Posted on 10/02/2008 6:51:51 AM PDT by Hillary'sMoralVoid
It was no surprise that my son plans to vote for Obama. He's been veering left throughout his college years. We had a rather heated discussion about Obama on the phone. I told him that Obama was a socialist. His response was "maybe a little socialism won't hurt". Here is my written response.
Dear Son,
When we discussed Barack Obama and I said he was a socialist, I remember that you responded that "maybe a little socialism won't hurt."
We are now in the midst of an economic crisis of global proportions, the results of which will impact much of your life and perhaps even your children's lives.
This is the result of a "little socialism". Community activists, like Barack Obama and Jesse Jackson, with the help of groups like ACORN, pressured banks into giving favorable loans to minorities in blighted areas of urban America. The banks did one of two things, they either closed the targeted branch, or complied and lost money.
This pattern continued through the 1990s and became more and more insideous. Loan amounts were increased, qualification standards were relaxed, down payments were eliminated. Things became so loose that even illegal immigrants were receiving loans with little down payment or proof of income.
This was done in the name of social engineering, trying to increase minority home ownership to people who clearly couldn't afford it. In short, govenment making decisions that market should make, in short, socialism.
The "CEO's" of Freddie Mac and Fannie May received higher bonuses the more loans they gave, so they had a financial incentive to make more loans. Two execs, Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, raked in over $100M in personal bonuses between them. They were fired for cooking the books and overstating financial health of their organizations, a'la Enron. They both are now advisors to the Obama campaign.
Over the years, the Republicans have called for more regulation and oversight of Fannie/Freddie, Bush pushed for it over ten times. McCain co-authored legislation to that effect. The Democrats were incredibly protective, fighting off any oversight, despite all the warning signs of problems.
Perhaps it was the contributions. Obama is the top recipient of Fannie/Freddie political contributions in the last three years, with the top recipients being overwhlemingly democrats.
Since controlling congress the democrats have covered for the abuses, and have tried to deflect blame to the banks involved with the loans. It's quite remarkable that they would cite greed of the banking industry for getting involved in high-risk, low-profit loans. In fact, the banks became involved out of political correctness as well as some political coercion and cronyism. One of the early banks in the sub-prime mess was Bear-Stearns, one of the first to fail.
I know that you were delighted to see Ken Lay of Enron go to jail and so was I. The cost of the Fannie/Freddie scandal is already over ten times that of Enron, just for the United States, and is likely to end out costing us more than double that. Mom and I have lost a lot of our retirement savings because of this scandal.
Now we have a bailout plan that doesn't fix the core problem of sub-prime loans. A criminal investigation is underway from the U. S. Attorney's office on Freddie and Fannie. How far will that go with the democrats in control? (If you like conspiracy theories, there are many who think that former New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer was set up in the callgirl scandal because he was getting too close to too many important people in Washington.)
So why am I so fearful of socialism? Why did I make a career of fighting it? How much can a little socialism hurt?
Love, Dad
You and your spouse sound like incredibly good parents. The cost of college education is very high. It might be difficult for them to earn over $150K to pay for it, but it sounds like you are prepared and will show them “grace” if they cannot quite meet the “law”. God bless you!
Thank you for the alternative site! I bookmarked it as well, because it is just that important of a message.
Tatt
HMV...That is a great, great letter. Well written.
We have a 20 year old, he’s very conservative, but so are all his friends. I think peers play a huge role in shaping their opinion at that age.
Our son enrolled in a private business U, doing graduate work, and his profs are even picking apart Obama. He thinks it’s hilarious that the Economics prof and the Finance prof are lecturing to the students exactly what Obama’s plans will do to the economy, because the Obama supporters in the class have no defense against their arguments.
I think that in his experience, his profs in his undergrad business major, and now in his grad school experience have been more conservative than liberal. He now wants to discuss tax plans, and economic issues...I’m really glad he decided to go the business school route (he had headed out as a math major)...because he’s had real world examples of business in his classes and it has made him much more aware of the role politics plays on current events, both economical and societal.
How about Beleze sp?
Tell your son to have fun paying back medicare and Social security. That’s right, Hussein doesn’t believe in private ownership of accounts for SS. If your son balks at that, well...I guess you can pray.
I need to do this:
FW: Dad
From: His college student
He believes Obama would be better.
How about...Dear Son,
ROTS OF RUCK...Your mom and I sold our house and have bought a home Far off and Island of Hawaii with a few of our Freeper friends....SEE YA!
OH BY THE WAY THE BILL FOR YOUR EDUCATION IS ON THE TABLE....HAVE YOUR FRIEND OBAMA...HELP YOU WITH THAT!
And after Nazism destroyed Europe and Germany, you could not find a German anywhere who admitted to being a Nazi.
Mark my words...so it will be with socialism and socialists. What is that proverb...”Success has many fathers....”
I said, “Welcome to the real world, sweetie....”
Haha yeah...my girlfriend just graduated from law school a little over a year ago, worked as a briefing attorney for the court for a year, then went into private practice. She never was left-leaning, but when she saw her paycheck go from the 25% tax bracket to the 33% tax bracket...let's just say she knew how she would be voting for the next 60 years...
Also, I told her to consider that (effectively) 25% of her earnings go to Uncle Sam, so the first 15 minutes of every hour she works for free...well she didnt like that concept much either!
I have three sons ages 26, 21 and 20.
My eldest two were conservative going into collge and remain so. I had concerns about my youngest. He went to college a little more opened minded than my other two. I think he got tired of hearing me voicing my opion about the left. I am proud to say after hearing the idiot voices of the left on the collge campuses he is now firmly seated in his conservative values.....
My eldest two were conservative going into college and remain so. I had concerns about my youngest. He went to college a little more opened minded than my other two. I think he got tired of hearing me voicing my opinion about the left. I am proud to say after hearing the idiot voices of the left on the college campuses he is now firmly seated in his conservative values.....
Grace is a most precious gift that we extend and teach them to as well. What is really incredible is that they both can, and have, shared with their classmates (yes public school) the foundation of communism and the dangers that is creates. And they are also very generous with their time and their money. We are very blessed that the Lord has his hand on their lives, minds, and hearts. God bless you too!
bookmark
SHHH.
oh and be sure to tell him what “Nazi” is short for:
National Socialist German Workers’ Party
You may download it for free using bittorent.
EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!
Excellent letter. Another point you could have added is the "Social Security Trust Fund" - which is nothing more thana record of how much money the government has taken in taxes under the pretext of funding Social Security but has frittered away, leaving you son's generation to redeem the government's IOU if Social Security is to pay out to your generation.
The SSTF is actually much bigger than this current financial scandal, by far. When you get to talking about trillions of dollars, you are actually talking about things that are substantial enough to fight wars over; the whole Iraq war hasn't cost a trillion dollars yet. Please God, we won't breakdown of civility and a constitutional crisis over this - but the tendency of ACORN runs exactly in that direction if Obama loses - or indeed if he wins and overplays his (ACORN's) hand.
Wow!! Atleast you still have open communication with your son. If i EVER became a lib, my mother would disown me...seriously!
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