Barack’s Speaking Fee and What It Says About America

For what they’re worth, new polls say that 93 percent of Donald Trump’s voters and supporters stand firmly beside him. Remarkable numbers, indeed. However, no one political figure can save Americans from themselves. America’s troubles run deeper than politics.

Getting someone elected is one thing. Getting someone elected who actually keeps many of his promises is unprecedented in modern history. But if American government is to become healthy, American society has to become healthy first. And if American society is to get healthier, it’s real-life individuals who have to change.

What’s the standard of “healthiness”? Love of liberty. Love of freedom and self-responsibility. Rationally exercised willingness to live one’s own life on one’s own terms and accept the consequences without blaming others. Individualism without hesitation or guilt. Dislike of government – not merely because politicians are corrupt, but because of what most of us wrongly ask politicians to do: take care of us economically and psychologically.

Dislike of government or the “status quo” is not enough. You have to love something else more than you hate politicians and government. The reason for hating politicians and most of what the government does? Because government gets in the way. In the way of what? Your liberty, your freedom, your desire to control your destiny. Yes, even in areas like schools, health care, and retirement insurance. You have to really want freedom to control your life so badly that your thirst for freedom is unquenchable.

I do not see any of this in America, not at this time. Until or unless we do, we will never break free of the chains we have created for ourselves.

In a healthy society, envy would not be an issue, either. Envy gets in the way of liberty, perhaps more than any other psychological factor. The opposite of envy is sincerely wishing people well, and wanting to live in a society where wealth expands. “If another can do well, I can do well, too. And even if I don’t do well, I’d rather live in an economy where people get rich, even if I’m not the richest.”

Unearned guilt is the other psychological factor keeping America down, even beyond Donald Trump’s election. The “liberal” progressive left is riddled with unearned guilt. Look at all the millionaires and billionaires who detest capitalism, the system without which they would never have attained any success. At the risk of psychologizing, such people who support socialist Democrats while being wealthy themselves are striking out at something. My theory? They’re striking out at their own self-loathing and self-contempt for not giving everything they have away. They’re unwilling to give it all away, so the next best thing, their subconscious minds and emotions tell them, is to support people who chain all citizens to each other for the sake of “the common good”. It’s BS, but these wealthy progressives don’t have to pay the consequences, because they’ve already made their fortune. And now their consciences are clear.

What else could explain socialist progressives’ relentless assaults on capitalism and money-making even as they happily rake in all the money they possibly can? Check out Barack Obama’s speaking fee. The man loathes money-makers more than any President in all of American history, but he is happy to accept the highest bidder for his books and speeches.

Take President Trump’s plan to cut income tax rates. The shrieks from both parties have begun. They want taxes up, never down. Why do we even have income taxes at all? To fund the federal government? But most of the federal government is funded by unsustainable debt propped up by an unsustainable fiat currency (as opposed to something market-driven and rational, like a gold standard).

And why do we demand government do all these things? Take Medicare. Medicare pays out way, way, way more in benefits than payroll taxes will ever take in. Ditto for Social Security. The only way to honestly keep these programs going would be to tax today’s young and middle-aged people at close to 100 percent to take care of the elderly. Of course, this won’t happen, so instead the government just keeps raising the debt limit. How did we go from being a Constitutionally-based limited government to a bankrupt welfare state of $20 trillion (and rising)? And the problem is much worse than fiscal. It’s psychological, because nobody—not even Donald Trump—will talk about it.

Talk about a gigantic elephant in the living room. Denial, evasion, envy and unearned guilt are destructive things in a person or a society. Until or unless more people identify and correct these errors in their own thinking, we will not see a whole lot change. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s true.