The Mother Of All Battles

The next couple years is going to be remembered as a titanic battle between the forces of conservative and progressive thought. No time in our nations history have the stakes been so enormous. The threat of 1 trillion dollar deficits ten years into the future and the prospect of government's continuing intrusion into the private sector, including the idea of a take over of our health care industry is setting the table for the mother of all battles. Progressives now control our government. We have a president hell bent on a redistribution agenda, and a massive expansion of federal power.

I heard the other day a good description of the fundamental difference between conservative and progressive thought. In short, conservatives believe in freedom, and because of that they are willing to accept a disparity in economic outcome. Progressives on the other hand believe in equality, and are willing to accept a loss of freedom. Why would anyone dispute the idea of equality? Don't our founding doctrines say that all men are created equal? Yes, but equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are completely different concepts. Conservatives believe in the former, but they abhor the latter. Do progressive really not believe in freedom? Well, none would ever admit to that, but policies of wealth confiscation that takes from one and transfers to another obviously reduces freedom, and in a very subtle way condemns the recipient to an entitlement mentality that robs that person of self respect. They also seem to want to meddle in every aspect of American life, and set standards of conduct overseen by a nanny state that doesn't trust the individual to make decisions on his own..

There is a common sense reality that Ronald Reagan prescribed to. Whatever you tax you get less of, and whatever you reward you get more of. When you tax hard work the inevitable result is a loss of production and incentive. Men will work for the good of others, but usually only in a personal way. It's hard to have the fruits of your labor ripped from your fingertips and dispersed by a pointy headed bureaucrat to a faceless nameless recipient. This is not charity, it's confiscation. It's the cruelest of all rebukes. You work and strive for a better life for yourself and your family, and someone unknown to you will be rewarded for your labor. The person dependent on government services develops  an entitlement mentality that breeds mediocrity and a meager existence. Both are worse off.

Conservatives aren't against taxes that fund legitimate services for infrastructure, defense, and to manage a civil society. But, when a government decides they're going to level the playing field and confiscate to bring what they call social justice and an egalitarian utopia, the principles that made this country great are on life support. Rewarding failure is the surest way to guarantee more failure. Bankruptcy laws were made for a purpose, and weren't intended to be usurped by a government looking for power and control. Free market capitalism cannot survive under a bailout mentality. Crony capitalism will be the result and the favored few will be the winners, and those who succeed will be punished for their success.

How do progressives convince the public of their agenda? Two very distinct ways. First they use class warfare to pit the poor and middle class against the wealthy. They lecture us that if the rich weren't so greedy there would be more for the rest of us. The rich must be made to pay their fair share. How many times have you heard that? Well let's look at the facts. The top 1% of taxpayers pay 40.42% of all income taxes. The top 5% pay 60.63%, and the top 10% pay 71.22%. More startling then these statistics is that the bottom 50% of taxpayers only pay 2.89% of all income taxes. It looks to me like the rich are paying way more than their fair share. What this heavy taxation does to the most productive members of society is shrinks wealth creation and job growth. 84% of Americans work for small businesses. Those willing to put capital at risk and grow a business that makes life better for them and their employees. When wealth is confiscated at painful levels, disposable income shrinks and businesses can't grow and therefore jobs aren't created. In this new era of progressive thought, government jobs grow as money is sucked from the private sector and into the hands of bureaucrats. Unemployment  in Washington DC is 3%, while the private sector has a 9.7% unemployment rate.

The other tactic progressive use to elicit support for their agenda is to try and convince the public that only government can.... for example, make health care affordable and accessible, bailout banks and car companies, provide for the poor,  stimulate the economy, create jobs, clean up the environment, regulate the foods we eat, make decisions for every aspect of our lives. They want the public to believe they are the arbitor of all things good and just. The contrary is usually always the truth. Almost every aspect of government is broken. They can't run the post office, they've bankrupted social security and medicare, they run a continuing huge deficit... The deficit this year will be almost as much as George W. Bush's first complete budget. Thomas Freidman in his recent column in the New York Times showed how progressives are going to approach the record deficits and enormous expansion of government, by telling the public that lean times are here. We're going to have to sacrifice now for all the years of plenty. The arrogance of progressives once again puts the burden on the people.

Barack Obama has been the most progressive president in our history. But,  there has been one good thing he's accomplished. He's awakened conservatives all over the country. He so accelerated the growth of spending and deficits that he dropped the frog into the pot of boiling water, and the frog leaped out. Up until his presidency the heat was just slowly cooking the frog. He has startled us to the point of a massive awakening. Now we see what has been  happening to our freedoms, and we are prepared to fight back and retake our country to what it once was. Do you want to live in a land of freedom, or a land of government controlled equality? The choice is obvious. Remember what William Wallace screamed before going into battle against the English lords, and  after they started to disembowel him after his capture.........He didn't scream equality, he screamed.......FREEDOM!!!!!
Check out my other blog....Con- Men 4 Palin