The speech is full of memorable phrases that are as relevant today as when he said them.

This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down: [up] man’s old — old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.

And do you think of Obamacare when he says:

the full power of centralized government” — this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don’t control things. A government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.

We have so many people who can’t see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one.

The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.

Obama made his point of view very clear on CNBC”s Town Hall program on Monday 9/20.  In response to a question about raising taxes (termed “extending the Bush tax cuts” to deride them), Obama clearly outlined his rationale for raising taxes on “the rich”, those families making over $250,000, and  keeping cuts to an already lower-tax group:

• “You probably didn’t get a raise” (i.e. you deserve it, I’m on your side in this class struggle).
• “You’re more likely to spend it”.  (Keynesian economics — we want spenders, not investors).

So this is a clear class-warfare stance: Those who invest must have their money confiscated; we’ll give tax breaks to some only if they spend it.  (The government will make the investment decisions.)  The proletariat will live from pay-check to pay-check and spend all they have.  And that is “good”, according to Obama.

This is a doctrine straight out of the words of Karl Marx:

Marx argues that in capitalist society, an economic minority (the bourgeoisie) dominate and exploit an economic majority (the proletariat). Marx argues that capitalism is exploitative, specifically the way in which unpaid labor (surplus value) is extracted from the working class (the labor theory of value), extending and critiquing the work of earlier political economists on value. Such commodification of human labor according to Marx, creates an arrangement of transitory serfdom. He argued that while the production process is socialized, ownership remains in the hands of the bourgeoisie. This forms the fundamental contradiction of capitalist society. Without the elimination of the fetter of the private ownership of the means of production, human society is unable to achieve further development.

In order to overcome the fetters of private property the working class must seize political power internationally through a social revolution and expropriate the capitalist classes around the world and place the productive capacities of society into collective ownership. Upon this, material foundation classes would be abolished and the material basis for all forms of inequality between humankind would dissolve.

Obama, through his words, clearly sees the world as a struggle of classes, between rich and poor in the United States.  He views himself as someone who has been chosen to lead the revolution, as intelligent and benevolent enough to make the tough decisions to fundamentally change America.

Thomas Sowell commented last week on this class warfare and how the Left has twisted words to advance their argument:

Among the many other catchwords that shut down thinking are “the rich” and “the poor.” When is somebody rich? When they have a lot of wealth. But, when politicians talk about taxing “the rich,” they are not even talking about people’s wealth, and what they are planning to tax are people’s incomes, not their wealth.

If we stop and think, instead of going with the flow of catchwords, it is clear than income and wealth are different things. A billionaire can have zero income. Bill Gates lost $18 billion dollars in 2008 and Warren Buffett lost $25 billion. Their income might have been negative, for all I know. But, no matter how low their income was, they were not poor.

By the same token, people who have worked their way up, to the point where they have a substantial income in their later years, are not rich. In most cases, they never earned high incomes in their younger years, and they will not be earning high incomes when they retire.

A middle-aged or elderly couple making $125,000 each are not rich, even though politicians will tax away what they have earned at the end of decades of working their way up. Similarly, most of the people who are called “the poor” are not poor. Their low incomes are as transient as the higher incomes of “the rich.”


Most of the people in the bottom 20% in income end up in the top half of the income distribution in later years. Far more of them reach the top 20% than remain in the bottom 20% over the years.

The grand fallacy in most discussions of income statistics is the assumption that the various income brackets represent enduring classes of people, rather than transients who start at the bottom in entry-level jobs and move up as they acquire more experience and skills.

But if we are going to base major government policies on confusions between medical care and health care, or on calling people “rich” and “poor” who are neither, then we have truly accepted words as the money of fools.

The American Dream, as Dr. Sowell states, is the ability to start poor, work hard, save and invest to build up a nest egg that allows you, perhaps someday, to invest in a business and employ others … in the process becoming financially well off.  It’s an ebb and flow … a process, that relies on your skills and determination.

If the government policy is to ensure that if you have excess income, you spend it, and that investing is bad … how can anyone climb the ladder of success when Big Government is removing the rungs?

The dream has its foundation in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

So why would President Obama “slip” and leave out the “their Creator” in a speech last week?

Back to Marx’s view on religion:

Although Marx was intensely critical of institutionalized religion including Christianity, some Christians have “accepted the basic premises of Marxism and attempted to reinterpret Christian faith from this perspective.” Some of the resulting examples are some forms of liberation theology and black liberation theology. [Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for 17+ years] Pope Benedict XVI strongly opposed radical liberation theology while he was still a cardinal, with the Vatican condemning acceptance of Marxism.

Obama and the people that he surrounds himself with all lean to Marxism, and if allowed to carry on extending their consistent polices, will end the American Dream … perhaps for our lifetime.

This accumulation of power is un-constitutional, and is quickly reducing our liberties and free speech.

Transfer of Legislative and Judicial powers to the Executive

If you read the bills that are pouring out of this Congress, you will note the way that Progressives bypass the Constitution and public discussion of the contents (See article by Thomas Sowell).  These laws (health care, financial reform, etc.) strengthen the power of the Executive by instructing the Government to do 3 things:

1. Set up a Board, Office or Department to make rules (“Legislative”).
2. Execute against those rules (“Executive”).
3. Prosecute, try and punish people who break the rules (“Judiciary”).

So in a single bill, power from the Legislative and Judicial branches passes to the Executive.  You might argue that this is how government has worked forever. Wrong!  The health care bill created over 150 “Boards, Offices or Departments”, and that had never been done since … you guessed it .. FDR.

This whole process turns the entire political system that created this country upside down!

Take a look at one example:

FCC Fines Firm for Astroturfing

PR firm Reverb Communications was hired to write favorable reviews of iPhone games on Apple’s App Store.  I don’t know about you, but I know that in the anonymous world of the Internet, that anyone can do a review of a product, and I have to take that with a grain of salt – caveat emptor.  In fact, it is why “trust” systems, like that encouraged by eBay and Amazon, add value to reviews.  They help you recognize legitimate reviewers, and trusted people, so you can separate them from the author’s brother, mother, or PR firm.

The FCC decided (in 2009 – the Age of Obama) to pass a rule that any “Consumer-generated media” would have to disclose whether or not a reviewer had a commercial link to the product/service being reviewed.  The FTC can fine you $11,000 (plus injunctions against your future reviewing!) (Read the FTC PR announcement here.)

So in a flash (and I don’t recall any public debate, and mention in Congress), the FTC lays down its “guidelines” for free speech for Advertisements, Bloggers, Celebrity Endorsements.  Yikes!  Did they mention Bloggers!?!

So, if a Blogger who works for, say the Democratic National Committee, promotes its product anonymously on a web site, they could be in violation of FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 16 CFR Part 255.  If you read your brother’s new book and thought it was great, a nice review could land you an $11,000 fine, if you and your brother have a “material connection”.

Would your opinion/review on ePinions.com be a violation? (as ePinions.com pays you and collects money from the advertisers).

What is a product review?  Why does the FCC decide that my speech (in this blog, for example) is acceptable , or not?

And how do they suddenly decide they can pass down a fine?  Well, to be fair, they state:

The Guides are administrative interpretations of the law intended to help advertisers comply with the Federal Trade Commission Act; they are not binding law themselves. In any law enforcement action challenging the allegedly deceptive use of testimonials or endorsements, the Commission would have the burden of proving that the challenged conduct violates the FTC Act.

However, in the Reverb case, Reverb looked for an easier (cheaper) way out, as I am sure you and I would do, when faced with a huge bureaucracy with “unlimited resources” coming at you …

Reverb agreed to the settlement terms, though the company maintains that it disagrees completely with the FTC’s allegations and admits to no wrongdoing. [my emphasis]. “During discussions with the FTC, it became apparent that we would never agree on the facts of the situation,” Reverb said in a statement released to MTV Multiplayer. “Rather than continuing to spend time and money arguing, and laying off employees to fight what we believed was a frivolous matter, we settled this case and ended the discussion.”

The journalist in ars technica also went on the say:

Still, Reverb’s potentially unfair influence on App Store buyers may not be that great. As MTV Multiplayer pointed out, only those that have downloaded a game from the App Store can review it, so it would take serious effort and a lot of paid reviewers to influence its overall rating. If a game is truly awful or truly amazing, the ratings will reflect that fact.

The Harvard Law Review published an opinion on this regulation, calling it unconstitutional.

Recently, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revised their Endorsement and Testimonial Guides (Guides) to cover “consumer generated media” such as blogs and other internet media forms. In the interest of providing consumers with full disclosure, the Guides require bloggers to disclose any “material connection[s]” they have with producers of any products that they “endorse” on their blogs. A “material connection” includes not only monetary compensation, but also any free good received by the blogger — even if that good was provided unsolicited, with no conditions attached, for the purpose of allowing the blogger to review the product. Yet a constitutional analysis of unpaid blogger endorsements shows that such endorsements are not commercial speech — which receives reduced constitutional protection — but rather noncommercial speech entitled to full First Amendment protection. Not only do the Guides burden bloggers’ protected speech, they also create an unfair double standard by exempting legacy media from the Guides’ disclosure requirements. Therefore, the Guides should be ruled unconstitutional as applied to bloggers.

Yet, the first test case that the FCC has using this results in a target rolling over.  It seems like part of a plan to regulate the Internet.

We should be very concerned about this enormous accumulation of power in an uncontrolled bureaucracy.  It threatens our freedoms, and the very foundation of the country.

(Cross posted to http://www.redstate.com/libertyyes/2010/08/29/increasing-executive-power-by-passes-due-process-threatens-blogger-free-speech)

Mandatory spending: $2.184 trillion (+15.6%)
$695 billion (+4.9%) – Social Security
$453 billion (+6.6%) – Medicare
$290 billion (+12.0%) – Medicaid
$0 billion (−100%) – Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)
$0 billion (−100%) – Financial stabilization efforts
$11 billion (+275%) – Potential disaster costs
$571 billion (−15.2%) – Other mandatory programs
$164 billion (+18.0%) – Interest on National Debt

US receipt and expenditure estimates for fiscal year 2010.Discretionary spending: $1.368 trillion (+13.1%)
$663.7 billion (+12.7%) – Department of Defense (including Overseas Contingency Operations)
$78.7 billion (−1.7%) – Department of Health and Human Services
$72.5 billion (+2.8%) – Department of Transportation
$52.5 billion (+10.3%) – Department of Veterans Affairs
$51.7 billion (+40.9%) – Department of State and Other International Programs
$47.5 billion (+18.5%) – Department of Housing and Urban Development
$46.7 billion (+12.8%) – Department of Education
$42.7 billion (+1.2%) – Department of Homeland Security
$26.3 billion (−0.4%) – Department of Energy
$26.0 billion (+8.8%) – Department of Agriculture
$23.9 billion (−6.3%) – Department of Justice
$18.7 billion (+5.1%) – National Aeronautics and Space Administration
$13.8 billion (+48.4%) – Department of Commerce
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of Labor
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of the Treasury
$12.0 billion (+6.2%) – Department of the Interior
$10.5 billion (+34.6%) – Environmental Protection Agency
$9.7 billion (+10.2%) – Social Security Administration
$7.0 billion (+1.4%) – National Science Foundation
$5.1 billion (−3.8%) – Corps of Engineers
$5.0 billion (+100%) – National Infrastructure Bank
$1.1 billion (+22.2%) – Corporation for National and Community Service
$0.7 billion (0.0%) – Small Business Administration
$0.6 billion (−14.3%) – General Services Administration
$19.8 billion (+3.7%) – Other Agencies
$105 billion – Other

And the people that wrote this new bill?  The same people who DENIED over and over again that the GSE’s were just fine:

Rep Richard Baker (R-LA) asked in 2003 for more regulation of these corrupt giants.  Watch Rep Maxine Waters (D-CA) say “We do not have a criss at Freddie Mac, and particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Franklin Raines” [later convicted of fraud, a current Obama advisor] .

Watch Rep Gregory Meeks (D-NY) say “there is nothing wrong”, “we don’t need it [regulation]“. Rep Lacy Clay (D-MO) called the hearings a “political lynching of Franklin Raines” (who happens to be an African American).  Rep Barney Frank (D-MA) says “I don’t see anything in this report that raises safety and soundness problems.”

Watch this if you can stomach the lies!

These same blockers received campaign donations (Obama was #1) from these GSE’s.  How can we believe anything will change?  I don’t

Listen to the wisdom of Reagan.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you

Rudyard Kipling

So-called “intelligent people” are continuing to call shots and give advice to the US President and Congress that is leading us straight over the financial cliff.

Obama claims that the root causes of our financial crisis are:  a) Bush, b) Wall Street, c) Banks, and d) Republicans.

Paul Krugman, like Obama, a Nobel-prize winner (which should say something about his credibility) is a perma-Keynesian who writes for the NY Times.  I noted recently that he has been one of the prime proponents of MASSIVE  borrowing and spending by the Federal government.

Now on Sunday the 27th, he warned we are entering a Depression.  He whines about the lack of spending from government:

“you might have expected policy makers to realize that they haven’t yet done enough to promote recovery. But no: over the last few months there has been a stunning resurgence of hard-money and balanced-budget orthodoxy.”

Gee Paul, what part of reckless spending don’t you understand?  He says that not spending is a deliberate mean-spirited act:

“the victory of an orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show leadership in tough times.”

It now seems that Krugman, Obama and his merry men are becoming a smaller and smaller voice, as governments all over the world wobble with crushing debts and deficits. Obama encouraged the G20 in Toronto to spend; they told him to pound sand.

Rebuffed, Obama still cannot bring himself to reduce government spending — rather we will see some wild-ass tax proposals.  As far as he is concerned, though federal expenditures are up 21% in the last 2 years, spending isn’t the problem. He wants to hike taxes, but knows he hasn’t got a chance before the November elections, so he sent a veiled warning  from Toronto:

“I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step up, because I’m calling their bluff, And we’ll see how much of the political arguments they’re making right now are real, and how much of it was just politics.”

Why wait? Well, he has to wait for his blue-ribbon debt commission to come back (after the election), so he can propose taxes, taxes, taxes .. to save us.  But that committee looks like there are some no-nonsense members, like Alan Simpson, who aren’t going to pussy foot around — so that may blow up on Obama.

Of course, the root causes of the financial crises are not, according to the government:

• Reckless government spending
• Unfunded programs: social security, medicare, prescription drugs
• Unfunded government union pensions
• A non-transparent and reckless Fed, who is trying experiments never tried before
• Freddie and Fannie, encouraged by Congress, backing ridiculous loans to anyone with a dog
• And did I mention? reckless government spending

The reality is that we cannot spending our way out of an over-spending problem, regardless of what Nobel-prize winning economists say.

Allan Meltzer writes in today’s WSJ: “Why Obamanomics Has Failed:

“Almost daily, Mr. Obama uses his rhetorical skill to castigate businessmen who have the audacity to hope for profitable opportunities. No president since Franklin Roosevelt has taken that route. President Roosevelt slowed recovery in 1938-40 until the war by creating uncertainty about his objectives. It was harmful then, and it’s harmful now.”

The solution? Reganomics anyone?

“The contrast with President Reagan’s antirecession and pro-growth measures in 1981 is striking. Reagan reduced marginal and corporate tax rates and slowed the growth of nondefense spending. Recovery began about a year later. After 18 months, the economy grew more than 9% and it continued to expand above trend rates.”

Are we too late to following recovery plans like Prices’s “Stop Reckless Spending” plan, or Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future“?

I’m afraid we will suffer a lot of pain before then.  Mish Sherlock wrote this week that “An Economic Depression is Here“. Congress and The Fed are to blame.

Hold tight … this won’t be fun.

A review of the headlines over the past 2 weeks shows us that Forrest Gump was right:

Stupid is as stupid does.

Where do we start?

Governments Borrowing to Pay Debts

What would happen to your family finances if you took out a Home Equity Loan to pay the mortgage?  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out .. you will have more debt that you have to pay off down the road.  But it seems that governments all over the place have developed this very habit.  The Solution to Overspending on Credit? More Credit, of Course.

It started on June 11 when Gov Paterson of New York borrowed $6 Billion from the New York State pension fund to pay … the New York State pension fund!  Talk about dumb!  The pension fund plans to earn 8% on its investments, but is willing to lend it to the Government for a mere 4.5% – 5.5%!  Sort of stupid .. sort of really corrupt.  When the cows come home to roost on this one, God Bless New York!

Even more frightening to us all is the bottomless liability posed by Freddie and Fannie. Fannie-Freddie Fix at $160 Billion With $1 Trillion Worst Case. Now a Trillion is a lot of money. Rather than collapse these disasters and turn mortgage underwriting and insurance back to the private sector, these living dead will suck the blood out of us for years to come …

Government Drunk on Spending

I always preface drunken government spending comments with this quote from Ronald Reagan:

We could say [Democrats] spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors. It would be unfair, because the sailors are spending their own money.

Want to really get concerned?  Take a look at the US Debt Clock. The Total Debt Per Citizen sits at $175,281, or $669,993 per family.  Given income per family is only $62,445, it would take 10 years of working just for the government for us to pay of this debt.

Add liabilities of Social Security, Prescription Drugs, Medicare and other unfunded liabilities – the total liabilities per citizen rises to $352,617.  Assets are $235,844.  So we are technically bankrupt. We are short $116,773 per man, woman and child in the country!!

Government Ignoring Need to Stop Spending

Encouraged by Keynesian economists like Paul Krugman who wrote even this week: The Bad Logic Of Fiscal Austerity.  He argues that borrowing a $1 Trillion and paying the interest is affordable and

not much cost to pay for generating jobs when they’re badly needed and avoiding disastrous cuts in government services.

Ah! The last thing we can do is stop government spending!  If in fact government spending was actually positive, then is there a limit?  Why not spend as much as we can borrow? (Oops! I think they are already doing that!!)  Now don’t think you have permission to argue with this Nobel Laureate or the anointed economic elite.  You just don’t “get it”.

During the last 5 years, governments have increased their spending and hiring by leaps and bounds, while their revenues have shrink.  According to the Krugman crowd, this makes sense.

Who is Footing the Bill?

But you will pay the bills.  I extracted some figures from the Debt Clock to create the following analysis:

Private industry workers (who pay ALL the bills) comprise 51% of all people working, unemployed, retired or working for governments.  Government employees, who are 14% of this total, consume over 30% of the GDP.  So 1/2 of us have to pay for the other half … BUT WAIT!

Only 1/2 of us who file tax returns pay federal taxes!  If we assume this is evenly distributed among private industry workers, we have 1/4 of the population paying for the largess of government!

I don’t think this ends well.  It can’t. It doesn’t make sense. And when you need a Princeton PhD to explain why it does, I know it doesn’t.