by Austin Hill
“People call this the ‘new normal.’ Let me assure you there is nothing normal about this at all. It’s the new ‘abnormal,’ and it won’t last, because as free people we won’t stand for it…”
With those remarks, business magnate and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes drew thunderous applause from his audience.
It was October of 2012, about 2 weeks before our last presidential election. Forbes was speaking to a crowd of 10,000 in the comforts of a beautiful indoor sporting area (the “Idaho Center”). He was headlining the “Power Up!” business and motivational seminar with Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, and Zig Ziglar protégé Krish Dhanam (fyi-we need more native-born Americans to understand American liberty as well as this guy from India named “Krish” understands it).
Forbes had just finished explaining why a confluence of cheap credit, billions of dollars in stimulus spending, lots of new taxes on “rich people,” and a growing-by-the-second government debt have all failed to stimulate our economy. He was confirming with his technical explanation, what many of us instinctively know in our hearts: the reality that no organization- no individual or family, no business, no government – can spend its way out of debt and re-distribute its way to prosperity.
We should all hope that Forbes will be proven right – that, eventually, “as free people, we won’t stand for it.” Because in the election that occurred two weeks after Forbes’ speech, Americans didn’t merely “stand for it” - we asked for more of “it.”
Yet here is our reality: if Americans continue to vote (either blindly or intentionally) for politicians who viciously take expanding portions of wealth away from our society’s producers, and then selfishly redistribute that wealth to the people of their choosing, eventually the producers will stop producing as much wealth, the politicians will run out of other’s people’s money to redistribute, and we will all suffer the consequences.
The social disorder and collapse of Greece and Spain could be our future in the U.S., if, “as free people,” we don’t choose more wisely.
For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, examples abound in this present day of how not to construct a national economy. Greece and Spain qualify, yes, and so does Venezuela. And within the last few months the news from France, another bureaucratic, debt-laden, and not-so-free-anymore part of the world, should be a wake-up call to Americans, as well.
After five years of service from President Nicolas Sarkozy, a leader who sought to reduce government controls of the economy and to stimulate private enterprise, French voters tossed him aside last May in favor of a presidential candidate who was nominated jointly by both the French Socialist Party, and France’s “Radical Left Party.” Francois Hollande campaigned with a set of 60 propositions - referred to as his “manifesto” – which included raising taxes on corporations; raising taxes on banks; raising taxes on “rich” individuals; lowering the official retirement age back down to age 60 from 62; hiring 60,000 new government school teachers; and establishing government subsidized “youth jobs programs” in regions of high unemployment (does any of this sound familiar?).
Today, many French citizens seem horrified that – shock! – President Hollande is doing precisely what he pledged to do. “The situation is very serious” noted Laurence Parisot, head of France’s largest labor union MEDEF in an interview with the London Telegraph. “Some business leaders are in a state of quasi-panic” he claimed, as the Telegraph reported that “France is sliding into a grave economic crisis and risks a full-blown ‘hurricane’ as investors flee rocketing tax rates.”
Within his first six months in office, French President Hollande managed to raise national capital gains taxes from 34.5% to 62.2%, and now the French people are freaking-out. Juxtapose that with the hatred that American Golfer Phil Mickelson experienced when he acknowledged last month that, between federal and California state income taxes, he’s having “62, or 63%” of his earnings taken away each year, and the reality-check is even more striking.
In short, the French apparently now believe that this level of taxation is a dangerous and destructive thing. In America, however, “rich guy” Phil Mickelson is a dangerous and destructive thing.
And consider this: Laurence Parisot, a major, national labor union leader (arguably a counterpart of Teamsters leader James P. Hoffa here in the U.S.) is upset because a Socialist President is taking more money from “the rich” and re-distributing it to others via government employment programs. Such policies would seem like a dream come true for the AFL-CIO, yet the union leader in France seems to understand that the “rich” in his country play a vital role in other people’s livelihoods, and simply seizing more of their money is harmful for everybody – even unionized workers.
The backlash that the Socialist President is enduring suggests that maybe the citizenry is waking up and facing reality. But are Americans facing economic reality yet?
We observed in the so-called “fiscal cliff negotiations” that President Obama’s political abilities to raise income and capital gains taxes are limited. And the suffering among lower and middle income Americans from the infliction of higher payroll taxes, and Obamacare taxes and penalties is so real that last week, even the New York Times had to report on it.
Let’s hope that Steve Forbes is right – that this is not our “new normal;” that we will reject politicians who are vicious with society’s wealth creators. It may, however, have to get much worse in America, before we embrace reality.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
Showing posts with label Elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elections. Show all posts
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Could This Be Like Nixon In 1972?
by Austin Hill
President Richard Nixon won a second term in the White House, by being the avenger of left-wing cultural chaos.
Will challenger Mitt Romney win a first term as President, because he provides a similar alternative?
This year’s election will mark the fortieth anniversary of another historic contest. In November of 1972 President Richard Nixon defeated his opponent George McGovern in the Electoral College by a landslide margin of 49 states to 1. Setting the U.S. presidential record for the widest margin of victory among the popular vote, Nixon received nearly 18 million more votes than McGovern.
While Nixon is most often remembered for his downfall and near-impeachment following his second inauguration, his re-election victory – and the cultural conditions that led up to it – was nonetheless dramatic. And in an age where overwhelming majorities believe that America is “heading in the wrong direction,” it’s worth noting how concerns of “right and wrong” shook the election of 40 years ago – and how these concerns might play out this year.
During Nixon’s first term, a great awakening began among a broad sector of the American population. After decades of having been disengaged from politics and public policy debates, and without much in the way of formal organization, millions of faith-based Americans—at that time mostly white, middle-class, Protestant and evangelical Christians—had become increasingly alarmed at the cultural trends and growing civil unrest of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The challenges to marriage and Judeo-Christian sexual norms posed by the so-called “sexual revolution;” the youthful rebellion against societal authority
structures brought about by the so-called “hippie” culture; and the Vietnam
War protests by the first generation of American youth who thought it was something less than “honorable” to fight on behalf of the country—all these developments and others proved to be quite unnerving to these millions of Americans.
In the midst of this upheaval, Nixon delivered an important address to the nation during his first term in office, on November 3, 1969. In the speech, Nixon famously made reference to a so-called “silent majority” of Americans—people who supposedly agreed with him on issues of culture, “law and order,” and his desire to fight back against Communism, even though the views of this “silent majority” were largely ignored by political, media, and academic elites.
In using the “silent majority” language, Nixon sought to politically awaken and unify this huge chunk of the American population that had little or no voice in American media and who often did not vote. This sector of American society was very real, and very frustrated by what they believed was a degradation of America and its institutions. Nixon successfully conveyed that he understood those frustrations, and the bond he created with the “silent majority” helped bring about his landslide re-election.
So does today’s cultural upheaval compare to that of 40 years ago? There’s no doubt that the United States of 2012 is quite different from the country Nixon served.
In 1972 the nation’s population was slightly over 200 million, while today there are over 314 million of us. In 1972 over 80% of the American population was White and of European descent. Today, according to some demographic reports, Whites make up as little as 74% of the population, while there is universal agreement that this majority is rapidly eroding.
In 1972 roughly 90% of Americans identified themselves as Christian. Today that figure is approximately 73%, as other religions, and a preference for no religious affiliation at all, become more prevalent.
So the United States of 2012 is more racially and ideologically pluralistic than was Nixon’s America. Yet concerns about the degradation of America are as prevalent today as they were in 1972. And while the radicalized influences that sought to upend the foundations of America were playing out on college campuses and in local communities across the country forty years ago, today they are in the White House, itself, and Americans sense the dangers that this poses.
Despite his promises of unifying America, President Barack Obama has exacerbated our divisions and violated many of our common understandings of right and wrong. When Arizona and Alabama sought two years ago to clarify the rule of law as it regards legal and illegal immigration, our President sided with the U.N., China, the dictator of Venezuela and Mexican President Felipe Calderon in opposing these two states, and then punished the residents there with costly federal lawsuits.
When South Carolina and Florida pursued voter ID laws so as to prevent non-citizens from voting, President Obama sued them to prevent the laws from being implemented. When Ohio sought to streamline early voting for military service personnel, President Obama sued Ohio to stop the troops from voting.
President Obama praises government employees, but calls private business owners “greedy.” As his policies have expanded government dependency, removed the work requirement for welfare, decreased the workforce participation rate and run-up over $5 trillion in deficit spending, he insists that he is moving our country “forward.”
Mr. Obama has undercut our nation’s ally Israel in the Middle East, but calls militant Islamists in the region our “friends” – even as they kill American civilians, military personnel, and a U.S. Ambassador (Christopher Stevens). And while his predecessor oversaw the construction of an offshore detention center (Guantanamo Bay) in which to detain and interrogate foreign terror suspects, President Obama has sought to welcome those very dangerous characters into the domestic U.S. and grant them access to American courts.
Indeed, we are surrounded by left-wing cultural chaos. What was once wrong is now right, and right is now wrong, in Obama’s America. If Mitt Romney can continue to convince America that he is as keenly aware of America’s degradation as millions of the rest of us are, he may find a majority of us standing with him in November.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
President Richard Nixon won a second term in the White House, by being the avenger of left-wing cultural chaos.
Will challenger Mitt Romney win a first term as President, because he provides a similar alternative?
This year’s election will mark the fortieth anniversary of another historic contest. In November of 1972 President Richard Nixon defeated his opponent George McGovern in the Electoral College by a landslide margin of 49 states to 1. Setting the U.S. presidential record for the widest margin of victory among the popular vote, Nixon received nearly 18 million more votes than McGovern.
While Nixon is most often remembered for his downfall and near-impeachment following his second inauguration, his re-election victory – and the cultural conditions that led up to it – was nonetheless dramatic. And in an age where overwhelming majorities believe that America is “heading in the wrong direction,” it’s worth noting how concerns of “right and wrong” shook the election of 40 years ago – and how these concerns might play out this year.
During Nixon’s first term, a great awakening began among a broad sector of the American population. After decades of having been disengaged from politics and public policy debates, and without much in the way of formal organization, millions of faith-based Americans—at that time mostly white, middle-class, Protestant and evangelical Christians—had become increasingly alarmed at the cultural trends and growing civil unrest of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The challenges to marriage and Judeo-Christian sexual norms posed by the so-called “sexual revolution;” the youthful rebellion against societal authority
structures brought about by the so-called “hippie” culture; and the Vietnam
War protests by the first generation of American youth who thought it was something less than “honorable” to fight on behalf of the country—all these developments and others proved to be quite unnerving to these millions of Americans.
In the midst of this upheaval, Nixon delivered an important address to the nation during his first term in office, on November 3, 1969. In the speech, Nixon famously made reference to a so-called “silent majority” of Americans—people who supposedly agreed with him on issues of culture, “law and order,” and his desire to fight back against Communism, even though the views of this “silent majority” were largely ignored by political, media, and academic elites.
In using the “silent majority” language, Nixon sought to politically awaken and unify this huge chunk of the American population that had little or no voice in American media and who often did not vote. This sector of American society was very real, and very frustrated by what they believed was a degradation of America and its institutions. Nixon successfully conveyed that he understood those frustrations, and the bond he created with the “silent majority” helped bring about his landslide re-election.
So does today’s cultural upheaval compare to that of 40 years ago? There’s no doubt that the United States of 2012 is quite different from the country Nixon served.
In 1972 the nation’s population was slightly over 200 million, while today there are over 314 million of us. In 1972 over 80% of the American population was White and of European descent. Today, according to some demographic reports, Whites make up as little as 74% of the population, while there is universal agreement that this majority is rapidly eroding.
In 1972 roughly 90% of Americans identified themselves as Christian. Today that figure is approximately 73%, as other religions, and a preference for no religious affiliation at all, become more prevalent.
So the United States of 2012 is more racially and ideologically pluralistic than was Nixon’s America. Yet concerns about the degradation of America are as prevalent today as they were in 1972. And while the radicalized influences that sought to upend the foundations of America were playing out on college campuses and in local communities across the country forty years ago, today they are in the White House, itself, and Americans sense the dangers that this poses.
Despite his promises of unifying America, President Barack Obama has exacerbated our divisions and violated many of our common understandings of right and wrong. When Arizona and Alabama sought two years ago to clarify the rule of law as it regards legal and illegal immigration, our President sided with the U.N., China, the dictator of Venezuela and Mexican President Felipe Calderon in opposing these two states, and then punished the residents there with costly federal lawsuits.
When South Carolina and Florida pursued voter ID laws so as to prevent non-citizens from voting, President Obama sued them to prevent the laws from being implemented. When Ohio sought to streamline early voting for military service personnel, President Obama sued Ohio to stop the troops from voting.
President Obama praises government employees, but calls private business owners “greedy.” As his policies have expanded government dependency, removed the work requirement for welfare, decreased the workforce participation rate and run-up over $5 trillion in deficit spending, he insists that he is moving our country “forward.”
Mr. Obama has undercut our nation’s ally Israel in the Middle East, but calls militant Islamists in the region our “friends” – even as they kill American civilians, military personnel, and a U.S. Ambassador (Christopher Stevens). And while his predecessor oversaw the construction of an offshore detention center (Guantanamo Bay) in which to detain and interrogate foreign terror suspects, President Obama has sought to welcome those very dangerous characters into the domestic U.S. and grant them access to American courts.
Indeed, we are surrounded by left-wing cultural chaos. What was once wrong is now right, and right is now wrong, in Obama’s America. If Mitt Romney can continue to convince America that he is as keenly aware of America’s degradation as millions of the rest of us are, he may find a majority of us standing with him in November.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Mormonism Or Marxism: Which Would You Prefer In The White House?
By Austin Hill
Is a Romney nomination inevitable?
No.
But former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is looking very strong in Iowa and New Hampshire, where presidential primary voting begins this week. Likewise, a current Rasmussen poll shows Romney with a six percentage point lead over President Obama in a hypothetical election match up.
So things are looking very good for Mitt Romney, as he seeks the Republican nomination for the presidency. And this means that Americans will likely have to answer an important question in 2012: which would you prefer at the White House -Mormon theology, or Marxist liberation theology?
I wish I didn’t have to ask this question. But as Romney gets closer to the presidency, the criticisms of his church affiliation and theological convictions will get louder. And if you’re troubled by Mitt’s Mormonism, you should be even more concerned about the religious affiliations of our current President.
As for Mr. Romney, he has thus far run a good campaign and has managed to mostly stay out of theological debates. But in the last presidential election cycle the “Mormon thing” proved to be unavoidable, and as primary voting begins in religiously conservative regions of the country, his Mormonism will become a big deal again.
Given this certainty, here’s some advice for Governor Romney: don’t repeat your mistake of 2008 of trying to convince “them” that you are one of “them.” The more you stand in front of conservative Evangelical and Catholic audiences and ascribe terms like “born again” and “Christian” to yourself, the more they’ll be saying “oh no you are not!”
Leave the theological battles over “who is really a Christian” to other people, Mr. Romney, and talk to us instead about the values and policy ideas that America so desperately needs.
When questions arise about your church, tell us, Mr. Romney, why your Mormonism matters: your church informs your understanding of why our society must uphold the dignity of every human individual; it teaches you about the profound importance of human liberty (I love your church’s “Choose The Right” motto – try telling us why it is so important that each of us have the freedom to “choose”); and it affirms to the world that marriage is good for society. Try to convey that, while our theological differences are real, our values are more universal and uniting.
On this point, you might borrow from former President George W Bush. In a little-known March 2001 speech, Bush spoke at the opening of the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington. Bush, of course, is a Methodist-turned-Evangelical, yet he was still warmly received at the ceremony by the Catholic hierarchy.
And Bush didn’t try to pretend that he was Catholic, either. “I may not be a parishioner…” he stated as he began his remarks, “but I’m a sojourner with you…” He then brilliantly went on to say that we are “one” with our values, and that the Pope was a great teacher of those values. To those who would prefer to bash Romney’s church rather than seriously considering who should be our next President, I would ask this: have you scrutinized President Obama’s theological affiliations the way you’ve scrutinized Mormonism?
For the record, Barack Obama hasn’t been known for regular church attendance since moving-in to the White House (this puts him in good company with many of our previous Presidents). Yet his decades-long affiliation with the radical Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, a central outlet of liberation theology, is quite well documented.
This is to say that President Obama has been steeped in a theological worldview that essentially takes the economic and “class struggle” teachings of Karl Marx, and superimposes Bible verses over it. It preaches that successful people are oppressors who need to be conquered, and that the “oppressed” should live off of other people’s largess. These sorts of ideas -which are inherently economic in their nature -are prevalent in governments throughout the third world, Latin America, and parts of Europe. And they are blessed and affirmed in churches that espouse liberation theology – which is all a part of our President’s religious background.
Are there theological differences between Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, and the Evangelicalism and Catholicism that a majority of Americans embrace? Yes, there absolutely is.
But it is also true that the Mormon Church movement is an American-born religious movement, and teaches that freedom is something that is sacred and to be safe-guarded.
President Obama’s liberation theology, on the other hand, is at war with Western values. It teaches that freedom is inherently problematic (it inevitably leads to a society of oppressors and victims), and only through the power of government control can the evils of a free society be corrected.
I’d be delighted to see Mormonism replace the Marxism that presently inhabits the White House. But will Americans be willing to honestly examine them both?
Email: Austin Hill
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
Is a Romney nomination inevitable?
No.
But former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is looking very strong in Iowa and New Hampshire, where presidential primary voting begins this week. Likewise, a current Rasmussen poll shows Romney with a six percentage point lead over President Obama in a hypothetical election match up.
So things are looking very good for Mitt Romney, as he seeks the Republican nomination for the presidency. And this means that Americans will likely have to answer an important question in 2012: which would you prefer at the White House -Mormon theology, or Marxist liberation theology?
I wish I didn’t have to ask this question. But as Romney gets closer to the presidency, the criticisms of his church affiliation and theological convictions will get louder. And if you’re troubled by Mitt’s Mormonism, you should be even more concerned about the religious affiliations of our current President.
As for Mr. Romney, he has thus far run a good campaign and has managed to mostly stay out of theological debates. But in the last presidential election cycle the “Mormon thing” proved to be unavoidable, and as primary voting begins in religiously conservative regions of the country, his Mormonism will become a big deal again.
Given this certainty, here’s some advice for Governor Romney: don’t repeat your mistake of 2008 of trying to convince “them” that you are one of “them.” The more you stand in front of conservative Evangelical and Catholic audiences and ascribe terms like “born again” and “Christian” to yourself, the more they’ll be saying “oh no you are not!”
Leave the theological battles over “who is really a Christian” to other people, Mr. Romney, and talk to us instead about the values and policy ideas that America so desperately needs.
When questions arise about your church, tell us, Mr. Romney, why your Mormonism matters: your church informs your understanding of why our society must uphold the dignity of every human individual; it teaches you about the profound importance of human liberty (I love your church’s “Choose The Right” motto – try telling us why it is so important that each of us have the freedom to “choose”); and it affirms to the world that marriage is good for society. Try to convey that, while our theological differences are real, our values are more universal and uniting.
On this point, you might borrow from former President George W Bush. In a little-known March 2001 speech, Bush spoke at the opening of the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington. Bush, of course, is a Methodist-turned-Evangelical, yet he was still warmly received at the ceremony by the Catholic hierarchy.
And Bush didn’t try to pretend that he was Catholic, either. “I may not be a parishioner…” he stated as he began his remarks, “but I’m a sojourner with you…” He then brilliantly went on to say that we are “one” with our values, and that the Pope was a great teacher of those values. To those who would prefer to bash Romney’s church rather than seriously considering who should be our next President, I would ask this: have you scrutinized President Obama’s theological affiliations the way you’ve scrutinized Mormonism?
For the record, Barack Obama hasn’t been known for regular church attendance since moving-in to the White House (this puts him in good company with many of our previous Presidents). Yet his decades-long affiliation with the radical Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, a central outlet of liberation theology, is quite well documented.
This is to say that President Obama has been steeped in a theological worldview that essentially takes the economic and “class struggle” teachings of Karl Marx, and superimposes Bible verses over it. It preaches that successful people are oppressors who need to be conquered, and that the “oppressed” should live off of other people’s largess. These sorts of ideas -which are inherently economic in their nature -are prevalent in governments throughout the third world, Latin America, and parts of Europe. And they are blessed and affirmed in churches that espouse liberation theology – which is all a part of our President’s religious background.
Are there theological differences between Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, and the Evangelicalism and Catholicism that a majority of Americans embrace? Yes, there absolutely is.
But it is also true that the Mormon Church movement is an American-born religious movement, and teaches that freedom is something that is sacred and to be safe-guarded.
President Obama’s liberation theology, on the other hand, is at war with Western values. It teaches that freedom is inherently problematic (it inevitably leads to a society of oppressors and victims), and only through the power of government control can the evils of a free society be corrected.
I’d be delighted to see Mormonism replace the Marxism that presently inhabits the White House. But will Americans be willing to honestly examine them both?
Email: Austin Hill
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
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