8 GOP Soon-to-be Ex-Representatives

Photoshop credit: Leo Alberti

H/T to Michelle Malkin for posting this.

“At a moment like this, the last thing we can afford is four more years of the tired, worn-out, old theory that…prosperity trickles down…” –Barak Obama

Sadly, we now know President Obama meant it when he embarked on the path of the greatest wealth destruction in history.

I have witnessed the cruel consequences of callous governmental control across the world and its devastating effects on every day workers and their families. As a young missionary for the Mormon Church in Peru I witnessed many things I care not to remember…only now I feel I must recount them to serve as a warning to the ever increasing governmental intrusion into our lives.

Peru is a desperately poor country. I served among the poorest people who lived in crowded slums which smelled like a mixture of the sewer and the dump–because there were no facilities for either. Living conditions were abysmal. Day after day throngs of desperate men waited in the town square hoping someone would give them a dollar or two for a day of back-breaking labor. To “control” food prices, the government instituted price controls–snitching neighbors ensured compliance.

I vividly remember walking through the Peruvian market places and seeing the bright blue and red labeling on bags of rice, “USDA, For Food Assistance Programs Only, Not for Sale.” The poor built their homes by mixing adobe bricks with their bare feet in the stifling heat–with water carried in from town on their backs. Many sold a day’s toil for a day’s worth of USDA donated rice and oil. Astonishingly, I witnessed entire containers of donated USDA Food Aid left to rot on the docks as no one would pay the required bribes to the local officials to unload the containers–all while children nearby went hungry.

One day we met a man who was ecstatic he had been able to purchase some empty 5 gallon USDA oil cans to make a door for his home. Seeing his plight, I offered to help him build his door. We gathered the ubiquitous beer bottle caps from the ground, then drove a used nail through the bottle cap. The bottle cap then served as a crude washer–to help prevent the can from tearing off the nail as ever present thieves tried to steal what meager belongings were inside the home. I pried open those USDA oil cans, flattened them out, and used a rock to nail those cans to a crude wooden frame so that man could have a door on his home. I will never forget the welcome sign on that humble man’s door: “USDA, For Food Assistance Programs Only…Not For Sale.”

Did fixed prices and massive governmental intrusion lift those destitute people from their despair? No, it didn’t. I know, for I lived and worked among those suffering people. I came to realize the government was not the answer to our problems. I came to believe, we don’t need the government to take care of us; we need to take care of each other.

Ironically, the “tired, worn-out, old theory” of trickle-down-economics is actually quite new. It was born when 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence and then defended it with their blood. They boldly proclaimed to the world they were free to produce, free to give, free to pursue their own happiness, and free from the confiscation of their wealth by looters and tyrants.

The old, bankrupt theory here is Obama’s. For thousands of years kings and rulers have looted their subjects. Then, the productive hid their greatest wealth–their minds–from the asphyxiating greed of those in power; thus, impoverishing all and creating a stagnate world of despair. Poverty will never be banished by turning everyone into beggars. I have seen the disease of wealth destruction–masquerading as wealth redistribution; it inevitably metastasizes into trickle-down despair.

Socialism is argued by some to be a means for providing for everyone. How’s that working out for the people of Peru? In a recent debate, questions like this were answered with, “That’s not Socialism.” Yeah, it’s only Socialism if it works. Since it hasn’t ever worked, we can keep holding out the idyllic, Utopian vision without ever having to account for any failures.

Planned Economy or Planned Destruction?

We are apparently pursuing the same, stupid policies that the Progressives did during the Great Depression. Is there anyone out there who believes it will end up differently?

It demonstrates something we already know–that Obama hasn’t got a clue about running an economy and should simply let the market work. Of course we also already know he can’t do that, for two main reasons: 1) he’s a socialist and, therefore, 2) he is far too committed to his position, and his arrogance will not permit him to admit he’s wrong.

My wife picked up on that attitude in his press conference the other day. Did you notice how he said they were going to try new things, and if they don’t work, they’ll just keep trying? Rather than just leaving things alone to be worked out by the people.

Socialism and Environmentalism are a dangerous mix. Socialists think they can plan the economy, which is bad enough. But when you add overzealous obsession with the environment to the planning, you get all kinds of mischief, poor planning, and failed policies.

I read a story on KSL’s web site dealing with the economy. The comments were a mix of conservative, liberal and moderate posts. The most troubling posts were by rabid liberals who refuse to see what is so obviously right in front of them every day in the news.

Barak Obama is now being criticized for his economic policies by people who were once his supporters, people who see what is happening to the economy, and who rightly understand that this is not solely the fault of George W. Bush.

But some of the comments were written by people who hate George W. Bush, Republicans, and Conservatives so deeply that they refuse to see how Obama has not only failed to turn back the economic policies that began this debacle, but he has actually enhanced and enlarged the scope of the damage with his own socialist policies.

One poster in particular caught my attention. He was posting anonymously, of course, so I don’t know who he was, which is very convenient when you want to avoid criticism.

This person insisted that Obama’s policies were not affecting the economy that badly, that it was Pres. Bush’s fault for not putting a stop to the problem when he had the chance, and attempted to disguise the truth by focusing on the definitions of “deficit” and “debt.” More specifically, he claimed that Obama had not added to the debt, but instead had introduced a larger deficit which would eventually lower the debt. He mentioned that he was an accountant, which he relied upon as his expertise.

Now, if I had an accountant like that, I’d fire him. According to Michael Boskin, an economics professor at Stanford University, Barak Obama has added more to America’s debt than all former U.S. Presidents combined. Those are demonstrable facts, facts Mr. Anonymous Accountant refuses to acknowledge.

While this is admittedly an anecdotal example, it is the rule rather than the exception. Across these message boards, Liberals are in denial about the effects that “Obamanomics” will have on America now and in the future. And some are even embracing the possibilities. Sadly, I don’t think this is accidental. There is a quote commonly attributed to FDR, “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens you can bet it was planned that way.” Whether he actually said that or not, the principle rings true. Americans have been groomed by the Media and by Liberal educuational institutions to accept and follow a leader like Obama, even if it means the end of America as we now know it. And I believe that has been the hope and the aim of the American Left for a long time.

Glenn is prophetic.

Do the right thing, and vote.

I voted Jason Chaffetz for US Congress in Utah’s Third District. I think it’s time for a change, and I’m not talking about the empty change-for-the-sake-of-change that Obama wants. I mean substantive change.

Chris Cannon has served Utah reasonably well, but he now seems to have picked up whatever germ has infested Washington DC that causes our public servants to become arrogant and cocky, to rise up against the people and take an attitude of “I know better than you.”

Jason’s positions more closely match my own, as does his feelings on the immigration question. Leaving in place the incentives that cause people to come here illegally, only to be caught up in the web of deceit laid by our leaders wherein these people cannot lift themselves out of poverty is wrong. We are a country that has prided itself on the equality of opportunity. But these people are shut out of that opportunity cycle by their legal status. The solution is not to make categorical changes to their status, but to encourage them to come to America the right way, in accordance with the law. Luring them here with promises of free health care, better income, whatever, is an evil that must be abolished.

Both Jason Chaffetz and Glenn Beck have rightly named this the new slavery–a community of non-citizens upon which our economy supposedly hangs. That argument was wrong during the revolution, and it is wrong now.

Get out and vote.