What is Communism?

Americans have traditionally viewed Communism as the antithesis of upward expansion and liberty. Liberals, on the other hand, believe the basic tenets of Communism will work if the right people are put in charge of it with a sufficient amount of money. So what is the reality of Communism?
Let's start with a quote from Chris Cuomo.  His is the son of the former liberal governor of New York, Mario Cuomo.  He traveled with Obama to Cuba as Obama became the first sitting U.S. President to visit Cuba since Calvin Coolidge did it in January of 1928.

Alisyn Cameroto asked Chris: "Hey, Chris, we can't help but notice your culturally appropriate garb that you're wearing. Tell us the history of your shirt."

Mario said: 

"My guayabera? This shirt belonged to my father. It was given to him by Fidel Castro. It marked conversations going on decades ago that were the same as those today. The concern was the freedom of the people. What is the point of this communist regime if it is not to truly make everyone equal, not at the lowest level, not by demoralizing everyone, but lifting everyone up. My father, generations of politicians have been fighting this. So I wear this shirt as a reminder of that."

Obama coddling Raul Castro, a totalitarian, dictator thug.
Castro called for an end to the Embargo,
and Obama asked Congress to end it.
Castro blames poverty in Cuba on the Embargo,
not on the failures of Communism.
We are the only country that doesn't trade with Cuba,
still, our embargo is blamed for their failures.
And liberals believe this stuff. 

So, what does this mean? It means that Cuomo has a positive view of Communism. What he said is probably representative of the liberal view of Communism. It makes sense, as liberals often speak glowingly of the Soviet Union system, and opposed Ronald Reagan in his efforts to stop it. They often speak glowingly of Castro, despite the Cuban embargo signed by Democrat John F. Kennedy on Feb. 3, 1962.

Obama even called on Congress to end the Embargo. claiming that normalization "is a long journey." The embargo was intended to be in effect until Cuba reduced its alignment with Communist powers. Obama began the journey to normalize relations a year ago, and he promised not to visit Cuba until freedom and liberty had been was improved on the island. Yet none of these stipulations have been met by Cuba, nor are there any signs that they will be met.

So it appears that liberals must indeed believe that Communism can elevate people up out of poverty, and that Communism is about freedom and liberty. Obama must already believe this about Cuba, otherwise he wouldn't have gone gone to Cuba.

They hold out hope that if only the right people were in charge of it with a sufficient amount of money that it would work.

To understand this you have to understand where liberalism and Communism come from. I described it in my post "What is Fascism?"  Here is a snippet of what I wrote:

"Fascism, commonly known as Marxism, is a form of government whereby the state is worshiped as a religion, and experts in the state make rules that attempt to prevent many of the flaws of men. The police-state then enforces these laws, and the end result is an ideal world or euphoric world where everyone has a job with equal pay, and everyone has health care, and there is world peace. Fascism is a movement that began around the turn of the 20th century, and it grew roots in nearly every western nations. What form it took depended on what country it was formed in."

Early forms of it entailed progressivism in the United States, Communism in the Russian Soviet Union, Socialism in Italy, and Nazism in Germany. Modern versions of it are European Socialism and Liberalism. Modern liberals even refer to themselves as progressives, or as Democratic Socialists.

It makes sense that modern liberals would deny any link to Carl Marx, as Hitler's version of it, and Stalin's version of it, and Mussolini's version of it soured the image of Marxism. It therefore has traditionally been viewed as anti-American, anti-Capitalism, anti-Freedom, and anti-Liberty. It was viewed as a form of government the traps people in poverty and only allows upward expansion for those running the government.

It was viewed as a form of government that forced people to conform to policies established by government. Those who spoke out against it were prosecuted, imprisoned, or even executed. It was a form of government that caused many to want to escape, and to prevent this walls were built, such as the Berlin wall in Germany.

Because they are all of the same ilk, liberals held out hope that Communism was the best hope for sameness, equality, and equality of outcomes. They believed that because Communism was initiated in nations that were not burdened by the U.S. Constitution, and therefore they hoped to see it prosper; held out hope that it would.

They tell kids in schools that it's about individual freedom, economic prosperity. They tell them that everyone will enjoy it, because everyone is doing their best. They sell it as everyone is being the same, with the same opportunities and the same outcomes. They sell it as nobody losing, no competition, and total freedom.  They tell kids that they can do whatever they want and the state will make sure that everybody ends up with a lot.

They tell kids that Communism is how you get to utopia. Utopia is where everybody is happy. It's Heaven on Earth. It's where everybody gets what they want. It's where there is no crime because everybody is happy. It's where there is no terrorism and no wars because everybody is happy.

What kid wouldn't want that?

So the best way to get kids to see Communism for what it truly is is to teach the truth about it. Show them that, once people learn what Communism is, they have to build walls to keep people in. Many people have defected Cuba to the United States, and the reason is because they hate it. People are put in jails and executed for opposing it. So they are forced to conform.

And forcing people to conform means forcing them to abdicate their freedoms and liberties. It means forcing them to give up their Bibles and their rifles. It means forcing them into public schools that are completely run, and completely controlled, by the elite. You cannot be free if you are forced to be the same as everyone else. And you will not be happy. And you will not be rich. And you will definitely not be elevated.

They say their ideas will lift people, elevate them out of poverty. But there is nothing in socialism, nothing in liberalism, nothing in Communism, nothing in ISIS, nothing in dictatorships, nothing in monarchies, that will elevate people. You cannot be elevated if everyone is the same. In order to be elevated, you need people to be unique, which they are. When people are allowed to be unique, that's where you get ideas from that help to elevate people. You don't get that from sameness.

This system on its face fails because it assumes everyone is the same and can be the same and can be treated the same. It assumes every outcome can be equal. It assumes the every person in a country can be upper middle class.

It fails because everyone is not the same. Every person has different opinions, values, morals. Every person thinks differently. Every person is unique. And for this reason, the utopia that some people believe can be created via socialism can never, has never, will never, work. It's designed to make everyone poor. It's designed to make everyone the same. It's designed to make everyone miserable. It's designed to provide a system whereby the leaders are the only ones who have what they want.

If that's what you consider utopia, then that's what you'll get if you support Communism. The only Utopia can be found in Heaven. Anyone who reads the Bible knows that.

People have to be taught the Communism will not result in upward mobility because it is impossible in the Communist system. The only people who have any chance of bettering their lot in lives are those running government and their friends and family members. This is no better than what 99.9% of governments offered prior to the United States. Most governments prior to the U.S. were totalitarian dictatorship governments where only the ruling class lived well That's exactly the type of system Marxism wants to revert back to.

Communism has never worked.  The U.S.S.R. lasted from 1922 to 1992. That was 70 years. And yet it collapsed because, since everyone made the same amount of money no matter what they did, no one had an incentive to work. There was plenty of food, but no one was willing to pick it, put it in trucks, and ship it to stores. So there were people starving. Because the nation was so economically deprived, it could not keep up with the United States. The U.S.S.R collapsed. Down fell the Berlin Wall.

Communism has been given 50 years to work in Cuba. It has been an abject failure. Communism, Socialism, liberalism, progressivism, whatever you want to call it, never works. Every time it's been tried, every place it's been tried, whatever form it takes, it fails. In fact, if Communism in Cuba works so well, then why are people constantly trying to flee it, often risking their lives for a small chance at liberty? Why are people constantly defecting Cuba for America? Why would anyone want to abandon such a paradise?

Communism, socialism, fascism, progressivism, is based on good intentions, and it keeps getting a free pass even though it never succeeds. Look in the United States where it's been tried. Look at the war on poverty. There are just as many people in poverty today as when it started. Yet it's hailed as a success. Then look at Capitalism. If it's not perfect, if one person falls through the cracks, it's hailed as a failure.

So now you understand why so many people continue to worship Communism. Now you understand why Obama went to Cuba to lend credence to a Communist, totalitarian dictator thug who imprisons and kills people who disagree with his form of governance. That's the modern day Democratic Party.

Further reading

• Rush Limbaugh: Obama lands in Cuba: One small step for man, one giant leap for Marxism
• Newsmax: 10 reasons Cuban Embargo should not be lifted
• ABC News: Here's what happened the last time a U.S. President visited Cuba
• Articulating Ideas: What is liberal fascism?
• Naples Herald: Coast Guard: 9 Cuban migrants die, 18 rescued of Marco Island

Teddy Roosevelt: The first progressive president

Teddy Roosevelt's administration marked a shift in American politics toward a more active president with greater powers.  In essence, he turned the executive into the "bully pulpit."

Most presidents from Thomas Jefferson to William McKinley believed the role of government was limited, and that individuals were better at making decisions than government.  This all changed with the death of William McKinley.  Teddy Roosevelt became president, and he used his energy to increase the powers of the executive, making it possible for future presidents to allow government to intercede in nearly every aspect of our daily lives.

In August of 1898 he returned home from Cuba the most popular man in the United States, and it was mainly for this reason that republican leaders in New York asked him to run for governor.  He was young had tons of energy, and turned out to be a brilliant politician.  It was hear he is thought to have said," said, "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."  His campaign used his war heroics, even going as far as to have Rough Riders speaking on his behalf, to help his chances.

He was 25-years-old when he was inaugurated as governor of New York in January of 1901.  He became an ardent reformer, or what later would be called "progressive," and later "liberal."  He called for:

• Laws limiting the long working hours of children
• Better conditions for workers in factories (sometimes called sweatshops)
• Signed a law imposing taxes on corporations

William Plat was a former U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate member from New York who was considered the "Political Boss" of the republican party.  He helped Roosevelt gain the governorship, and by 1900 he was tired of him.  He said, "I don't want him raising hell in my state any longer."  

Roosevelt was up for reelection.  The Boss came up with the perfect solution: he began a campaign to have Roosevelt nominated as William McKinley's vice president.  This would turn out to be perhaps the biggest blunder in the history of American politics.  McKinley, with Roosevelt riding on the ticket, easily defeated William Jennings Bryan.

Okay, so I alluded to the fact that Roosevelt would "fundamentally transform" the republican party into a progressive party.  Well, the same was true of the democratic party. It is probably for this reason that Grover Cleveland is often considered as the last classical liberal.  William Jennings Bryan had transformed the democratic party to becoming more progressive (big government) party.  So perhaps the transition was inevitable.  

Regardless, McKinley was now president.  But not for long.  On September 6, 1901, McKinley was shot by an anarchist and by September 13 the president was dead.  This officially made Roosevelt the "Accidental President."

The irony of this news was that, along with the death of McKinley, so too was the death of limited government.  Roosevelt proceeded to fundamentally transform the executive.  He gave it powers that previous presidents believed were unconstitutional (and rightly so). 

Yet because of books like Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," the American people came to realize (or at least to figure) that individual corporations were not going to regulate themselves, and the state's could not be trusted to create regulations fast enough.  So men like Roosevelt believed this was the job of the federal government.

His progressive agenda became known as the "Square Deal."  It incorporated three core principles that are still staunchly used by liberals today.  

1. Regulating Corporations
2. Protecting Consumers from the Free Market
3. Safeguarding Natural Resources from Overuse

To accomplish these, he increased the powers of the executive by becoming the first president to create agencies that would be given the authority to regulate, or make rules or laws for individuals and individual corporations, without the approval of Congress.  The first of these was the establishment of the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903, which gave consumers a voice in Washington. 

He distrusted wealthy business owners, and so he started by breaking up monopolies that were created by the formation of trusts. These monopolies were formed when stockholders from various companies turned their stock over to a trustee in exchange for a trust certificate guaranteeing them a dividend.  The companies were run as though they were one company, and therefore this allowed them to set prices as high or low as needed to drive the competition out of business.  

The test case for Roosevelt was J.P. Morgan's attempt to combine three railroads and to combine them into a single corporation called Northern Securities Company.  Roosevelt had attorney general Philander Knox bring suit charging that this was a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.  The Supreme Court decided in Roosevelt's favor, thus giving the government the authority to break up other trusts, such as those in the beef, cattle, and oil industries. 

Roosevelt said he was only out to get trusts that he saw were abusing workers or overcharging customers. So, essentially, the federal government decided what trusts could continue to exist.  During Roosevelt's eight years 40 trusts were dissolved. He became known as the "trust buster." 

In 1902 he used what was now referred to as the "bully pulpit" to settle a dispute between business and labor.  In May, 15,000 workers went on strike to protest low wages and unsafe working conditions in coal mines. The mine owners hired non-union replacement workers.  Ticked off, the striking workers terrorized the replacement workers.  

Since coal was a essential for a functioning economy -- it was used to generate electricity, heat, power railroads, and heat homes, businesses, and schools -- the strike caused schools to close, coal prices to quadruple, and families to freeze during the winter.  It also resulted in riots as people fought to obtain coal from the few remaining locomotives that carried it.  

Previous presidents supported state's rights, and the rights of individual corporations, and therefore, if they got involved, they would support the corporations.  Roosevelt decided to take a different approach.  Even though he had no legal right to interfere, he invited both sides to Washington.  An arbitrator came up with a plan the strikers accepted but the mine owners rejected. 

So he tried speaking softly, now he got out his big stick.  He unconstitutionally ordered U.S. troops to prepare to take over the mines.  Workers were allowed to go back to work, and an arbitrator worked out an agreement that required a 10 percent wage increase, reduction in workday hours, and safer working conditions. Of course in order to do this coal prices were raised 10 percent.  

The people were happy that the president took away some of the liberties of the coal operators to the benefit of the common worker.  Roosevelt's popularity skyrocketed.

Modern libertarians won't like his next move, but many conservatives would.  For years people had wanted to create a channel across Panama so ships wouldn't have to travel thousands of miles around the tip of South America.  The Colombian government had rejected this idea.

However, a group in Panama had wanted to break away from Columbia and form their own government. Roosevelt decided he would support these radicals obtain their independence in exchange for the right to a Canal Zone where a canal could be dug out.  After ten years of construction, the Panama Canal opened in 1914.

Did Roosevelt have the Constitutional right to tinker in national affairs for his own personal gain the way he did? This is a question that made Roosevelt's actions so controversial.  The answer is still debated to this day.  However, this action created a precedent for future presidents to act upon.

During the 1904 election, Alton B. Parker, a judge from New York, ran as a conservative against liberal William Randolph Hearst for the democratic nomination.  Parker won the nomination, although was no match against the popular Roosevelt.  Parker received only 140 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 336.

Roosevelt would gloat about the results: "I have the greatest popular majority and the greatest electoral majority ever given a candidate for president."  But then he went on to say that he would not run for reelection in 1908.  This was a decision he would come to regret.

By 1906 various investigative reporters were reporting on abuses in the workplace. Roosevelt often responded to these reporters, calling them "Muckrakers."  One example of such "muckraking" was the book "The Jungle," by Upton Sinclair, which reported on the unfair and uncleanly working conditions in the meat packing industry.

They also gave Roosevelt an opportunity to solve more problems, and buy more votes for his party (or for the progressive cause, if you will).  He acted by creating regulations that would create more consumer protections and better working conditions.  Keep in mind here that Sinclair was a socialist, and he was after the workers more so than the consumers.

To get started, he encouraged Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act in June of 1906.  This act mandated that food prepared in factories be properly labeled and and safely produced.  It lead to the formation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which had the ability to set regulations on the workplace without the permission of Congress.

The FDA went on to:

• Ban foreign and interstate traffic in adulterated or mislabeled food and drug products
• Direct the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry to inspect products and refer offenders to prosecuters
• Required active ingredients be placed on the label of a drug's packaging 
• It required that drugs could not fall below purity levels established b the U.S. Pharmacopeia or the National Formulary.

The actions of Roosevelt here were very popular. However, how good were they actually in retrospect? Conservatives would argue that cleaning up the meat packing industry should have been left to the states, not the federal government.  Likewise, creating laws and regulations is the job of Congress, not the executive branch.

By the turn of the century many railroad owners recognized their costs were increasing, so they decided to take advantage of the increased demand for their services by increasing their rates.  Passengers and shippers were unhappy with this, and the fact that railroads were giving free passes to loyal shippers.

So in 1903 he signed the Elkins Act, named for Senator Steven B. Elkins.  It strengthened the Interstate Commerce Committee (ICC) that was created in 1887 when Grover Cleveland signed the Interstate Commerce Act.  Now the ICC had the ability to impose fines on railroads for offering rebates, and punish shippers who accepted the rebates.

In 1906 he signed the Hepburn Act, named after its sponsor, republican William Peters Hepburn.  This act fortified the Interstate Commerce Committee, giving it the authority to set maximum rates, to restrict use of free passes, and the ability to enforce the regulations it created.  It also brought other businesses that transport goods and services under the control of the ICC, including terminals, storage facilities, pipelines, ferries, and trucking.

Both of these acts benefited consumers at the expense of the railroads. These Acts were justified under the false pretense that railroads were rich and could afford it. What the new laws did was retard the growth of the south, which the railroads could no longer afford to subsidize.  This was one of the unintended consequences of government interventions into the marketplace "with good intentions."

In essence, Roosevelt did something that would cause many of the founding fathers, and most of the previous presidents, roll over in their graves: he turned the government into a giant watchdog. Many people were fearful of what a large central government might do to personal liberties.  One newspaper wrote that Roosevelt's programs were "the most amazing program of centralization that any President of the United States has ever accomplished."

History would show that they were justified in their fear.  Roosevelt, in essence, opened a Pandora's Box, setting precedents that nearly every president after him used to their advantage to push forth an agenda and to obtain votes. Before Roosevelt, this was never done out of fear of what might happen if they did.

Fearing that Roosevelt's agenda might harm the country, conservatives decided to take Roosevelt's promise not to run for reelection to heart.  They started to work to delay his agenda any way they could, hoping that the next president wouldn't be so "progressive."

Congress was successful, although the president sometimes found ways to push forth his agenda (similar to what Obama would later do) to push forth his agenda anyway: by using executive orders.  One of his executive orders blocked the misuse of natural resources (forests, wildlife areas, vital waterways, natural wonders like the Grand Canyon).  He also assembled a conference of state and territorial governors to discuss conservation.

Surely these are all nice things.  Surely it's great to see the federal government preserving natural resources.  it's great to see all the natural parks and forests from being destroyed.  Still, many wondered if this was proper use of the executive branch.

All of Roosevelt's actions were noble, but they all increased the power and scope of government.  They created regulations, each of which took away another personal liberty.  Plus they were expensive, and would require sacrifices by the populace.

This was one of the reasons tariffs stayed generally high during his term in office, and he refused to even hear arguments about tariffs while he was president. This was also the reason why Roosevelt became the first president to push for a progressive income tax system.

Among his last actions was to utilize the precedent created by the McKinley administration (a time when he was vice president) to show the mite of the U.S. military, and the ability of the U.S. to be a world power. Japanese immigrants in California were the subject of discrimination.  Leaders in Japan made clear their disappointment.  Roosevelt responded by sending 16 battle ships (The Great White Fleet) on a goodwill cruise around the world.  This would be the "greatest display of naval power ever brought together in one squadron."

While protectionists would consider this a bad move on his part, I think it was good.  It, along with the actions of Mckinley, helped clear the path to the United States becoming a Superpower.

During his last two years in office Roosevelt worked hard to push forth more progressive programs, but Congress decided not to act on any of them because they knew Roosevelt would be out of office in 2008. They figured his successor wouldn't be so progressive, or at least have the energy, and things would return to normal.

Roosevelt personally selected his secretary of war, his friend William Howard Taft, to be the leader of the next administration.  Roosevelt believed Taft was the best person to continue on pushing forth the progressive agenda.  Little did he know that Taft was not a supporter of the progressive agenda at all, and was actually a conservative.

So, while many today associate the democratic party with the progressive movement, the father of the movement was actually Teddy Roosevelt -- a republican.  He is the father of modern liberalism.  He created the "activist president," thereby setting the precedent for the president to be active during times of peace as well as times of war. 

Why socialism, liberalism and progressivism always fails

One of the biggests myths that liberals believe is that there's only so much money to go around. They believe that people who make lots of money do so at the expense of others. This explains why rich people are so often referred to as "greedy" and "selfish" and "materialistic" by the left.  And it's so not true.

Now, surely, in some cases it might be true.  But in most cases, just because someone is well off does not make them greedy.

This also explains why the left constantly barrages people who succeed.  They do not like it when companies make profits.  Instead, they believe any money over what is needed to make a living should be spread out among all the other people equally.

This explains why they want taxes for the rich and not for the middle class and poor.  They want to punish those who succeed by taking the money they worked so hard to earn and doling it out to the poor.  In other words, they believe they know how to spend other people's money better than they do.

Actually, liberals believe that, left to their own devices, that people who succeed are naturally greedy, selfish, and materialistic; that they will naturally put themselves before the state, And, they believe, this is wrong.

This is why they hate capitalism so much, because capitalistic societies create opportunities for the few to benefit off the many, or so they falsely believe.

A perfect example to help me make my point is Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments.  He read somewhere that $70,000 was an ideal salary.  If you earn this salary you can have a nice house and car and have plenty of money left over to live a good life.  There's no need to make more than that.

Here's a guy who made over a million a year.  He decided to give himself a huge pay cut to $70,000 a year, and he gave this same salary to all his workers.  In other words, he decided, as so many on the left do, that it's unfair that one person makes millions of dollars while all the people who are the workers make so much less.  So he redistributed the money among all who work for him.

Guess what?  This happened back in April.  Not even four months later he announced that it was an utter failure. He had people who worked for the company for many years, were very loyal to the company, and they were upset that people who were newly hired were making as much as they were. Some of them -- some of his best employees -- quit.  It was a devastating blow to his company.

When you dole out money equally you expect that every person will do an equal amount of work.  In the ideal world, this might happen.  But in the real world this is impossible.  In the real world you are always going to have people say: "I'm going to make $70,000 no matter what I do, so I'm not going to go out of my way to do anything."

Why did this system fail? Because it assumes that everyone is equal.  Dan Price assumed that if everyone else made the same money he did that they would have the same passion that he does.  He believed the liberal myth that equality would bring fairness and happiness.  And he was wrong.

The fallacy here is that if everyone was equal, if everyone made the same amount of money, that everyone would do the same amount of work, and everyone would be equally happy.  This is the euphoria liberals think they can create. This is the biggest myth of liberalism that exists out there.

Sure, in their ideal world everyone is equal.  But in the real world people know that no two people are alike.  We are all unique. We all have our own goals, desires, and ambitions.  Some of us naturally work harder than others.  Some of us are early to work every day, and others are late no matter how hard they try.

Not only that, contrary to what the left tries to force on us, no one wants to be the same as someone else. We all yearn to be individuals; we all yearn to be unique.  Surely I might want to be like my dad, and I might want to be like the CEO running my company, or I might like to emulate one of my better coworkers.  Still, I don't want to be considered the same as everyone else. We all want to be unique.  We all want to be missed when we are gone because no one else can do what we do.

That reminds me of a sign I saw in the nursing report room a while back: "No one notices what you do until you are gone."  This means that when you are no longer here, people realize how valuable you were.  All these years, for instance, they just assumed the storage room miraculously was stocked every day.  Now that you aren't around they see that it was you, all along, who stocked.

When my grandma passed away, the general consensus among us grandkids was that this was a woman who could never be replaced. If you are healthy psychologically, then you are special to the world in this way too. You cannot be replaced.  You are unique, You are an individual.  You don't want to be lumped in with a bunch of slackers, half-baked, half-caring people. You want to be thought of as the cream of the crop, and you can't be if everybody's making 70 grand.

Worded another way, if we all make the same income(a so called fair wage), and we all have the same healthcare, and we all have the same education, and we all have the same everything else, then we are nothing more than sheep.  We are herded by the great big Sheppard who lives in Washington D.C. who goes by the name of Uncle Sam.

The problem with this analogy is people are not sheep.  We all yearn to be unique We all yearn to be special. We all yearn to offer some special gift. We all offer a special gift. If everyone is the same, then we are no longer needed. To assume we are all the same is to assume we are all easily replaceable, and that goes against nature

It is for this reason that liberalism, progressivism, socialism, Lenonism, Marxism... always fails.

There are many people in this world that are so special that they will never be replaced.  This is human nature.  We are not the same, and cannot be treated the same. So any attempt to make us the same assumes that we all produce the same, and that's simply not true. It's human nature. To try to perfect human nature will always lead to chaos.

And that's exactly what happened at Gravity Payments after Dan Price decided to give everyone who worked for the company the same wage of $70,000.  Because there are so many different levels of talent and ability, the system set in place never had a chance. It was socialism pure and simple. Everyone was treated the same. Nobody was considered more important than anyone else. They are interchangeable. When one person retires or quits or dies, another can simply fit in to fill the empty pair of shoes, or so the

Marxist assumes.  Such a system is doomed to fail no matter how many times it is tried.Sure it might sound good and make you feel good, but it never works. It has never worked.

The main problem with socialism is best summed up by Rush Limbaugh:

The main policy or main flaw with socialism side from run out of somebody else's money at some point is that we're not the same and we are not equal. There is no such thing as fairness. Fairness is always arbitrary depending on who has the power to define it, and there certainly is no equality. There's equality of opportunity, equality of chance, equality before the law, but these people talk about equality in terms of outcomes, and there's no such thing.

You put a system of socialism in place where you have equality of outcome, and you're always gonna have some renegades, some entrepreneurs who are gonna say, "Screw this," and they're gonna bust out, and they're gonna do what they do, and they're not going to be shackled by silly rules like this. And then you have, on the other end of it, people who are gonna say, "I'm gonna get 70 grand a year, man, and I don't have to do anything special? I just have to show up?" and that's all they're gonna do. Because slackers are everywhere.

If you're not going to be compensated or rewarded for merit-based behavior, then there's no reason to be concerned about merit-based behavior. So that goes out the window, too.

Why did Dan Price's system fail? Because it was pure, unadulterated socialism. Call it liberalism or progressivism or whatever you want, it has failed every single time it has been tried. Yet because it smells good and sounds good, the best and brightest among us will continue to fall for it.

Further reading:

• Articulating Ideas: Idealism versus Realism
• Articulating Ideas: What is Fascism?
• Washington Times: Dan Price, Seattle CEO Who Set Company Minimum Wage at $70K, Now Struggles to Make Ends Meet
• Hot Air: CEO Who Raised Workers’ Minimum Pay to $70K Hits Predictable Problems
• National Review: It Turns Out That Equality Can Feel a Lot Like Unfairness
• Rush Limbaugh: CEO Who Made $70K His Company's Minimum Wage Admits It's a Disaster

Are conservatives really 'backwards' and 'backwoods'?

From time to time liberals refer to conservatives as "backwoods" or "backwards."  Sometime they use the term "old school."  The truth is, not only do these terms not apply to conservatives, they apply more to the liberals who use them.

To make it simple here, all of these terms are polite ways of saying, "Primitive."  So, when a liberal says that a conservative is "backwoods," he is in essence saying that the conservative is primitive.  Now we can break the term primitive down further.

1.  Liberal definition of primitive: Traditional christian values and morals, such as those taught by the church.

2.  Conservative definition of primitive: The way of life prior to civilization.

In the primitive world, marriage is defined as Commune marriage, the system prevailing amongst some primitive peoples by which within a small community all the men are regarded as married to all the women and vice-versa, sometimes called group marriage, sometimes called polygamy.

In this system all men and women work for the collective, or state. Everything they do is collected by the state to be doled out equally among the people. In this system no one gets to keep a share of the profits of his labors, and therefore there is no incentive to excel above and beyond one's peers.

By this system, there was no incentive to become better, and so people remained primitive.  It was this system that ultimately gave birth to fascism, Marxism, socialism, progressivism, and liberalism.  Their goal is always to create a euphoria, yet all that results is chaos.

Marriage had no meaning, and so culture was not taught. It did not matter if you had sex with other women while married, because you were married to everyone.  Abortions were considered acceptable.  Having a child outside marriage was considered acceptable.

Christianity recognized that there were consequences to all these actions.  They recognized that children who were born of married parents were more likely to become productive members of society.  The recognized that abortion had negative consequences on a society, such as sadness.

Christians recognized that the primitive definition of marriage had consequences, and therefore created a system whereby marriage was defined as a man and a women.  The purpose of marriage was to procreate, and then to share culture with their children.  A part of this culture was a moral code that established marriage between a man and a women.  Adultery and abortion were frowned upon.

When the first civilizations were formed they tried to live without morals.  In Ancient Greece, it was considered as acceptable to live by the primitive definition of marriage.  It was fine to have abortions.  It was fine to have sex with whomever you chose to have sex with.  These were considered fine.

Yet these immoral acts, as Christians saw them, were primitive and worked to destroy civilization rather than hold it together.  So the new moralistic, Christian world was created.  This system is now called the "Christian Right," by liberals, and "old school" or "backwoods."  These people, liberals claim, or those who still believe in this system, are considered to be "backwards."

Yet the truth is, liberals are backwards. They are trying to return society to where it was in the primitive world, where marriage had no meaning; where marriage was defined as whatever you wanted it to be defined.

To further make my point, the definition of marriage I pulled out above was from the 1989 version of the Oxford English Dictionary. Their definition of marriage, as defined by liberals, is:

Commune marriage, the system prevailing amongst some primitive peoples by which within a small community all the men are regarded as married to all the women and vice-versa, sometimes called group marriage, sometimes called polygamy.

You see, so who are the real backwoods people.  Conservatives have actually created a system that works.  Where marriage is defined as between a man and a women, people thrive.  Every study ever done on the subject shows that children born of a mother and a father, even if the father dies, are 80% more likely to become productive members of society.

Yet liberals want to make marriage meaningless.  All you have to do to see proof that I am right here is to look at any city in the U.S. that has been controlled by liberals for 30 or more years.  All you have to do is look at Detroit.  Liberals there have gotten everything they ever wanted: marriage has no meaning, abortion doesn't matter, it's okay to have sex before marriage.  And what has that gotten them.  Where is the Euphoria?

Detroit is proof that liberalism is backwoods. They have turned Detroit into a primitive world.  Rich people are frowned upon and taxed.  And what has all this gotten Detroit.  Since marriage doesn't matter, 9 in 10 children are born to single parents.  No dad is around to teach culture, and moms are too busy working. So kids do poorly in school and join gangs.

Single mothers are supported by the state, and so there is no incentive for them to do better.  Children see how their mothers lived, and they grow up to live the same.  So the cycle of poverty continues.  And it's all because liberals have gotten everything they wanted in Detroit, things they keep telling us will create a euphoric society.

So while liberals claim conservatives are "backwoods" or "backwards," the truth is that liberals are.

Further reading:

• Gallup signals the GOP: Abandon the Bitter Clingers in your Backwards Base 
• Gallup: Americans Continue to Shift Left on Key Moral Issues
• What is the definition of backwoods?

The true story of Thanksgiving

There was no freedom of religion in the early 1600s. If you did not believe in the same religion that King James I wanted, and you worshiped God in the way you wanted instead of what King James wanted, you were treated as a common criminal. You were hunted down, put in prison, or even killed.

These individuals wanted to be left alone to worship the way they wanted, and in 1608 they moved out of their homeland of England to Holland. But there was much hardship in Holland too, so the Pilgrims decided to leave England for America. But they stopped back in England first to receive funding from the Virginia Company. Then in August of 1620, 102 Pilgrims set out for America in a ship called the Mayflower.

During the ride across the ocean much discussion ensued as to what form of government to create. While still on the Mayflower in 1620, the Mayflower Compact was signed, and one of the signers was William Bradford. The Pact said that all goods and services, and all land, would be owned by the mass community, and the profits would be doled out equally among the masses.

When they landed in November they found a land that was cold, shelter less, and not very welcoming. In fact, in that first harsh winter over half of the Pilgrims died. When Spring finally arrived, the Indians taught them how to build shelters and to plant corn, fish for cod, and skin beavers to be used as coats.

The fact that an Indian tribe, lead by Massosoit, was a blessing from God in itself, because without his blessing the other Indian tribes would have pulverised the Pilgrims. This was also a blessing because a pirate named black took advantage of his friendship and took many of his people.

They did better at this point, but things did not go as well as Bradford, the original governor of the community, had expected. He decided that while the Mayflower Pact sounded like a good idea, since no one owned anything, and there was no incentive to work more than the minimum, there were many crops that went unplanted, and much that wasn't taken care of, and productivity was very poor. People did whatever the minimum was needed of them, and then they quit. What the Pilgrims had created here was an early form of socialism.

By 1623 the harvest was so poor that starvation and death became a problem almost as bad as when the colonists first arrived. They had the know how and the potential for having good crops, but this wasn't happening.

Bradford realized this pact was not working. He wrote: "The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years...that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if they were wiser than God." Yet he realized it did not work as expected.

Bradford decided to take an idea from the Bible. He gave every person a plot of land to take care of as their own. If they did well, they were able to keep part of the profits as an incentive to work hard. They were allowed to market and profit from what they sold. In effect, he turned loose the power of the marketplace. He created the worlds first capitalistic government.

The following harvest was abounding. It was not abounding because of help from the Indians, but because a socialistic government was replaced by a capitalistic one. On this, Bradford wrote: "This had very good success, for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been."

The Pilgrims did so well that they set up stands where they exchanged goods and services with the Indians, and they used profits from this to pay back their debt in England. In fact, the colony started to do so well economically that many Pilgrims decided to migrate to the colonies. This was called the Great Puritan Migration.

For helping them come up with a new system that worked to produce the bountiful crops, they decided to have a roast to give thanks to the Lord. There were some Indians at this celebration, but not as many as we and are kids are taught in school.

Now the Pilgrims were also thankful for the Indians for helping them and even protecting them. Yet that was not the main Intent of that celebration. The main intent was to thank God for teaching them an effective government.

The history books tell us that the first Thanksgiving was celebrated to give thanks to the Indians for helping the Pilgrims survive after that first hard winter. Sure the crops were improved that second November, but there was no celebration. There was no celebration until socialism was quashed and a capitalistic government was formed and the economy of the colony prospered. This is what the colonists celebrated on that first Thanksgiving. The date was August 9th.

However, since William Bradford's original notes were lost for many years, the story of  Indians saving colonists and this being the reason for the first Thanksgiving became common. And when Thanksgiving was made a national holiday by Congress in George Washington's first year in office, November 26 was selected as the day. And even while Bradford's journals were discovered, this false date and the false story of the first Thanksgiving were not corrected.

The unfortunate result of this fallacy not being corrected is that the lessons of Bradford were not learned. Carl Marx, Stalin, Lennon, Hitler, Mussolini, all played with various forms of socialism, and none of them worked.  Even today, in both the Europe and the United States, forms of socialism continue to exist. Perhaps if the true story of Thanksgiving were known, the failures of the past would not be repeated over and over again.

Further reading:

• Smithsonian: What as on the menu at the first Thanksgiving?

Is Pope Francis A Socialist?

The pope says that if you do not give some of what you need, then you are not faithful. If you do not give up some of the money you need, you are not being charitable.  If you are not living like the poor, you are not charitable.  If you are not equal to everyone else, you are not faithful.  If you are not socialist, you are not faithful.  If you are not faithful, you will not living like Jesus.  If you are not living like Jesus, you are not getting to heaven?

Is that not what he is saying?

In other words, he is saying, or so it would seem, that you either need to be poor, or you are not faithful. Seriously, this is what he said. Here, listen to his own words as reported by the  National Catholic Reporter:

Focusing on poverty and sacrificing for the poor are the heart of the Gospel, not signs of Furthermore, if Christians don't dig deep and generously open up their wallets, they do not have 'genuine faith.'

Essentially what he is saying here is that, if you do not open your wallets to the poor, you cannot be faithful. He is saying that you must support big government programs or you are not faithful. So, essentially he is saying that conservatives, like you and me, cannot be faithful.  That is a stretch, to say the least.

The article went further.

He said people often hear, "Oh, this priest speaks about poverty too much, this bishop talks about poverty, this Christian, this sister talk about poverty. Well, they're a bit communist, aren't they?  But "poverty is precisely at the heart of the Gospel. If we were to remove poverty from the Gospel, people would understand nothing about Jesus' message," he said, according to Vatican Radio.Being fully Christian means being rich in spirit, faith, the Word, wisdom and zeal -- things that Jesus has taught and offered all people, he said. Make sure, however, that this huge amount of "wealth in the heart" also impacts the wallet, he said, because "when the faith doesn't reach your pockets, it is not a genuine faith." Pope Francis said the "theology of poverty" is based on the fact that Jesus -- in his divine richness -- became poor; he lowered himself and sacrificed himself to save humanity. The beatitude "Blessed are the poor in spirit" means "letting oneself be enriched by the poverty of Christ and not wanting to be rich with those riches that are not from Christ," he said. Christian giving goes beyond plain charity, which is good, but isn't the "Christian poverty" believers are called to embrace, he said. "Christian poverty is: I give to the poor what is mine, not the excess, but also what is necessary" for one's own well-being. Christians do this because they know that sacrificing in such a way enriches them, he said. "And why does the poor person enrich me? Because Jesus said that he himself is in the poor."  When people strip themselves of the material, "Jesus works within" them and they are enriched; when people give to the poor, Jesus is also working in the poor, "in order to enrich me when I do this," the pope said.

This pretty much defines socialism to a tee.  Socialism means that you take from the rich and give to the poor. It's using the IRS to force people to give to the poor.  The pope is calling this charity. Although, it's not charity, it's welfare; it's socialism; it's communism.

But the pope is saying that Jesus supported communism.  He is saying that you cannot just give your disposable income to charity, you have to give some of what you need. In other words, he is saying that all of us must live in poverty; we must all be poor.

And, if you think of it, that's essentially what socialism is.  The goal of socialism or liberalism or progresivism or whatever you want to call it is to create a euphoric world where everyone makes the same amount of money; we are all equal.

And, if everyone were equal, if there were not rich people, by default, would not that mean that we are all poor.  In essence, socialism is the government Jesus preached, as socialism means that we are all equally poor.

Is this what the pope is implying.  Is this why he hates capitalism?  Is this why the left refers to anyone who lives above their means as evil, greedy, rich people? It would seem so.  And so, I think we are safe to say that our pope, Pope Francis, is indeed a socialist.

Further reading:

• Articulating ideas: What is charity?
• Articulating ideas:  Pope wrong about capitalism
• Breitbart.com: John Kasich Rips ObamaCare Critics For Not Understanding the Bible
• National Catholic Reporter: Concern for poor sign of Gospel, not red flag communism

Myth Buster: Welfare is charity

There is little doubt that the Bible teaches one to give freely to those in need. I have written about it on this blog, and it's called charity. However, there are political and religious figures of late who seem to confuse charity with welfare.

The most recent to fall victim to this was Ohio governor and republican presidential candidate John Kasich. He has been a supporter of Obamacare, and has even allowed for Obamacare welfare expansion in Ohio. 

On October 10, 2015, at an appearance before the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, he responded to his critics:

"Look at Medicaid expansion. Do you know how many people are yelling at me? I go out to events where people yell at me. You know what I tell 'em? ... I say, there's a book. It's got a new part and an old part; they put it together, it's a remarkable book. If you don't have one, I'll buy you one. It talks about how we treat the poor. Sometimes you just have to lead."

So, essentially he said that welfare is charity. He is saying that you should be willing to give of your well earned money to the government because the government is doing with your money what the Bible preaches, and that is to give it to those in need.

But he is wrong. To understand this, let's look at a couple definitions.

• Charity:  Giving freely to those in need some of what you have. 
• Welfare. The government mandating that you give some of what you earn to others in need.

You see, charity is when you give by your own choice, and welfare is you give because you have to. So welfare, by definition, is not charity. 

Still, there are those, like Kasich, who want you to think welfare is charity. This is how they get large corporations to agree to support big government programs.  This is how get people who work so hard for their money to support the expansion of government.

This is how you get 52% of Catholics to support characters like Bernie Sanders.

Look, Pope Francis has used the myth that charity is welfare to justify his calls in support of government regulations to prevent man made global warming and to help the poor. In response to critics, he said, via the National Catholic Reporter, that...

Focusing on poverty and sacrificing for the poor are the heart of the Gospel, not signs of communism.

The truth is, when God created Israel, he did not tell the people to give money to the Romans. What he did was tell people to leave some of their crops so that the hungry could work to get them. The Bible preached we should help the poor, but that the poor should work for what they get.  In other words, the Bible preached that if you don't work you do not eat.

In this way, the Bible preached charity, not welfare. 

Further reading:

• Articulating ideas: What is charity?
• Articulating ideas:  Pope wrong about capitalism
• Breitbart.com: John Kasich Rips ObamaCare Critics For Not Understanding the Bible
• National Catholic Reporter: Concern for poor sign of Gospel, not red flag communism

Myth Buster: All rich people, corporations, nations are greedy

Quite often my liberal friends say things like, "Donald Trump is greedy," "It's a rich, greedy corporation." They refer to any rich person as greedy, not just Trump.  Any corporation that makes money is greedy, such as, "Greedy pharmaceuticals" set their prices too high. I think It's frustrating to me when they say stuff like this, but I think I understand why they do: it's based on a fallacy.

It almost seems as if liberals hate success, as they are often trying to punish people who succeed. They falsely believe, that left to their own devices, people will not give to charity; they will not help the poor. I attempted to allay this myth in my post, "Pope Francis Wrong About Capitalism."  Capitalism creates opportunities, and people under capitalistic societies donate more to charity than people under any other form of government.

I think the big misconception, the big fallacy of progressives, is that they believe there is only so much money in the world, and if one person, or one corporation, becomes wealthy, that this comes at the expense of everyone else, especially the poor.  In other words, if one person makes a million dollars, this is a million dollars that will not help the poor; in fact, it hurts the poor.  That's why they refer to rich people like Donald Trump as greedy and selfish.

The truth is that there is plenty of money to go around so that everyone can get rich.  This what Trump is saying when he says, "I'm rich, and I will make you rich too."  There is no shortage of money in the world. Rather than trashing people like Trump who succeed, we ought to put them up on a pedestal with an inscription under saying, "You can be like Trump: You can get rich too."

That's the whole point of American exceptionalism.  It's not that we are better than other nations, it's that, before American, 90% of people lived in poverty. America -- more specifically: American Exceptionalism -- has made it so that anyone can rise up to be as rich as kings or queens or totalitarian leaders. This was never possible before America.

People like Trump are a rare breed who sacrifice all to succeed.  Trump had to sacrifice years and money on educating himself, and he had to take great risks to succeed.  In fact, he was so focussed on succeeding that he risked his first marriage to Ivana. I don't mean to ramp up Trump here, I'm just trying to give an example of how getting rich is not bad.  Trump got rich by creating hundreds if not thousands of jobs. As Trump rose to the top he took many people with him.

That's the whole purpose of unfettered capitalism or capitalism.  Some call it supply side economics.  As Jack Kemp used to say, "A rising tide lifts all ships."  During the 1980s, when regulations and taxes were cut, people of every class rose to a higher class. In fact, when regulations, taxes, and government programs were cut in the 1920s, there was no unemployment (it was 2%, while most economists consider 4.5% no unemployment as there will always be people between jobs).

It's not only just individuals and corporations that are greedy, it's America. There are literally people, even within our own country, who think this is unfair; it's unfair that Americans are so rich, because they get rich at the expense of every other nation. They think we are the reason other nations are poor because we absorb all the money in the world.  They think it's not fair that we have all the wealth and no one else does.

What they fail to see is that 99.9% of the world was poor prior to America. Before America, there was no place in the world you could go to be free; there was no place in the world where you could worship what are religion you wanted; there was no place in the world you could go to take an idea you had and prosper.

Again, what they should do is put America on a pedestal and teach rulers of other nations how to accomplish what America has accomplished. Instead of saying Americans are greedy, they ought to ask: What made America so great? What made Americans so prosperous? Why does everyone want to go to America? How can I do that for my country?

Let me word this another way. People who really care for the poor, for the little guy, should want the little guy to have an improved life: more contentment, more happiness, more stuff.  If this is true, then they should want to emulate the United States. You certainly wouldn't want to tear it down.  If you truly cared about the poor, you would create a nation just like the United States.  You wouldn't teach them that America is selfish and greedy and rich at the expense of everyone else.

America is about freedom, liberty, and prosperity.  So if you want people to succeed, you should teach American principles, not deride them. Because before America there was no prosperity. The people who teach that America is rich and greedy try to make things fair by punishing and penalizing people at the top. Then when those people are gone, there are no jobs. This is substituted for government checks, which will disappear when the U.S. is gone. Then everyone will be equally poor. That is the utopia they seek -- fairness, equality of poverty.

It doesn't make sense. Why try to destroy the one beacon of hope, the one shining city on a hill, where every person has an equal opportunity to succeed.  Why destroy that by telling people that those people are greedy in their materialism? Why, if you truly love the poor and want to help them, wouldn't you teach them how to get it too? Why not teach your people how to prosper?

You have a special place, you want it to stay special, you better learn how it got special. Otherwise, you are going to have people want to destroy it, and you won't have a reason to stop them. Or, if someone were to come into our nation (as progressives have) and try to tear it down one piece at a time, and you didn't know why it was great in the first place, you might just stand by and let it happen.  In fact, you might even be willing to give up your liberties for the cause. You might be convinced to do just that.

And that's what's wrong with our country today, is our schools are not teaching the answers to these questions, so kids are growing up in the most prosperous nation in the history of the world, and yet they think it has always been this way. They think people were always free. They don't understand that 99.9% of people lived under totalitarian dictatorships or monarchies before the U.S. came about, and that freedom had to be fought for. They aren't taught this, so they don't feel the need to protect and defend it against the onslaught of liberalism.

That's why they can so easily be taught that anyone who succeeds in life is greedy and selfish; that anyone who gets rich does so at the expense of the poor; that capitalism breeds poverty. When the truth is that everyone was poor before the Unisted States, and capitalism creates prosperity not poverty.

Anyway, America is special, and to keep it special we must know how we got to where we are.  Once we know that, it will be easy to see how capitalism creates jobs; capitalism creates prosperity.  Capitalism makes life better for the poor, not worse.  If you really, truly love the poor, then you will tell them that they can have it too if they want.  And that's why Trump says, "I am rich, and I want to make you rich too."

Liberalism creates poverty, not wealth (or, what is quantitative easing)

One of the things progressives talk a lot about is the income gap between the rich and the poor.  They say they do not like it, and they say that the cause of it is unfettered capitalism.

So here we have Obama well into his 6th year in office, and he has added more progressive programs than any president since Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt.

Progressives believe that the only way to narrow the income gap is by "fundamentally transforming" America from capitalism to progressivism.  In other words, they believe it is necessary to "re-distribute" wealth from the rich to the poor.  They believe this is needed because greedy rich people do not spend their wealth wisely, and so the government must force them to support their agenda through high taxes and so forth.

Obama and progressives believe that capitalism makes the rich richer and that the middle class just stagnates, and the poor get poorer.

Anyway, the progressive tax and spend (redistribution) agenda has advanced more during Obama's first six years than at any time since the Johnson and Roosevelt administrations, and today we learn via the New York Times, "Middle Class Shrinks Further as More Fall Out Instead of Climbing Up," that the income gap has (drum roll please) under Obama risen four times faster than under George W. Bush.

Huffingtonpost.com reported that "Inequality has been even more pronounced under Obama than it was under George W. Bush."

There is a good reason for this income gap increase, and it has nothing to do with capitalism.  Consider the following facts as reported by the Huffington Post:

• Many Americans lost their jobs in the 2009-2010 recession and were unable to find another job that paid as well (meaning they make less now than then)
• Today we have a record number of people (46 million) living in poverty.

You might also wish to consider the following statistics:

• Today we have a record 92,898,000 working age people not working
• Today the U6 unemployment number, the one that includes those 92,898,000 working age unemployed workers, is a whopping 13.6%

Progressives believe that the income gap is created because the market isn't fair. So they make it fair by making laws that create regulations and programs by taxing the rich.  In other words, they force the rich to support their progressive programs that are basically a redistribution of wealth.  

Then, when they realize that they can't make enough money from taxes to support their spending, so they start to print more money in a process called quantitative easing.  This is a process where the government prints more money and pumps it into the equities market (i.e. the stock market). It goes into the stock market because the people with the power to print it come from the stock market.

And so where has all this newly printed money been going: to the stock market. Who makes money off the stock market? The rich people. So they get richer.

This is why the stock market has grown by leaps and bounds under Obamanomics. It's because the same people who print the money just give it to themselves. This explains why the income gap has grown.  It's because the stock market, in an ever growing recession where the poor get poorer and the middle class is stagnant, has grown by leaps and bounds because of quantitative easing to pay for all the progressive programs created by the Obama Administration.  It's full fledged liberalism at work here.

If you have money in the stock market, if you can afford to do so, you are probably sitting pretty about now. If you are an average American with a 401K you are probably sitting pretty.

Obama will tell you that the stock market is growing completely independent of anything he is doing.  But that's not the case at all.  The Federal Reserve is pumping money into the stock market left and right in order to make it look like progressivism is working.  Yet once we evaluate the underlying data and see that the income gap is increasing as a result of it, we see what is really going on here.

The rich people who can afford to invest in the stock market are getting wealthier and wealthier and wealthier.  But it's not because people are smart and know what stocks to invest in, or not because of any genius business move.  It's because money has been artificially pumped (some $3.5 trillion) into the stock market under the name of quantitative easing.

The stock market has not grown because millions more Americans have decided to invest their money there. It has not grown because of unfettered capitalism. It has grown artificially due to some idealistic progressive attempt to create money to pay for progressive programs that do not work.

This is the only way to explain how the middle class can be stagnant at the same time the stock market grows. It explains why so many people in this country are making sacrifices, yet the rich continue to get richer.

Some of the rich will always get richer because they have the money to take risks in the stock market or other places. Sometimes they lose, although sometimes they win and make even more money. With more money in the stock market due to quantitative easing, the rich just get richer. This also explains why there are always just a few filthy rich people in communist nations.  

Anyway, progressives programs (bailouts, regulations, subsidies, Obamacare, Social Security, TARP, and you name it), coupled with the fact that progressive programs do not cause people to rise up from poverty and into the middle class, results in a rise in the income gap.

High taxes, coupled with regulations that make it so entrepreneurs cannot afford to start their businesses, make it so people do not rise up above the middle class.  So this makes the middle class stagnant.

All Obama did was create programs to help the poor.  He made it so those who do not have jobs can get unemployment for a longer period of time.  So that means all those people are not working and therefore not making money.  The middle class are not creating new jobs, and they are not investing more in the stock market.  So capitalism is not working here.  So to pay for their bailouts and such, progressives had to print more money and put in into the stock market.

This helps the rich get richer.  The middle class is ignored.  The poor get poorer. People from the middle class who lose jobs get new jobs that pay less, and some of them move down into poverty.

Progressives will blame this on capitalism, so they will propose creating more laws and regulations to make things more fair, by their definition of fair that is. But it's not capitalism that is at fault here, it's progressivism; it's Obamanomics. It's the growing number of people on welfare. It's all the progressive regulations made to create fairness and equality and a perfect world.  

That's what happens when you have six full years of full fledged liberalism.  This is yet another example that proves why liberalism/ progressivism has never worked.  It has been tried over and over and over again since the ancient world.  It is what caused the collapse of the mighty Roman Empire and many other empires. It has been called many things, but it always results in the same thing: failure.

Progressives complain that things aren't fair, and so they have to have their own progressive experts define what is fair and what is not.  So they create laws and regulations to force people to comply. They make the market fair, something capitalism, they say, will never do.  Yet fairness by their definition, means that everybody is the same. If everyone makes the same amount of money (fairness), then everybody will be poor.  

The irony here is that progressives complain all the time about how it is unfair that rich people make so much money.  So they raise their taxes, redistribute their wealth, have the Federal Reserve print more money, and all that money goes into the stock market, and the rich get even richer.  How else do you explain how the rich keep getting richer even under Obamanomics when Obama hates the rich.

Since high taxes and regulations discourage potential entrepreneurs from creating new jobs, and prevent corporations from expanding, fewer jobs are created.  The end result here is that the middle class stagnates, and more people enter into poverty.

You simply cannot create wealth and fairness by taking from those who make and giving it to those who do not make.  The reason is because in order to give to the poor you have to take via taxes from those who make money.  And once you take their money, they don't have it. The rich can afford this, the poor and middle class cannot.

Then they create programs that give people money to live by without them having to do anything, and then they become dependent on the government to survive. They are not encouraged to seek work because that would mean losing their government subsidies. So the cost of government goes up while income goes down. So progressives have no choice but to raise taxes to make more money. It becomes an endless cycle.

Then children growing up in these families never see capitalism, so they don't see any better way of life.  So they too end up trapped in poverty.

Yes, this is what unfettered liberalism does.  This is what they call fairness. This is why 30 plus years of progressive leadership in Detroit has driven that city from one of the most prosperous cities in the world during the 1950s into complete and utter bankruptcy.  The New York Times wrote an "Anatomy of Detroit's Decline' back in 2013.

Under unfettered progressivism, or socialism, or communism, or fascism, everybody is the same, everybody is poor, except for the the few on the upper end, and that would be the progressive leaders.  This is the system, by the way, the people lived under for 99 percent of our history.

It's called totalitarian government.  It's a system where only the aristocracy gets to enjoy the benefits of profit.  They accomplish this by taxing the people who do all the work.  Unless this is what we want to go back to, progressivism must be stopped in its tracks.  

The bottom line is that unfettered liberalism creates more poverty, it does not create more wealth.  This is why the income gap has increased after six years of Obamanomics, as opposed to decreasing. 

Amtrak tragedy: Will It Become Political?

Prayers are headed to Philadelphia to the the victims of the Amtrak train that crashed.  It was a tragedy. And with every tragedy there is someone who tries to take advantage of it to advance a political agenda.  My guess is it will be to call for more spending on infrastructure.

And it wouldn't be the first time either, as in May of 2013 the Washington Post ran an article suggesting that more money should be spent on infrastructure after the collapse of a bridge along Interstate 5 in Washington. So, every tragedy has to be taken advantage of politically by someone.  I mean, it shouldn't, but it usually is.

So, who's going to be the first to take advantage of this tragedy?

I didn't have to work today, and it's rather cool outside, so I spent quality time listening to accounts of the crash.  And then one commentator said this (paraphrasing):  "It's possible one of the possible causes might be infrastructure.  If, for instance, the track caused this crash, it might indicate the need for more spending."

Aha.  And he wasn't the first.  So that's when it occurred to me that I was on to something.  And then I read the transcripts on the Rush Limbaugh show and that's what he talked about.  He said that over a trillion dollars has been allocated to infrastructure since 2008.

He said:

"It's predictable as easily as the sun coming up in the morning. We're gonna hear that we need to really ramp up infrastructure spending. We're gonna hear hand-wringing, see hand-wringing and complaints, "How could this have happened? We are letting our country just become dilapidated right in front of our eyes. Where is all the infrastructure spending?" And at that point somebody needs to say, "You have asked for over a trillion dollars in infrastructure spending since 2008, and we'd like to see where the money already allocated for infrastructure spending has actually gone."

 According to newsbusters.org, the efforts to do this have already begun by the NBC network.

Since when does throwing more money at something ever solve a problem? We increase education spending every year, and our national ranking continues to plummet.  We allocate a trillion dollars for infrastructure, and people complain about it now more than ever.

Further reading:

• U.S. Infrastructure Spending Has Plummeted Since 2008
• Democrats Blame Amtrak Crash on Infrastructure Spending
• Scandal: Less Than 7% of Trillion Dollar 'Stimulus' Spent on Infrastructure
• CNN, CNBC, and MSNBC Push Infrastructure Spending After Amtrak Accident

Why do uneducated people become liberals

So we have people out there saying things like: "I hate politics. All people do is fight." They hate politics. They tune politics out.  When you send them something political in an email, they either respond with antipathy, or they say things like "quit sending me all that political junk?"  But these are exactly the people we need to reach with our conservative or libertarian message.

These are the people who say they don't pay attention to politics, but when you say something political they get all upset.  When you tell them that global warming is a hoax, they get all upset. When you tell them that Obama's number of 200,000 new jobs created every month is not good, they say you are a racist.  So they say they are not political, that they don't pay attention, but they still take sides; and they still get angry.

You know, if you ask me, if I was uninformed about something, I certainly wouldn't take sides.  I also wouldn't get angry, because people who are truly uninformed about something surely have no need to get upset about it.  So something is amess with these people who say they hate politics, and they don't take sides, and they don't follow the news, yet they still get upset when you share your ideas that are the antithesis of theirs.

The truth is, if I were uninformed on an issue, of which there are many issues I'm uninformed on, I'd be open minded and listen to all arguments without getting upset. I wouldn't be a liberal by default, I'd be neither liberal nor republican. I'd be bipartisan, at least until I had all the facts on the table. Then I'd sift through the facts, and I'd make a decision based on the facts.

Truth be told, I don't see why an bipartisan, or an independent voter, or a person who didn't pay attention to politics, would get upset about any political view.  So, the logical conclusion here is that the person is lying, that he is truly partisan, and most likely a liberal with his head in the sand because he's embarrassed to admit it.

But, lacking knowledge of politics because, as they admittedly say, they don't pay attention, they, by default, form an opinion based on their feelings, their heart, instead of their head.  They, by default, fall for the dream world politics of liberalism/ progressivism/ socialism.  Of course if you ask them if they are liberals, they will deny it tooth and nail.

These are exactly the types of people we need to continue to inform, even if it ticks them off.  In the meantime, they will continue to complain that "I hate politics.  I hate that people don't get along.  I just want people to get along.  I want them to get along and compromise."

Yet what they don't realize is that the liberal definition of compromise is "do it my way."

Liberals don't want to compromise.  They only see the dream, the end goal, and so any other information, fact or other, is the antithesis of what they want to hear.

So they reject it tooth and nail.  They refuse to listen to your facts, because the truth hurts.

By telling them the truth, by educating them, you are in fact hurting their feelings.

And, lacking any political wisdom, this all makes sense.  So they continue to tune you out and get ticked when you try to educate them.

To them, global warming is not politics, it's science.  Even though science is based on educated guesses -- mankind is making the climate change --, they don't care. To them this is all fact.  They don't want to hear anything about the natural cycle of events, or the natural cycle of warming and cooling, warming and cooling, warming and cooling.

To them that's too complex to understand.  So when you tell them global warming is a hoax, they tell you that you are ignorant.  They tell you you are stupid and blind.  However, what they don't ever do is present you with facts to back up their statements because there are none.  They do not study politics, so how could they obtain facts.

So that brings me back to my point.  If they do not study politics, if they do not read the news, if they do not listen to the facts, if they do not search for the truth, then how can they take sides?  How could a person who hates politics, wants nothing to do with it, become a liberal, let alone a conservative?  It makes no sense to me?

How could a person who has never studied politics a day in his life tell me that I'm a racist and bigot because of my conservative views, when he has never studied politics, and probably has no clue what my argument is, or what my evidence is, because he refuses to listen to it.  He might hear it but he never listens to it.  

It's perplexing.

After the great mystery of the father, son and spirit, this might be the second biggest mystery of all time: why someone could become a liberal by default when they lack any knowledge at all about politics.

But it does make sense, because liberalism is based on a dream.  And when you compare a dream with reality, the dream will win out every time.

Liberalism is advanced one crisis at a time

Sometimes I wonder if the media, which by the way polls show votes by a 8-1 margin for democrats and liberals, simply creates stories to scare people.  They do this, I imagine, because fear sells.  It sells news, and it sells liberalism.

Well, if you think I'm nuts on this, allow me to give you a few examples.  Consider the war on poverty. Do you think it's called a "war" by coincidence.  Poverty in the U.S. was not any worse during the 1960s than it ever has been, but they trumped it up as a crisis for political gain.  Why? Because where there is a crisis there is a solution.  Where there is a solution, there is political gain to be made.

So democrats raised taxes to wage their war on poverty. They used this "crisis" as an excuse to get their agenda passed. Yet, as with most liberal policies, they create little train wrecks that cannot be fixed; they make things worse.  If you count the number of people in poverty after 50 years of the liberal war on poverty, there are more people in poverty today than when the so called war began.

Climate change is another crisis the democrats trumped up in order to sell their liberal agenda.  The media reports stories on a daily basis that try to blame every disaster on climate change.  The recent strain of Ebola in Africa is a perfect example.

You now have people trumping up fear that this disease will quickly spread across the United States, when there is no evidence that this will ever happen.  Yet they are now also blaming this spread, which hasn't happened, on man-made climate change.  Consider this article: "California Governor Jerry Brown: Climate Change Will Drive Millions of People North Over the Border."

Hurricane season is now upon us, and we are often taken to reporters sitting on the beach along the Atlantic coast with video feed of calm waters.  They are sitting their with their cameras so they can be the first to report the damage from a hurricane that hasn't even come into existence yet.

Or how about this trumped up headline: "Climate Change May Increase the Number of Hawaiian Hurricanes."  People buy into this, even though there is record cold weather all over the world. The winter of 2014 was perhaps the coldest since 1978, and the summer of 2014 also being one of the coolest ever.

Every time there is a heat wave in January democrats, the media, blame it on climate change. Of course, every time there is a cold front they blame that on climate change also.  Folks, there is no such thing as man-made climate change. Take care of the planet because it's the right thing to do, but don't do it out of fear. Fear results results in panic, and panic results in irrational decision making.  A perfect example of such an irrational result is regulations and tax hikes that destroy economies at the expense of some stupid pumped up myth that humans are destroying the planet.

School shootings are another perfect example.  It's a tragedy every time one occurs.  Yet it's not any worse today than it ever has.  The only reason it seems worse is because the media is reporting on every one, and even salivating when they occur.  They use these tragedies to advance their agenda, because every disaster needs a liberal solution.  Of course the solution in this case is anti-gun laws.

Or how about the reporting of every death in Iraq during the Iraq War.  They saw the war as republican politics, and they saw the U.S. as the bad guys in that war.  So every time a soldier died they had to remind us of this in order to make George Bush look like a terrible president and the War America's fault.  Yet what they don't say is that over 40,000 people died just preparing for D-Day.  I'm not trying to downplay military deaths, I'm just saying that the democrats trump of any crisis for political gain.

Just think of the words of Rham Emanuel as he said, "Every crises needs a solution."  What he really means is a liberal solution, as the only way to advance the liberal agenda is by one crisis at a time.

Don't agree. Well, consider the Great Depression.  Here we had more than half the nation unemployed, and so FDR took advantage of this real crisis to increase the scope of government.  Take the Great recession too, as Obama took advantage of it to increase, once again, the scope of government.