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America: The Land of the Dependent?

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Barack ObamaWell it is official, the Progressives, with the enthusiastic aid of Mr. Obama, have placed the American people on the single lane road towards the end of America as we have known it. Last week the Congressional Budget Office [C.B.O] issued the report that many of those economically attuned intuitively knew of Obamacare, that it would not only increase medical cost and increase the ranks of the uninsured, but also increase the ranks of the unemployed and incentivize the aversion to working and drive more citizens to become dependent on the government for a living. America will no longer be the land of the “free” but of the dependent. CNBC reported that the C.B.O “citing new estimates that the Affordable Care Act will cause a larger-than-expected reduction in working hours—eliminating the equivalent of about 2.3 million workers in 2021…the A.C.A will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 to 2 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor.” And to lay open the naked intellectually strained logic of the Administration, the immediate scripted response from Mr. O’s supporting cast was, as reported by Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, Gene Sperling, Obama’s top economic-policy adviser said, “When you have two parents and they’re both working full-time to provide health care and they don’t feel they’re there to do homework with their kids and this allows one of [them] to work a little less because they have health care, that’s not costing jobs,” Jason Furman, head of the Council of Economic Advisers, “said that the Act “couldn’t possibly be a job killer because 8.1 million jobs had been created since it became law…the report “is subject to misinterpretation, doesn’t take into account every factor, and there’s uncertainty and debate around it.” Congressman Van Hollen said “The Affordable Care Act does end that job lock”…“It allows Americans to choose to spend more time with their family or pursue their dreams.”Their reaction is like the fireman coming up to you, after sitting the fire to your home, telling you that since your house has burnt down you longer have to worry about cutting the grass or painting the shingles.

The government’s take over of over 5% of the nation’s economy in one such as ours that was specifically designed for it [the government] to be limited and unintrusive in the lives of the American citizen, coupled with the growing illiteracy amongst the populace regarding basic civics and the fundamental pillars upon which the nation have rested for more than 200 years, individual self-governance, an intellectually politically engaged/aware populace, and a government restrained by the first two pillars, spelled doom for the nation from the outset.

Like most Progressives of the past Mr. O claims to be looking out for the little man and the middle-class. But, in fact his policies work for the exact opposite benefit. According to the Heritage. Org. Report, Five Health Care Takeaways from C.B.O’s Report, “Spending for major health care programs will be nearly 5 percent of GDP [gross domestic product] in 2013, and such spending is projected to grow rapidly when provisions of [Obamacare] are fully implemented by mid-decade, reaching 6.2 percent of GDP in 2023.” Which means that the government will be siphoning more money out of the economy that could be used by the private sector and go into our pockets to spend as we chose. The Week.com reported in January, “according to Forbes, for a 40-year-old, the 2013 average deductible was $4,045, and the monthly cost increased 29 percent to $309…. a 64-year-old man, the monthly cost of a plan with a $3,494 deductible increased 64 percent to $806.” And it stated what should be instinctively obvious to everyone, “Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the nation’s GDP, although experts say that number is likely to decline.” Why? Because simply the money that used to circulate in the economy to buy night outs, trips, groceries, cars, and such, are now going to the government, via healthcare premiums. But with fewer hours available to be worked, less people wanting to work, less people will be freely spending money. And to dispel  a grossly false popular notion, the government can not produce wealth nor grow wealth.  It can only take from one pocket to put into that of another. The American middle class Median household income is lower than it was five years ago. Only the top 5 percent of households have seen their incomes rise under President Obama, according to Real Clear Politics.com.  So look for your standard of living to diminish greatly.

Adlai E. Stevenson, the 23rd Vice President of the United States, once said, “A hungry man is not a free man.” Even the most passive observer viewing the landscape of today’s America sees that freedom is on the endangered list. You see people literally existing paycheck to paycheck, more citizens receiving Food Stamps than a check from a job, that there is approx. over 91 Million citizens not working today, and that the U.S government’s debt has sky-rocketed over $6 Trillion under Obama’s reign. As stated in the 2013 Index of Dependence on Government, “America is increasingly moving away from a nation of self-reliant individuals, where civil society flourishes, toward a nation of individuals less inclined to practicing self-reliance and personal responsibility. Government programs not only crowd out civil society, but too frequently trap individuals and families in long-term dependence, leaving them incapable of escaping their condition for generations to come.” If a man is solely concentrated on his stomach or where or how he is going to live, he is far less concerned of the chains that being placed about his ankles.

Contrary to popular appearances, it’s not all about Mr. Obama. He’s just the man who is the face of these disastrous economic policies.  He’s the man who unlike any prior man to sit in the seat of the President of the United States has no true sentimental reservation to completely reform the very psychology of a nation that used to be grounded in Christendom, a nation that used to believe inevitably in the value of hard work, and a nation that strove to be exceptional to all others. Today we are a nation more religiously secular, a more dependent-minded people than ever, and more of a feminist culture that looks to be coddled and protected, even at the expense of everything that we as Americans once held dearest – freedom.

America unlike any other nation was not wired to be socialists, communists, nor regardless of popular notions, a democracy. Government security was never meant to be the surrogate to one’s personal responsibilities. The promised Republican form of government was meant to rely on the free-minded liberties of the individual. Not of the collective. And certainly not to rely on the benevolence of the government. But, as more and more of us have chosen to surrender our responsibilities to govern ourselves accordingly, the government has taken the opportunity to relieve us of that burden.

The government is a reflection of us. We as a nation have come to this point not within a matter of days, months, but generations. We as individuals have become unwilling to take responsibilities for our bad choices, both personally and financially. So the government reflects our behavior. The passage of the Affordable Care Act [Obamacare] was passed into law by the Democratic Party majority of both houses of the Congress. The majority of the nations citizens re-elected the man who was and is the face of it to be President – Mr. Obama. And the Progressives, on both sides of the isle, have worked to keep government expanding more and more, with only a vague genuine protest from the majority of the electorate.  This is the consequence of a Democracy, where in the wake of the mis-guided actions of the majority, it is often the freedoms and liberties of the minority.  In a Democracy where the majority wishes to forsake the burden of personal responsibility, the end has been revealed to us by history; “In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all — security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”, said Edward Gibbon, 1700’s English historian, and author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Eventually the dues will have to be paid by us all.

Can Anarchy Be Far In America When The U.S Government Blatantly Disregards The Rule of Law With Impunity?

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“No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law…”1800’s French political economist and author of The Law Frederic Bastiat

As I look at futuristic movies, such as Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and The Book of Eli, I always notice two apparent ingredients; there’s little or no moral integrity amongst the people and they have little or no respect for the rule of law. In short there’s a breakdown in social order. As I continually witness the federal Administration either unilaterally change laws to suit its agenda or blatantly subverting or ignoring its own laws and the Constitution with seemingly no or little care of retribution – either politically or from the citizenry, and the subsequent subconscious or conscious reaction by the American people to begin themselves ignoring and or subverting laws and customs of our society, the question that one must ask how far is all out lawless?

obama tears constitutionThe most recent acts by the U.S Administration, via the Democratically dominated Senate, is to unilaterally make the vote of those represented by Senate Republicans virtually irrelevant with the so-called “Nuclear Option” in order to get Mr. O’s controversial judicial appointments through. And then the Administration decides in order to help the chances of the Democrats in the 2014 Elections, Mr. O decides to once again moves a deadline in the Affordable Care Act, i.e, Obamacare. This time he moves the deadline for employers to become compliant with Obamacare from the first of 2014 to the first of 2015. In October he unilaterally moved the deadline for individuals to have signed up for coverage for Obamacare from February to March. But the Affordable Care Act was signed into law nearly 3 years ago! It is law! Signed, sealed, and delivered! How is it that he can just wake up and change it, whether it be for political reasons, or any other, without any input from Congress? The answer…because Congress and the people of America and the United States allow him to. Can you imagine the shit storm that would have come about if Reagan or G.W would have in any way sought to alter their tax cuts to benefit Republicans and make themselves look better? It would have been UUUUGLY!

I am not saying that Mr. O is the first President or government official to play loose with the implementation of our laws, but no president has done it so brazenly. And with Mr. O, there has been deafening silence and or quiet acquiescence by the Establishment Media and the Elite Republicans. But lets not forget other laws that proved to be not worth enforcing by the nation’s head Executive:

Mediaiet.com reported a December 3, 2013 congressional committee hearing, constitutional limits imposed on the presidency and the implications of President Barack Obama’s disregard for implementing the Affordable Care Act as written, one expert testified that the consequences of the president’s behavior were potentially grave. He said that the precedent set by Obama could eventually lead to an armed revolt against the federal government.  Lets not forget that Mr. O, as all presidents have done, swore an oath to that he would faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. I don’t see any ambiguity here.

An argument can be said the law is truth. If law is supposed to be the truth and the highest enforcer and defender of the truth/law willfully ignores or circumvents it and or its process, then it [the law/truth] must be a lie/not lawful. Right?

The psychological effects of witnessing the highest seat of power in our nation blatantly and repeatedly disregarding his oath to execute laws with impunity helps to decrease trust in the nation’s government, not and trust in our neighbors as well. We are observing an Administration on a mission to initiate legalized plunder, transferring from one group of citizens – whether it be rights, privileges, property, or wealth – to another citizen like no other man to sit in the seat of the Presidency, even at the expense of America’s future prosperity. And he is doing this right in front of our stunned and bewildered eyes with barely a hint of genuine opposition visible. Frederic Bastiat described legal plunder to be, “Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”

When the chief Executive of our nation is allowed to choose what laws to enforce, what Constitutional provisions to adhere to, do we truly have law? If the government allows people to stay in our country illegally and grant them benefits that are prohibited to our own citizens, how can we say that is right? If the government decides to change the definition of what marriage is, therefore violating the very principles and customs upon which this nation has long rested without any true justification, other than political, how can we say that is right? If we can not trust the highest law enforcer and executive to respect and enforce our laws, who can we turn to honestly enforce our laws? How can we tell our children that honesty, being truthful, and being of good character are of the of highest moral traits when they openly see dishonesty and moral debauchery being so richly rewarded? Should we be truly surprised when we hear even the youngest of our citizens disrespecting authority or grounds that prior generations would dare to tread? And at what point should we no longer look for the government to protect us or be honest with us? Movies such as Mad Max do not have to be depictions of our nation’s future…unless we choose for it to be.