Posted by
Patrick Henry on Sunday, May 09, 2010 5:52:33 PM
At Denver's Democratic National Convention, the stage was set for Barack Obama's
coronation with a theater prop rendition of the Acropolis, complete with phony white
pillars and dais. The unsubtle message was that the Chosen One was about to ascend
to his rightful place in the pantheon of gods.
In the most delicious of ironies it is Greece, the paradigm socialist democracy that
is crashing and burning in the Aegean due to runaway entitlements, union controls,
profligate spending and national sloth that has produced an economy in complete
ruin. Lost in the fantasy that government can pay for everything, one can retire
before fifty and there is some kind of free lunch, Greeks are currently immersed in
the anarchy that always ensues when socialist governments inevitably run out of
other people's money. With the government's imminent financial collapse, and vast
losses of personal wealth, Greek loafers may have to forego their ouzo and go
back to work. Only they have few viable industries to offer them jobs. Their likely
future is widespread personal poverty, Draconian taxation and status as a permanent
debtor nation to the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
America's modern Democratic Party has warmly embraced the socialism of its
leader, Barack Obama. Long enamored of the philosopy, polls show that they have
even warmed up (or is it "owned up") to the term, with recent polling showing 71%
of Democrats comfortable with it. They stand on the cusp of creating their dream,
the ultimate entitlement society, with its tax-and-spend, government ownership
mentality and practices. While they bemoan the deficit and the national debt, they
continue contributing to it, touting just one more entitlement as a "human right" and
justifying just one more bailout because it is "an emergency." But even the densest
of them seems to realize that they are going to run out of other people's money
sooner rather than later. So Obama has created a so-called "Deficit Commission"
to consider a (No) Value Added Tax not INSTEAD of the current income and other
taxes, but IN ADDITION to them. Such lunacy is a mere poultice that will delay
the crash, but not avert it. You see, even the rich eventually run out of money.
Democrats have never been students of history. Where, in history, is there an
example of a truly successful socialist state? And please don't be so naive as to
point to Sweden, Norway and the like. As the price of their giveaway government
they have accepted an impotent national defense aparatus which, without the
protection of NATO and the U.S. would render them easy pickings for a determined
invader. Dependency always invites the loss of freedom. There is always China,
a totalitarian state where having more than one child is punishable by imprisonment.
Or there is Cuba, an isolated island without a free press or political liberty. Or
perhaps one would prefer North Korea, a hellhole where breathing places one
under suspicion of treason and the world's first Chia dictator pours all of the
country's wealth into more and more deadly weapons. Then there's Russia, and
it is simply redundant to go into what a failed experiment that was.
The point is that socialism is an illusion that does not work. In the same way that
one cannot be "a little bit pregnant," societies find that one small concession to the
socialists leads to another, and then another, until the government is totally in
charge of banks, companies, schools, media, wealth is channeled from those who
have earned it to favored political consituencies, fiscal discipline is thrown to the
winds and the downhill slide to financial oblivion and political anarchy is inevitable.
Zeus, Artemis, Aphrodite, Athene, Apollo, Hermes and the lot, were they not
mythical figments of the imagination, would no doubt have been mildly amused
at the Democrats' nominating charade in Denver. But they would be belly laughing
up the sleeves of their togas to watch the one so newly nominated to their ranks
leading the most powerful nation in the world like a lamb to slaughter down the
same path pursued by the utterly failed leadership of the nation that gave them
birth.