THIS IS ABOUT POWER

The bottom line that everyone seems to miss is that this election and the entire basis of Progressivism, Democrat-Party Liberalism, the "Left" and the like is nothing more than POWER.  Gaining and retaining it.  The details to get it -- from Federal Income Taxes to Social Security and Obama's Affordable (sic) Care Act -- are nothing more than props, talking points.  If it wasn't for the unprecedented success of free enterprise, capitalism if you will, and its underpinnings of property rights, the Rule of Law, and initially a government of countervailing and separated powers, there would have been nothing for the Progressives to want to take.  No wealth, no assets, not much of anything.  But while capitalists were starting and building companies, creating wealth not only for themselves but for the world, including jobs, Progressives were diverting some of this wealth to the government for them to redistribute.  Much has gone to "not-for-profit", governmental and non-governmental organizations employing and paying for their ideological soulmates to -- again with funding extracted from the private sector where it could have been used to create more companies, wealth and jobs -- strategize, plan and accomplish the taking of power from those capitalists and put it into the hands of themselves, to use primarily to gain and retain more power. 

 

If the federal government wouldn't have pushed for federal income taxes each of the states would have had countervailing power and the push for standardization of every American citizen would not have taken place.  I'd argue that Medicare would have been cheaper and better with the competition among states.  I'd argue that fewer Americans would have had the societal pressure to attend college and would have been happier in jobs more suitable to their own, individual choices, not the choices of the few leaders in government. 

 

If the federal government hadn't invented Fannie Mae, sure there'd be smaller home ownership, and with that there would have been no housing and financial crisis.

 

How about the United States Postal Service in business only -- in my view -- to satisfy labor union bosses and their financial support of the Democratic Party.  UPS and FedEx have proven that there is no need for the USPS.  And how about Amtrak?  And on and on and on.

 

If Social Security would have invested into a broad mix of securities of United States corporations, the American economy, there would be no financial crisis and spectre of its bankruptcy.

 

Don't anyone forget that is was a very few -- perhaps two -- industrial "tycoons" who reinvented the United States manufacturing economy to mobilize World War Two and beat the Nazis, not FDR, who, to his credit, eshewed his prior Progressive blather and made that decision to keep the government  out of the war industry.

Would the country, and its individual citizenry be better off right now if the Left had not taken power?  An unanswerable question.  But the bottom line of is: what is the measurement we use?  I.  individual personal happiness and the ability of each of us to pursue it in the way we wish or II. how a very few elected politicians and unelected bureaucrats decide we ought to lead and live our lives?

To be or not to be that WAS the question.  Now since the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America has made it clear that it (life) is a God-given right, along with freedom and the pursuit of happiness, the definition and who is the decision-maker is (are) the question(s).

 

 

 

 

 While that is a somewhat ideological comment, and the Left has accomplished some benefit to mankind in general there is no way to know that it all wouldn't have happened anyway.  Like Obama's "creating or saving six million jobs".

God-given Rights and nature-given truths

The Declaration of Independence declares that there are certain truths granted by God, or if one prefers, nature.  And in thinking about it, they all seem logical.

All men are created equal; "man" includes women, of course.  The equality part means that to be born, we are all equal in that we have:  Life, which is a given if we are born.  Liberty was a new concept back then given a long history of kings, nobility having ownership, virtual or not over all the rest of us.  But why shouldn't all of us have it?  The Pursuit of Happiness, whatever it is and however each of us choose to use our freedom to pursue it.  Equality clearly doesn't mean equality as in we are all the same.  That also is clear given height, weight, health and IQ of newborns.

To secure these things anarchy hadn't worked nor absolute kingships.  So governments had to be invented in order to secure the above.  And it happened.  Those unequal men of the U. S. Revolution not only led Americans in war, and won it, but did invent the most innovative government structure ever invented.  (On its second try!)

Back then life in America was hard-scrabble and bereft of physical comfort.  From that came what we have and what we are today. 

There were two underlying foundations of the United States.  One was a God.  The other was commerce.

Today both are under fire.