Freebies Over Freedom

The economy is in the tank, and it will keep tanking. Republicans are unable to do anything about it, and Obama is unwilling because his ideology of socialism comes first.

Still, he’s favored to win in 2012. Why is this? Is it because the Republican candidates are so weak? No. It’s because Obama has an advantage that they don’t. He’s counting on 51 percent of the population to care more about their freebies than their freedom. All he needs is 51 percent, and he’s covered. The 51 percent want their government benefits and they want government to take care of them. It’s more than a paycheck; it’s also a feeling. Even people who aren’t drawing government benefits like the idea that government will be there to take care of them, should they run out of energy or will to take care of themselves.

All Obama, or any liberal, needs is slightly more than half the country to deliver the vote for him.

Sure, it doesn’t look good — or feel good, since our culture is now mostly about feelings — to have the economy tanking. But once the dust settles on the latest crisis, and the bar keeps getting lower on what America should live up to as a world economic power, people will default back to what they feel they want: To be taken care of.

Obama is not the brightest guy in the room, as so many have hailed him to be. But he is smarter about this than most of his opponents give him credit for. He grasps that enough Americans already want to be taken care of that he has an essentially permanent constituency.

Remember his predecessor, George W. Bush. Bush barely got elected both times. He only did so by upholding the liberal Democratic Party principle that government must take care of the people. He called it “compassionate conservatism,” which was his apology for capitalism and individual rights. He basically told Americans, both in his campaigns and while in office, “I know the Republican Party hasn’t been the nicest. We’ll be a little nicer now. Please like us, too.” This is probably why liberals and Democrats so despised Bush. He really was one of them, on this issue. It was simply partisanship. They wanted the real thing, and now they have it in Obama. They’re not going to let it go, and that’s why nobody is opposing Obama for the Democratic nomination, like Jimmy Carter (a similar disaster) was opposed for his own party’s renomination back in 1980.

Astute people, past and present, have always understood that if the USA goes down, it won’t be due to some kind of radical revolution. It probably won’t even be due to terrorists or invaders (although they’ll exploit our weaknesses as we become economically and culturally weaker.) If the USA goes down, it will be Americans doing it to themselves. More precisely speaking, it will be Americans doing it to other Americans. That is, 51 percent of Americans deciding that they love security more than freedom, and not caring a bit about either their own freedom or the freedom of the 49 percent they compel to take care of them.

Obama is a sour, conceited and really incompetent man. Some of us saw that every bit as clearly in 2008, just as many more see it in 2011. Still, he can win and I’m telling you the reasons why.

There are wise people today, but they don’t dominate the cultural or political stage. Most of our intellectual and political leaders are inept twits, and everyone senses it. This is why Presidents keep ending up with 30 percent approval ratings and members of Congress — both parties — end up with approval ratings of 10 percent or less. I’m not stating anything here that isn’t widely felt and perceived. However, there are no Ben Franklins running the show today. In his own time, Ben Franklin and others like him were highly regarded and enjoyed deserved political and cultural influence. Franklin is one of those who said it best: “Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security.”

The “skill” of an Obama is that he counts on slightly more than half the population to trade liberty for security. We might call it the tyranny of democracy. We might call it the tyranny of majority rule, taken to its literal and logical conclusion.

It wouldn’t be hard for an opposition party to fight all this. However, Republicans will not because they cannot. They cannot because, like George W. Bush, the last Republican twit to hold the White House, they’re too busy apologizing for liberty, including freedom and capitalism. Republicans defend the freebie state more than the republic.

Somebody on the national stage must be willing to tell Americans bluntly, “You have no right to vote another’s rights away. You have no right to force your neighbor to pay for your child’s college tuition, your health care, or even your food. You have no right.” I guarantee you will never see Mitt Romney saying anything like this, nor Bachmann nor Perry, either. Romney is a liberal, and the conservatives have their hands tied by their fundamentalist Christian faith which teaches them that service and self-sacrifice are the purpose of everyone’s life. How can a conservative champion capitalism and liberty on a Christian foundation of selflessness and self-sacrifice? They cannot. That’s why the conservatives keep setting the table for the liberals to restrict our liberties and increase the power of government more than ever before.

Obama is sitting pretty in the highest office of a land that he is decisively destroying. The destruction would stop and reverse tomorrow if somebody would take the lead and oppose those Americans who place security above liberty.