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Are We Truly All Socialist Now: Review Of The First 2016 Democrat Socialist Debate

GTY_sanders_clinton2_ml_151014_16x9t_240A February 16, 2009 Newsweek cover page prophetically read, “We Are All Socialist Now”. It ushered in the election Barack Obama as the president of the United States. In retrospect , it should have had an exclamation mark at the end of the statement. They seemed to have foreseen what many of us only had nightmares of. Unfortunately not the majority of us.

Last week at their first debate to decide who would be their Party’s choice to lead the nation for the next 4 years, the Democrats had their chance to sit at the grown-ups table to express their vision of the nation. But all they could do is demand for more candy and ice cream, without ever mentioning how to pay for it, but knew it would not be them. Their basic theme centered around the notion of the so-called haves verses the so-called have nots, i.e., increasing the minimum wage or giving illegal immigrants “free” education and citizenship, growing government, i.e., giving everyone “free” education and taxing the “rich”, and restricting personal liberties, i.e., barring lawful citizens from acquiring guns.  Not one of the issues they harped on addresses what the majority of Americans rate as even relatively important.  There was no resemblance of Democrat President John Kennedy’s mantra, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.”  The words Constitution, freedom, self-responsibility, and God were seemingly banished, as well.

According to a recent Rasmussen Poll, a whopping 69% of Americans believe that the nation is headed in the wrong direction. Overall, approximately 35% of Americans see the economy as important [General Economy-13%, Jobs/Unemployment-9%, & the Federal Debt-3%]. And approximately 70% view “non-economic” issues as important [ Dissatisfaction with of government topping the list at 14%, Immigration/Illegal-Aliens-6%, and Ethics/Moral/Religious Decline-5%], according to Gallop.com. As the Democrat President wannabes demonstratively championed the need for more government power taking the guns away from law-abiding citizens and expanding entitlements, a poll taken by Gallop tells us that 6 out of 10 Americans believe that government already has too much power.

One has to keep in mind that when Democrat politicians talk about growing government they are not talking to America at-large, but to its minority base. According to a recent Gallop Poll, nearly 60% of those identifying themselves as Democrats favor an expanded government role in their lives, i.e., more welfare, more of a nanny state, more socialistic policies from government. It is not the desire of the majority of Americans.  It is just that it is the base of the Dems that are creating the most noise and disturbance that’s garnering them the most attention.

Under Democrat President Obama’s Administration the poverty role has skyrocketed by a staggering 13 million citizens. And ever since Democrat President Lyndon Johnson engaged the federal government in the so-called war on poverty over some 50 years ago, the poverty rate has only dropped from 19% to 15%. In a recent Census Report, an astonishing 1 out 3 American families are considered the “working poor”. Many of them are Black and of Latin descent. Prime voter targets for Democrats politicians. Remember it was Democrat House majority Leader, and former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi who made the asinine statement, “unemployment benefits remain one of the best ways to grow the economy in a very immediate way.” Can you imagine if a Republican made such an intellectually insulting statement remaining in any high political regard? Anything that the government gives to one citizen, it has taken from another. Only private enterprise can grow the economy.

The notion of “Big Brother” and bigger government is better government is not only held by politicians with a “D” after their names. This ideology is closely associated with that of Progressives. Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, was the first Progressive. Many can effectively argue that former Presidents Nixon, H.W and G.W Bush were also Republican Progressives. G.W expanded government to make Teddy blush.

Americans are not organically compatible with the ideals nor principles of Socialism nor Communism, of which the Democrat party is closely intertwined, according to theDailyCaller.com, or Progressivism. We can be conditioned to accept it under extreme duress due to increased cost of living and stagnant/declining wages, psychological manipulation via an unchecked Media Complex, and a government educational system that teaches more of how to place a condom on a cucumber and how everyone is “equal”, rather than the 7 Sciences and the true roles of government and the people in a Constitutional Republic. That is why you don’t hear honest talk of improving the nation’s economy and the standard of living, decreasing the burden of government, or applying high moral standards to governmental policies from Democrats nor Republican Progressives. That is how they get their power. This is how they stay in power.

It was 1930’s-40’s Socialist Presidential Candidate Norman Thomas who infamously said, “The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

It is only when the true grown up majority demand the nation drastically cut sweets and consume more veggies.  That those who know that real strength and prosperity comes from high personal responsibility, high moral values, and limited government, as our Founders desired, are no longer muted, muffled and restrained will this nation achieve its true greatness. At the end of the day, it is up to us to determine our destiny.

Loss of Moral Compass Is The Root of America’s Decline

I had a discussion with a friend the other day about the Presidential Election and how so many of her friends who are devout Democrats, but are not into the apparent growing entitlement mindset.  When I attempted to explain that people such as her friends who unabashedly embrace this new extreme political liberalism, and progressivism, would be shouted down as bleeding Communist and or un-American just 30 or 40 years ago and would have not dared to let such expressions be uttered publically.  This ever growing notion that everything bad that happens to someone is the fault of someone else, that if someone goes through life making bad decisions they can then look to take the wealth and benefits of those who have made good life decisions, and that the government, in particularly the federal government,  should do for someone which they chose to not do for themselves, i.e. provide them healthcare, retirement, or education, is relatively a new state of mind that has taken nearly 60 years. Since the “New Deal” and the “Great Society” enactments, governmental-paternalism and the relinquishment of all personal accountability and responsibility has now become generally accepted by a great number of Americans.

Today Americans actually view Socialism and Communism favorably; some preferably, to American Capitalism.  We have more Americans on Welfare and receiving some form of government assistance to meet basic living needs.  This would have been intellectually repugnant to Americans in my grandparent’s day.  But when one lives in a time when the notion of absolutes-that there are limits on one’s behavior and conduct- and traditional Americanism, such as a belief in God, love of this country, devotion to the family and union between a man and a woman, you have the right to what you earn, and respect for elders, is viewed as radical and cruel, what is there to stop the slide into the social moral abyss where everything and anything is acceptable?

As recently as last year a NY Times article by David Brooks stated  of an eminent Notre Dame sociologist’s  research of some  230 young adults from across America, “The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste. “It’s personal,” the respondents typically said. ‘It’s up to the individual. Who am I to say?’ I think that this type of attitude expressed sums up what a critical situation our nation is in morally.  This notion that one’s actions and behavior is strictly a matter of individual taste or choice is the genesis of this anti-judgment culture – where no one is allowed to judge someone else based on their actions.  Particularly if those actions result in negative consequences.  But, when those actions go astray, it is someone else who is the blame and who has to bear the cost of it.

What this mentality does is stifle and repress all critical discussions, constructive criticism, and any attempt for correction. The negative effects that may come from someone’s actions and the consequences thereof matters little when it comes to how it makes the individual feel.  If a woman wants to have 10 children, with no man in the home, no one else can judge because it’s a matter of her personal choice.  If an ethnic group chooses to wear their pants down below their rear ends and act in a perpetually angry and self-destructive manner, no one else can judge because it’s a matter of their personal choice.  If someone choses to only read romance novels and the sports pages, and only watch entertainment type productions on TV, therefore leaving them totally ignorant about issues that truly can affect  his or her life positively, no one else can judge because it’s a matter of their personal choice.   And if people chose not to prepare financially, spend more than they can themselves afford, and simply seeks to exist off of the labor, property, or benefit of others, no one else can judge because it’s a matter of their personal choice.  If our culture begins to simply be about the “Me” and now, not taking into account what the effects may be on the surrounding social environment today and in the future, no one else can judge because it’s a matter of their personal choice.  It’s all good.  Right?

Morality is defined as “the rightness or wrongness of something as judged by accepted moral standards.”  This great nation’s Christian foundation isn’t written in stone, no more than English being our official language.  It was presumed to be eternally self-evident through our actions and societal standards.  The very principle of taking from one American based on their wealth to give to another simply based on their lack thereof, by force via the government, used to be totally unacceptable in this nation.  Right and wrong behavior used to be more clearly identifiable as measured by our Biblical foundation.  And as a community of individuals we use to feel that it was our right to speak out on behaviors and actions that we thought to be out of line or inappropriate based on our foundation.

But those days seem to be going the way of the 8-Track Tape Player and the 18 year old virgin.  The people of the United States today have become a nation of no apparent standards, no absolutes. Where nearly anything and everything goes or can be excused.  Christianity is under constant assault in the nation and marginalized as to not offend other religions.  Ethics are on the decline amongst the young.  And Socialism is no long a four letter work culturally, as evident by the re-election of a man whom espouses nothing but a Marxist ideology of wealth redistribution and the dismantling of America’s fundamental base of individual responsibility and self-governance.  So with such a man as the face of America, his America appears to be the new norm.  One that is in decay and decline.

But, at the end of the day it comes down to what we as a nation of free-minded individuals are willing to accept morally.  What are we to accept as right and wrong, good and bad?  Does the question any longer matter?  Alexis de Tocqueville said once about America greatness, “America is great because America is good. If America ever ceases to be good it will cease to be great.”  It is up to us to choose.