free at last
Goin' meet King Jesus in the air
I thank God I'm free at last

Money Laundering, Chicago Style

Money Laundering, Chicago Style

I really like Chicago style pizza.  Thin crust, great toppings, that’s my kind of pizza.  I like the White Sox and even the perennial losing Cubs (when they are not playing the St. Louis Cardinals).  I love the Chicago skyline and I loved the Chicago Tribune when it was truly a great paper under the leadership of Colonel Robert R. McCormick.  The Chicago museums and the zoo are terrific and who could not cheer for the Chicago Bulls when Michael Jordan was there?

But I really hate corrupt Chicago machine politics.  It was bad enough when it was limited to Cook County, but now that it has spread to the White House, it really stinks.  The old joke was that not only do the dead vote in Cook County, they vote in alphabetical order.

The latest “jobs” bill proposed by President Barack Obama does justice to the legacy of the original Chicago Mayor, Richard Daley.  It was never designed to pass, and if it does no one gets helped except the Prez and his re-election campaign.

Let’s start with the first so-called “stimulus” package that may have created a few government jobs, but nary a private sector job.  The price tag on that one was a trillion dollars plus.  And that trillion, plus all the other trillions this President and his far left cronies in Congress spent when they had super majorities in both the House and Senate during the first two years, brought our nation to the brink of bankruptcy.  In fact, we aren’t so sure yet if he has actually taken us past the brink. 

So the first stimulus failed miserably and now comes “stimulus” 1.1 that proposes to spend a mere $450 billion.  Of course, that bill, if passed, would fall as flat on its face as the first “stimulus” but that’s not the point.  The main point of the Hypocrite in Chief is to tell lots of lies about the Republicans—how they hate people and won’t do anything while poor Mr. Obama is trying so hard to save us from their evil intentions.  In the background all the cheering and clapping you hear is the mainstream media that has sold its soul to become the cheering section of the Democratic Party. 

Now, as the President insults his opponents as idiots, he has announced that he will break his “jobs” bill up into small parts so the stupid Republicans can understand it.  How presidential!  What great leadership!

Let’s just suppose that some part or parcel of his “jobs” bill passes.  What will it do?  Will it reduce the tax burden on the jobs creators so that they can make a profit and hire new workers?  No, it doesn’t do that.  Will it slice through the red tape so that it’s easier to start and run a business profitably?  No, it doesn’t do that.  Does it roll back Obamacare so that we don’t strangle an already weak economy?  No, it doesn’t do that.  Does it put the brakes on an Environmental Protection Agency that is killing off tens of thousands of jobs based on a man caused climate change fantasy?  No, it doesn’t do that.  Does it expand drilling for oil and natural gas to create tens of thousands of jobs and move America toward energy independence?  No, it doesn’t do that.

Just what does this bill do?  Folks, it’s all about money laundering to finance the President’s billion dollar re-election campaign.  That’s all it is.  The money is directed almost exclusively at unions who will obligingly in return send a large portion of your tax dollars back to the President for his re-election efforts.  That’s what it’s really all about.  The unions provided hundreds of millions of dollars to help the President get elected in 2008 and now they need more money to funnel back into the President’s campaign.  Will the crocodile tears of the Vice President and the libelous attacks he launches each day on his Republican opponents result in passage of a portion of the so-called “jobs” bill?  If that happens, the good portion of the money the unions receive will turn right around and come back into the coffers of President Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign.  It’s called money laundering.

Slick, the idea is to use your tax dollars to finance his Presidential re-election campaign.  After all, you have already purchased an elaborate campaign bus for him and paid for weeks of campaigning in the Midwest and in the South.  Why shouldn’t you pop for another few billion dollars (that we don’t have) to finance the rest of his campaign.

Al Capone had nothing on the scheming of the modern Democratic Party machine.  He would have felt right at home.  Meanwhile, you and I and all the others whose hard work and dollars support the government continue to get fleeced. 

Shameless Political Freeloading

Shameless Political Freeloading

Maybe I am naïve, but has there ever before been a sitting President who has so blatantly spent millions of tax dollars for clearly political purposes?  Sure there have been times that presidents have tiptoed over the line and made political remarks while on true presidential business, but I just can’t recall such political arrogance by any President, Republican or Democrat, during my lifetime. 

I remember a number of occasions when the Nixon White House announced that the Republican National Committee would pick up the tab for a political excursion by President Nixon in Air Force One.  I’m pretty sure the Democratic National Committee did the same thing for President Kennedy and other presidents.  Both parties endeavored to be circumspect in not using public funds for private political purposes.

But this President is shameless.  There’s virtually no attempt to camouflage recent political junkets to the Midwest and now to the South.  And it’s not just air, protection, and other lavish expenses, but even the construction of a kingly land yacht for his Excellency to be carted around in.  There’s been talk in the past of “an imperial Presidency” but past Presidents were pikers compared to the present occupant of the White House.  The Obamas act as if they are the King and the Queen of the United States, not the President and the First Lady.

Outlandish flights on Air Force One to New York City for a sightseeing flyover, extravagant taxpayer paid visits by a huge entourage to Spain hosted by the First Lady, etc.  Nothing, it seems is too great a taxpayer expenditure to accommodate the desires of the first family.

I certainly don’t begrudge treating the President of the United States in a way that is respectful of the office he holds, but there is a difference between living in grandeur and living as the temporary occupant of the White House as a guest of its citizens.  George Washington and those who came after him would not approve.

Somewhere, someplace we have lost the idea of public office holders as public servants.  Public office holders, the President included, are not to be masters of the people, but their servants.  The respect and dignity accorded office holders is for the important position they hold, not the man or woman who happens to be temporarily holding the position.

It is said that King George III observed of George Washington that he would be a great man indeed if he willingly surrendered the office of President.  It was a selfless act that set the standard for limiting personal power.  Voluntarily stepping down as President set an important precedent for service as President of the United States.  It was not until Franklin D. Roosevelt breached that practice that it became necessary to enact the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution limiting Presidents to two terms.  Because Washington voluntarily stepped down, he was known as a modern day Cincinnatus.  Cincinnatus was a Roman statesman who gained fame for his selfless devotion to the Roman republic in a time of crisis and for giving up the reins of power when the crisis was over.  Because he surrendered his power he is forever remembered as a great statesman just as Washington is remembered in the same vein today.

The great irony life is that those who brag on themselves, talk highly of themselves, flaunt respect for custom and the law, and lecture others, garner less respect and honor than those humble public servants like George Washington, who revered the rule of law and acknowledged his own limitations.  Where is that man or woman today who understands that public service is a privilege and an honor bestowed on them by their fellow citizens?  Americans grant this opportunity to serve not because the public servant is better than they are, after all Americans are equal under the law, including the person holding the highest office in the land.  President Obama does himself a great disservice by flaunting custom, bending the rules, and generally ignoring any practice or any law that gets in his way of conducting the most imperial presidency in the history of the United States.  It is no wonder that his popularity continues to shrink.  And soon, when he departs the office to which he has been entrusted I doubt he will understand why the American people have rejected his imperial style, his lecturing attitude, his mockery of opponents, and his hard left ideology.  The wisdom of humility and the exceptional nature of the United States of America is apparently far beyond his comprehension.

The Chance to Succeed or …

         The Chance to Succeed or …
In this day and age there’s lots of talk about the wealth of the successful and how they are not paying their fair share.  Of course, some third party is going to decide what their fair share is.  God instructed the Israelites to present 10% of their earnings to the LORD.  Presumably, He didn’t believe in a progressive income tax or in taking more from the rich because that would only be “fair.”  But since most liberal thinkers and leaders don’t really like the idea of a God, they play that role.  They put themselves in the role of God via the government and decide what is best for everyone.  How nice.  How wrong.
 
Today, the powers that are in Washington praise small business, but condemn big business.  In other words they condemn success, i.e. those small businesses that grew into big businesses.  They praise workers, but condemn those who create jobs.  They talk about excess profits and love to prattle on about the excesses of the wealthy.  Some of it is just class warfare politics and the rest is petty jealously.  All of it is sinful.

Pitting one person against another person is hatred.  Being jealous of another person is covetousness.  God condemns both.  Wanting to gain control over others through any means (including government) is the original sin of wanting to be like God.  No one is immune.  Individually it’s disagreeable, through the aegis of government it’s the road to slavery.

America used to celebrate success.  Horatio Alger stories enthralled and inspired young people to strive for success.  The lives of those who started poor like Edison, Ford, and Carnegie and made great fortunes were people to be admired.  It was understood that they succeeded because they took risks, exercised persistence, and were blessed by God.  Recently the US lost one of those inspirational leaders, Steven Jobs.  A college dropout, Jobs not only created thousands of jobs directly at his plants and retail outlets, but like Ford and Edison and Carnegie before him, he made life better for millions of Americans and for millions of others around the globe.  Thankfully Jobs wasn’t just a small businessman with modest success, he became incredibly successful and wealthy, but that wasn’t what drove Jobs.  It was his passion to do something new and better than ever before.  It’s the same thing that drives all innovators and developers and businessmen.  And because Steven Jobs was so driven, our lives are blessed by innovative products like the Apple Computer, the iPod, iPhone, and more recently the iPad. 

Steve Jobs and Ford and Edison and Carnegie and many, many others personify the American dream and the power and miracle of the American free enterprise system.  They personify the freedom to succeed or to fail in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Of course, much is written about their success, but today I want to write about their failures.  Jobs was booted unceremoniously out of his company because he failed to lead his company to profitability.  Edison was a legendary failure, bragging about how many times he failed.  In fact, Edison said, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

Ford failed over and over again.  Hershey and Disney went into bankruptcy multiple times.  But they learned from their failures and that propelled them to greater success than they had ever before experienced.  And because they succeeded we were all blessed.

Starting your own business doesn’t guarantee success.  In fact, the high probability is that you will risk everything and you will lose everything.  Much more than 50% of all new business ventures end in abject failure.  Name me a businessman or woman who hasn’t failed and you’ll name an also-ran or a liar.  Failure is the father of success, if you can survive it.

I’ve put two companies into bankruptcy.  I’ve had three mortgages on my house.  I’ve been in debt so far that all my assets together didn’t amount to 25% of the debt I faced.  That’s a typical story of any “successful” businessman. 

Failure is necessary to achieving success.  When parents try to shield their children from failure they are not helping them, they are hurting them.  Everyone fails and because they do, they learn important lessons.  When government bails out a business or a bank (bankers are not businessmen), they hurt everyone.  Just look at the incredible mess created by the so-called “Great Society” of Lyndon Johnson.  Government has successfully destroyed the American dream for millions of impoverished Americans.

When government interferes in the marketplace with regulations or with subsidies, they damage everyone.  Propping up a non-market business like Solyndra with a loan guarantee hurts everyone.  It’s unfair to competitors, it’s unfair to taxpayers, it hurts lenders and vendors, it hurts those who were subsidized, and it drives up the cost of living for everyone.  Government does not belong in the marketplace.  It was the cause of the Great Depression and it is the cause of Obama’s Great Recession.

The right to fail is just as important as the right to succeed.  It’s a positive destructive process that brings efficiency to the marketplace.  I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but letting business ventures fail is essential to a healthy marketplace.  The more rapidly a business fails, the less the damage to everyone.  Healthy failure is essential to making sure the right products and services succeed for the benefit of everyone, and that the wrong, non-marketplace goods and services disappear forever.

It’s the reason government should not be in the business of interfering with the free actions of free men in the economic marketplace.  When government starts protecting businesses or buyers or workers or employers, it always causes more unfairness, not more fairness.  The arrogance of a government bureaucrat or a politician to think that he can make decisions better than the marketplace is laughable and always ends up as making things worse.  Think of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Think of Solyndra.  Think of all the Chrysler bond holders that were damaged by government interfering with the failure of that company.

Liberals/progressives always see the marketplace as static, but it’s anything but static.  It’s constantly changing and moving and driven by millions of free decisions by individual consumers.  In a free market the consumer is king, not some government bureaucrat or politician.  Millions of consumers decide whether a product or service should succeed or fail.  And while you and I may marvel or shake our heads at the Forbes 400 list of billionaires, what we fail to notice is that those on that list and the rolls of millionaires changes from year to year and month to month.

I know several individuals whose personal net worth was in the hundreds of millions of dollars and today all their wealth is gone.  Why?  Because after they succeeded they failed so dramatically that they can never financially recover.  Such is the nature of individual freedom.  They had the right to succeed and to fail.  We should never deny anyone of that right.

An academic liberal would never be willing to share his grade point average with a failing student, nor should he.  Yet that same individual takes it upon himself to tell others that they have too much and it’s only fair that they share that wealth with others.  Really?  God gives us talents and blesses us with good or bad circumstances as He chooses.  Why are we to question His decisions? 

No matter how well intentioned someone may be in wanting control over the lives of others, it always ends up badly.  Churchill said that freedom and democracy are messy and indeed they are.  Totalitarians like order and control, but free people understandably don’t like to be under anyone’s thumb.

Today Americans, and indeed the entire world, are struggling to restore prosperity, but the remedies of the current Administration only threaten to make the situation worse.  Only by shrinking government, reducing its power, restoring a government of laws, and dramatically limiting government interference in the marketplace, will prosperity be restored.

It won’t happen under the current President, but I’m increasingly optimistic that the next election will usher in an American renaissance which will restore and expand freedom and prosperity to every level of our society.  The restoration began with Reagan.  Perhaps it will be continued by President Cain.

Demonic: A Book Review

Demonic:  A Book Review

Ann Coulter’s latest book is titled Demonic (Random House, Inc. 2011) and like the books that preceded it, Ann gives no quarter.  That’s good and bad in my opinion.  Starting with the bad, the problem I have is that she doesn’t define liberals as closely as I would like.  I could do it for her.  What she is talking about is the hard core political liberal leader who has abandoned any semblance of a coherent philosophy or love of freedom and has moved on to brass knuckles liberalism at its worst.  There are, in fact, many degrees of so-called modern liberal thought (as opposed to classical liberal thought personified by Edmund Burke, et. al.).  Much of it is shallow, but genuinely well intentioned.  In fact, most of it is based on anti-intellectual and mushy thought and the arguments made by such individuals won’t stand up to very close scrutiny.  But, in fact, these rather mild mannered liberals would (or should) distance themselves from the hard core leftists who lead today’s Democratic Party.  It is, as I have noted in an earlier blog, not your father’s Democratic Party, nor is it the Party of Truman or John F. Kennedy.

What’s good about Ann’s analysis is that she correctly, I believe, understands the roots of today’s radicals who have captured the modern Democratic Party.  She has also uncovered some very interesting history of the Democratic Party of which I was unaware and I am sure that most Americans are unaware.  Ann, who is an attorney, deserves great credit for doing all her own research, something that is true of all her books. 

The gist of her postulation is that the current leaders of the Democratic Party and today’s progressives/liberals can accurately trace their roots back to the French Revolution.  She spends a great deal of time in her book referencing a book written in 1896 by Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind.  Le Bon’s book analyzes the characteristics and driving force behind the bloody and certainly non-democratic French Revolution.  The early chapters run a bit slow as she explains in detail the various observations of Le Bon as to how the modern Democratic Party and their subset of leftist groups act amazingly similar to the leaders of the French Revolution.  In fact, you even see that today in the demonstrations against freedom and capitalism and for anarchy in New York City.  The total disregard by modern “liberals” for the actual meaning of the US Constitution, the abandonment of the Ten Commandments as a guiding rule for moral behavior, the willingness to interpret laws in any way necessary to reach the desired ends, and the justification of the most vile and disagreeable public behavior are all consistent with the attributes of the French Revolution that could be more aptly described as the takeover of government by the mob.  A mob is in essence the best description of today’s Democratic Party.  Total disregard of customs, traditions, good manners, and a government of laws is a fair and accurate picture of Pelosi, Reid and Obama.  They would have felt at home in the French Revolution until the French Razor began chopping off their heads.

The closest thing to a mob in the American Revolution (to which modern conservatives can fairly trace their roots) was the so-called Boston Tea Party.  American defenders in the British Parliament were appalled by this destruction of private property and Edmund Burke refused to continue his defense of the American patriots until they offered to repay the tea company (as they did).

As Ann points out, “This country’s founders were strongly against the mob—as are today’s Tea Party patriots.  Noticeably, modern Tea Partiers haven’t engaged in one iota of property destruction, in contradistinction to nearly any gathering of liberals.”  And on she goes, “Liberals hate the idea of a revolution by gentlemen, which is why they celebrate hairy, foul-smelling revolutionaries like Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and Susan Sarandon.”  That last reference is, of course, a typical Coulter jab at leftist heroines.  Speaking of the American Revolution, she writes, “This was a revolution waged by thinkers and debaters constantly prattling about the reasons for the war.”  Indeed, only Jefferson considered himself a Francophile while other American leaders quickly abandoned support for the mob led French Revolution.

Ann also does an excellent job of debunking the silly idea that the American Revolution and those before them who made the Revolution possible were not serious Christians.  To quote Ann, “Fifty-two of the fifty-six signers of the American Declaration were orthodox Christians who believed in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or as they would be known today ‘an extremist Fundamentalist hate group.’”  She also quotes John Adams, “He said, ‘The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.  I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.’”

Tellingly, she writes about the linage of the French Revolution, “Practically overnight, the greatest nation in continental Europe became a human abattoir.  That is why the French Revolution remains an inspiration to liberals everywhere.  France’s revolution-by-mob would be imitated in Germany, Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and elsewhere, always with the same bloody consequences.”

The entire section on the involvement of the Democratic Party in keeping down African Americans was an amazing revelation to me.  The great hero of today’s liberals, who have reverted to the name progressives, is Woodrow Wilson.  They can have him.  As Ann documents, it was the Republicans who kept introducing and re-introducing civil rights bills that were (until the bill of 1964) based on the US Constitution.  And it was the Democrats who kept blocking them.

Let’s listen to the situation as portrayed by Ann Coulter, “With a lock on the racist mob vote, Democratic politicians won elections and promptly resegregated the entire South with Jim Crow laws.  In 1913, Progressive Democrat President Woodrow Wilson even instituted segregation in Washington, D.C., bringing Jim Crow to the federal workforce.  Wilson summarily dismissed black officials from their federal jobs in the South and in D.C. ‘Segregation is not a humiliation,’ Wilson explained to a black delegation that came to the White House to complain, ‘but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen.’  During Wilson’s first term, Booker T. Washington went to Washington, D.C. and reported, ‘I have never seen the colored people so discouraged and bitter as they are at the present time.’”

I assure you that this is just the tip of the iceberg in regard to the record of the modern Democratic Party’s abuse, neglect, and manipulation of Black Americans for political gain.  There is also the story of how it was the Republican President Eisenhower who actually integrated the military, although Truman gave the order.  In fact, Truman made no effort to implement the order.  The commitment of the Democratic Party to holding down Black Americans was not limited to Southern Senators and Congressmen, it was fully supported by Senators from the West and North as a means to gaining and holding political power.  It was not until they envisioned support of civil rights as good politics that they finally came to the party that the Republicans led.

Ann Coulter’s book, Demonic, is not only well written, chocked full of facts, but also entertaining and enlightening.  I highly recommend that you go out and buy it and read it.  It is certainly an eye-opener as we approach the 2012 election. 

Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?

Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?

Charles Ponzi became infamous for his Ponzi scheme.  All it amounted to was taking in money from folks for a non-existent investment and then paying back big returns (to the first investors) from the receipts of newer investors.  There never was any investment.  It worked great in the short term as the early investors made huge returns on their investments from the new money flowing in from others who wanted to get rich quick.  But ultimately the investors were bilked of their money.  More recently Bernie Madoff did the same thing, but on a much larger scale.

Perhaps you heard or read that Texas Governor Rick Perry called Social Security a Ponzi scheme during a Republican Presidential debate at the Reagan Library (the Gipper must have been smiling).  It was in reference to a quote lifted from his book, Fed Up!  The not so mainstream media and other self-serving comrades were gleeful.  After all, Social Security has been the untouchable “third rail” of American politics for decades.  Barry Goldwater was Mau-Maued with the charge that he was going to destroy Social Security and more recently, Congressman Paul Ryan has been the target of demagogues in the Democratic Party with the charge that he too wants to destroy Social Security.  Even Governor Romney stooped low to throw a little mud on the good Governor of Texas.

But mudslinging aside, is Social Security a Ponzi scheme?  Let’s go back to the beginning, shall we?  The Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program, referred to as Social Security, was passed by Congress and signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt into law in 1935.  It was promoted and indeed its name states that it is insurance.  So is it really insurance?  Would it pass muster of any state insurance regulator?

As it turns out, my father worked in the insurance industry for more than 20 years.  I’m certainly not an expert on insurance, but I did ask him a few questions over the years about how insurance works.  It seems that state regulations governing the operation of insurance companies are quite strict.  For example, Life Insurance Companies are strictly forbidden from simply paying off claims from incoming revenues from new policy holders.  They can’t operate like a Ponzi scheme.  They must maintain high financial reserves at all times so that all claims can be honored when they come due.  Reserve levels are audited on a regular basis to make absolutely certain that your policy will be paid in full when you die.

If executives of an insurance company were to dip into the reserve fund for their personal benefit or for any other reason that created a dangerous low balance in funds available, they could and would be guilty of fraud and would go to jail.  They would, in effect, be acting as Charles Ponzi did in the early 1900s and as Bernie Madoff did more recently.  Ponzi and Madoff went to jail.

Accordingly, since Social Security was sold as “insurance,” and in fact the official name is the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program, it seems only fair to judge whether or not it has been operated with insurance standards as they are applied to insurance companies.  Have sufficient financial reserves been maintained along with appropriate investments to ensure that those who contributed into the program will be paid a return from the funds they have “contributed”?  As an aside, the word “contributed” is not very appropriate in this case since in reality, no one contributes to Social Security, they are forced to pay into OASDI.  If you do not pay into Social Security or your employer fails to pay into Social Security, some men in uniforms with guns will come and cart you or your employer off to jail.  In reality, Social Security is just another tax levied by the big government crowd.

But back to the question as to whether Social Security has been operated as a legitimate insurance program that meets with insurance standards for financial reserves.  The answer is no for several reasons.  First, Congress has “borrowed” from the Social Security fund to pay for general expenses.  There is only an IOU in the Social Security account.  So, on that basis, members of Congress should be carted off to jail.  They have committed fraud, just as blatant as Ponzi and Madoff, but on a much, much larger scale.

Second, beneficiaries of Social Security were added as the program developed with the knowledge that the amount of their contributions would never justify the monthly benefit they would receive from the program.  You might say that Social Security is insolvent by design.  But, remember, those who drafted the legislation and the President who signed the legislation called it insurance, therefore they deserve to be held up to the standards required of for-profit insurance companies.  So, FDR should have been carted off to jail for insurance fraud, along with other Presidents who went along with the scheme.

But forgetting all the lies and hypocrisy of those who passed the legislation in the first place, is Social Security financially sound today?  Can it continue in its present form and provide the same level of benefits to young people who are forced to pay into it today for their future retirement?  The answer is yes if we are willing to substantially devalue the dollar through inflation.  In other words, if we make the dollar less valuable so that the money we pay to today’s seniors is less valuable, we might be able to raise taxes high enough to cover the cost of Social Security, but that would mean that Social Security was a lie in the first place.  And anyway, there is always a day of reckoning.

The fact is that Social Security’s underfunded liability is calculated in trillions of dollars.  That’s right, trillions of dollars.  Send some more Congressional Ponzi’s off to jail.  If this is not a blatant, in-your-face betrayal of the public trust, I don’t know what a betrayal is.  Not only are there no reserves, but last year Social Security payments exceeded Social Security taxes.  According to the Congressional Budget Office this trend will continue and accelerate as the Baby Boomer generation retires.  By 2037, retirees will only get about 76 cents back for every dollar that they put into Social Security unless dramatic changes are made.

In March of last year Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, “…they [Republicans] claim Social Security is headed for bankruptcy.  It’s not just an exaggeration that Social Security is headed for bankruptcy -- it is an outright lie.”  Well, I suppose Reid is right, Social Security is not headed for bankruptcy, it is already bankrupt.  Of course, he didn’t mean it that way.  Harry Reid is a man with great power and responsibility as a public servant and instead of dealing with the bankruptcy of Social Security the most he could manage was demagoguery.  Reid follows the Democratic play book—politics first, integrity second.

The jails would be bulging if we sent everyone who went along with the lie that Social Security is insurance.  But they can’t have it both ways.  Either it is insurance or it is just a Ponzi or Madoff scheme on a much bigger level. 

It is, of course, as Governor Rick Perry said, a Ponzi scheme, although considering the size and scope of the fraud, I’m not sure that’s fair to Charles Ponzi.  He was a piker, compared to the politicians who told us Social Security was insurance.

The issue is not whether Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, but how to stop the theft from today’s young people and give them a free market program that is truly self-funding and will allow them to get a better return on the funds they contribute.  Let’s be fair to those who created Social Security.  While some voted for the socialist plan with good intentions, those in leadership knew from the start that it wasn’t about retirement security, it was about gaining political power and control over the lives of Americans.  It was about the redistribution of income.  It was never insurance and they knew it.  Social Security was a fraud from the very beginning.  How do you say “Obamacare?”

We can’t, of course, tamper with the benefits being paid to those already on Social Security, nor with the benefits to be paid to those about to retire, but we do have a moral and ethical responsibility to give the young people of today a better free market option that does not include political power being invested in a few power hungry politicians and bureaucrats.

The 401(k) program has been a huge benefit to the workers of today and will, in most cases, provide retirement income four to five times that provided by Social Security.  While I favor phasing out Social Security in favor of more 401(k) and IRA type programs, I’d certainly go along with changing the current program to one in which workers establish personal retirement accounts that they own and that they direct investments from.  This would be a big step toward personal responsibility, less government and thus more individual freedom.

If we are to remain true to the vision of the Founders of this great Republic, we must look at all government laws and programs through the eyes of maximizing personal freedom and personal decision making.  Washington, D.C. does not have a monopoly on intelligence and certainly not on wisdom.  In fact, it’s too often an intellectual swamp compared to the common sense approach of the average American who lives within his or her means.

Let’s drain the swamp, shrink government, and thus maximize freedom and prosperity for all Americans.

Not Your Father’s Party

Not Your Father’s Party

The media and many not-too-informed folks complain about the inability of the Democrats and Republicans to get along and compromise.  They want everyone to get along and to “get something done.”  It’s not going to happen, and I think I can explain why, but it will take a bit of history to understand why this is true.

I grew up in Missouri and contrary to most folks in our neighborhood and town, we were conservative Republicans.  St. Joseph was a down-the-line Democratic bastion.  The mayor, the city council, the county council, the state representatives, and the state senators were all Democrats.  They were patriots, but Democrats.

Harry Truman grew up about 50 miles south of St. Joseph in the Kansas City area.  He was a part of the Prendergast machine, a very corrupt and powerful political organization.  Truman may have been a part of that machine, but as a US Senator, he was a red, white and blue American.  He fought in World War I and when the time came as President to decide whether or not to save millions of American and Japanese lives by dropping the atomic bomb and bring World War II to a swift conclusion, he did it.  Harry loved his country and would have given his life to defend her.

My father-in-law, W.H. Mitchem, was a Harry Truman Democrat, lots of people were.  He loved the feisty spirit of Truman and the fact that he had the courage to end World War II swiftly.  That was personal because my father-in-law was a proud United States Marine who fought at Guadalcanal.  He saw some terrible fighting there and in other parts of the Pacific Theater of WWII.  And, he might have died (along with hundreds of thousands, perhaps more than a million Americans) if Harry Truman had not had the courage to drop the bomb.  So supporting Harry Truman was personal for my father-in-law.  But as a son of Georgia, he grew up as an FDR, Harry Truman Democrat.

When Norman Thomas, who ran for President six times on the Socialist Party ticket, finally presided over the demise of the Socialist Party in the late 1950s, he said, “I no longer need to run as a Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party.  The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.”  And indeed that is
what happened.

1948 was a strange election year.  The Republicans nominated the choice of the Eastern Liberal Establishment, New York Governor, Thomas Dewey.  Dewey was a progressive, i.e. liberal Republican who could have been comfortable in either party.  Today we would call him a RINO—Republican In Name Only. 
An early front runner, Dewey lost to Truman in spite of a strange split in
the Democratic Party.

That year the Dixiecrats split off and ran Strom Thurmond, a war hero and Governor of South Carolina, as their candidate for President.  Theirs was a Jim Crow segregationist ticket.

But something much more important happened at the Democratic National Convention.  There was a delegate to the Convention from South Dakota, another war hero, George McGovern.  When Truman was nominated, McGovern, along with some other “prairie radicals,” split off and left the Democratic Party to support the Socialist candidate Norman Thomas.  McGovern and Thomas saw eye-to-eye on almost every issue.

After Truman won in a squeaker, McGovern came back into the Democratic Party with the goal of taking over the Party and making it into a political vehicle to carry the socialist cause in America.  McGovern was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1956 and re-elected in 1958. After a failed bid for the U.S. Senate in 1960, he was elected to there in 1962 and served for several terms.

McGovern and others of his ilk were quite successful in moving the Truman
Democratic Party to the far left.  In fact, in 1972 he won the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.  Never before had someone on the far left of the political spectrum won the nomination of a major political party.  Political observers call McGovern’s defeat by Richard Nixon a political debacle, but it was far from it.  It was in many ways a great political triumph, just as Goldwater’s defeat in 1964 was a triumph for conservatives who took over the apparatus of the Republican Party and have held it ever since.  The 1972 election allowed the socialists and prairie radicals to seize the organizational apparatus of the Democratic Party.  They have never
surrendered it.

Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 could not have happened without the Goldwater nomination and Barack Obama’s election in 2008 could not have happened without the McGovern nomination in 1972.  In both cases the financial base and the philosophical base of the Party changed hands.

Today’s Democratic Party is a far cry from the Party of Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson.  It gets much of its muscle and money from far left union bosses whose outlook is radically different than George Meany, the man who served as midwife to the creation of the AFL-CIO union.  Meany was a tough, but honest labor leader.  He knew politics and he knew how to wield power.  But George Meany was a patriotic American in every respect.  He drove the Communists and their far left travelers out of the union movement and he gave aid to union movements behind the Iron Curtain.  He was a ferocious anti-Communist.

In 1972, only one union, the far left National Education Association, supported the candidacy of George McGovern.  All the others either sat out the contest or endorsed Richard Nixon.  But when George Meany died in 1979 it paved the way for the far left to seize control of the American labor movement.  Today far left union bosses in both the public and private sphere provide manpower and hundreds of millions of dollars to the newly empowered radicals who have an iron grasp of the Democratic Party apparatus.

Today’s Democratic Party is no longer the Party of Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and other patriotic Democrats like Senator Henry Jackson.  It is now the Party of the far left.  It is the Party who sees America as growing strong and prosperous by exploiting minorities and raping other countries of their natural resources.  It is a Party that loathes the thought of American Exceptionalism. 

Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and scores of other patriotic Democratic leaders must be spinning in their graves.  Loyal Americans and staunch anti-Communists, these traditional Democrats would not have been welcome in the new Democratic Party.

To understand the dramatic difference between today’s Democratic Party and the Party of Truman and John Kennedy, you need to go no further than their Thanksgiving Day Proclamation and that of our current President, Barack Obama.

What follows is the first paragraph of President Truman’s 1950 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation…

            “In keeping with the custom established by our forefathers
            and hallowed by faithful observance throughout the years,
            it is fitting that once again at this season we set aside a day
            for giving thanks to God for the many blessings which He has
            bestowed upon us.  We are deeply grateful for the bounties of
            our soil, for the unequaled production of our mines and
            factories, and for all the vast resources of our beloved country,
            which have enabled our citizens to build a great civilization. 
            We are thankful for the enjoyment of our personal liberties and
            for the loyalty of our fellow Americans.”
Consider in contrast, this paragraph from the 2010 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of President Obama…

            “What began as a harvest celebration between European
            settlers and indigenous communities nearly four centuries
            ago has become our cherished tradition of Thanksgiving. 
            This day's roots are intertwined with those of our Nation,
            and its history traces the American narrative.”

In fairness, President Obama’s Thanksgiving Day Declaration does make reference to President George Washington’s first Thanksgiving Day Declaration, “…we recall President George Washington, who proclaimed our first national day of public thanksgiving to be observed ‘by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God’” but nowhere does the President make such an acknowledgement himself.  It’s more of a historic reference point than a continuum of the practice of all past Presidents to give thanks to God.  For instance, consider the Thanksgiving Day Declaration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 as the Great Depression set in…

            “May we on that day in our churches and in our homes
            give humble thanks for the blessings bestowed upon us during
            the year past by Almighty God.  May we recall the courage
            of those who settled a wilderness, the vision of those who
            founded the Nation, the steadfastness of those who in every
            succeeding generation have fought to keep pure the ideal of
            equality of opportunity and hold clear the goal of mutual help
            in time of prosperity as in time of adversity.”
Or consider the first paragraph of the 1961 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of President John F. Kennedy…

            “‘It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord.’  More than
            three centuries ago, the Pilgrims, after a year of hardship and
            peril, humbly and reverently set aside a special day upon which
            to give thanks to God for their preservation and for the good
            harvest from the virgin soil upon which they had labored.  Grave
            and unknown dangers remained. Yet by their faith and by their toil
            they had survived the rigors of the harsh New England winter.
            Hence they paused in their labors to give thanks for the blessings
            that had been bestowed upon them by Divine Providence.”
President Barack Obama exemplifies today’s Democratic Party, left of center, secular, and embarrassed by the prosperity and wealth that freedom and free markets have created.  The Democratic Party of 2011 has far more in common with the radicals of the French Revolution than it does with the founders of the American Revolution.

No wonder Ronald Reagan, and more recently, Texas Governor Rick Perry, have said that they didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left them.  And indeed, that’s exactly what my patriotic father-in-law and most of his relatives did—they became Republicans because they could no longer recognize the new Democratic Party.  It was not, as they say, their Father’s Democratic Party.

With all its flaws, and they are many, there is today only one Party that remains faithful to the vision of the Founders and to the United States Constitution—the Republican Party—and too often even the Republicans get wobbly in their commitment to the Founders’ vision of a limited, Constitutional government.  Thank God for the Tea Party Republicans who are principled and uncompromising in their dedication to the US Constitution and to Founding principles.  They are the only hope for freedom for future generations of Americans.  May their vision and commitment to the United States as the land of the free and the home of the brave never waver.  These patriots are the friend of all Americans, but especially those in poverty, who seek to climb the ladder of opportunity and create a better world for themselves and their families.  Men and women who understand Founding principles are the sole hope of men, women and children of all races who seek to realize the American Dream. 

For nearly 150 years there were at least two political parties in the US that may have disagreed on many issues, but in no instance did they disagree on their love of the United States of America or their belief that it was the greatest nation on the face of the earth.  Sadly, that is no longer true today.  May God continue to bless America.