"There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses…now is not that time. And that's a message that I intend to send directly to them…"

Those words were uttered by our President on January 29th of 2009. He was reacting to the news that some American corporations, even some that had received government “bailout” funds, had both posted profits, and had paid bonuses to their executives.

And those were extraordinary words. They implied that, so far as President Obama is concerned, there are times when it is appropriate for American companies to not earn a profit, and times when it is appropriate for workers to not be compensated for their labor.

And now, after twenty months of our government’s policies being driven by Barack Obama’s very counterintuitive economic thinking, and with the national unemployment average approaching ten percent, I’m left wondering: is this what our President intended?

These days, Mr. Obama is saying some very different things. Speaking at the University of Texas at Austin earlier this month, the President stated that “we need an economy that puts Americans back to work, an economy that's built around three simple words -- Made in America…because we are not playing for second place. We are the United States of America, and like the Texas Longhorns, you play for first -- we play for first…”

Some twenty months in to his presidency, Barack Obama apparently feels it is necessary to reassure Americans that he still wants a robust U.S. economy, and that he actually wants America to be “first” (we still are “first,” by the way – but that’s beside the point). It’s not surprising that Americans have doubts about our President’s support of America, but again I’m left wondering: is this what President Obama intended?

For as long as Barack Obama has been a household name, he has devoted much of his time and energy to maligning American free enterprise. While campaigning for the presidency, Senator Obama traversed the country preaching, among other things, his economic doctrines. And the recurrent themes from these economic messages were quite clear: A) our nation’s greatest enemies were not terrorists or hostile nations, but American corporations; B) American oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and businesses that “shipped jobs overseas,” were among the worst fenders; and C) victory over these enemies would not be achieved until he, himself, could control these various sectors of our economy.

Recall that in 2008, global oil prices spiked upward, creating a sharp rise in gasoline prices, and candidate Obama’s “solution” to the problem of four dollar-a-gallon gasoline was to raise taxes on oil companies.

Anyone with the most limited appreciation of free market economics knows that raising taxes on product producers doesn’t lead to a lower price on the product (producers pass along the cost of the tax to their consumers by adding it into the pricing of their product). But lowering the cost of gasoline wasn’t necessarily Senator Obama’s goal, given that the other part of his “plan” was to use the revenue taken from the oil companies in the form of a “tax increase” to give “working Americans” a “voucher” that they could use for oil and gasoline purchases.

Candidate Obama’s plan was perhaps to make gasoline and oil purchases more affordable in some instances, but not universally and not in all instances. What Obama was proposing was a means of increasing governmental control over the private sector economy and over private citizens’ lives – and no doubt Mr. Obama himself would be happy to decide who really qualifies as a real “working American” and who was therefore deserving of a special “voucher.”

Fortunately, global oil prices subsided, and Obama’s chatter about raising taxes on oil companies did too. But since becoming our President, Barack Obama has continued to do things that work against economic growth and expansion, yet help advance his control over the economy.

Bailouts for car companies? Barack Obama is the de facto CEO for General Motors and Chrysler these days, because, essentially, “they owe him,” and he can tell “them” who will be CEO, what products they will make, and so forth.

Bailouts for lending institutions? Our President and his friends in his Administration can dictate to banks who they will and will not lend to, and who deserves and does not deserve “help” with their mortgage.

This control dynamic escapes many presumably smart people in our national media. Some in the financial media have been shocked that Obama’s alleged “economic recovery” appears to have stalled. And New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, a frequent critic of President Obama, recently lamented that Obama appears to be an “incoherent President,” noting that he’s “with the banks,” then “he’s against the banks….he strains at being a populist, but his head is in the clouds…”

Yet there is nothing “incoherent” about Barack Obama. He is consistent with his quest for control. Our President has demonstrated that, for him, it’s not about being “for” or “against” “the banks,” or “Wall Street,” or “Main Street” – it’s about seizing power over private affairs, and he will achieve that power by what ever means necessary.

Slumping economy or not, the truth is abundantly clear: our President is achieving precisely what he intended.

A German’s View of Islam

This is by far the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this email is said to be Dr. Emanuel Tanya, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist.

A German’s View on Islam

A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. ‘Very few people were true Nazis,’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.’

We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.

The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ‘silent majority,’ is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts—the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on - before it’s too late.

I am not sure about the accuracy of the author, but it mirrors my sentiments.

""There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses…now is not that time. And that's a message that I intend to send directly to them…" . . . .
"And those were extraordinary words. They implied that, so far as President Obama is concerned, there are times when it is appropriate for American companies to not earn a profit, and times when it is appropriate for workers to not be compensated for their labor. . . . .
"These days, Mr. Obama is saying some very different things. Speaking at the University of Texas at Austin earlier this month, the President stated that “we need an economy that puts Americans back to work, an economy that's built around three simple words -- Made in America…because we are not playing for second place. We are the United States of America, and like the Texas Longhorns, you play for first -- we play for first…”

The writer of this article does not allow that, to the mind of a committed and arrogant "government planner," these two statements are not mutually exclusive. Such a "planner" believes he has the wisdom and power, by his own might, to direct such an economy and its people.

The problem is that no amount of "planning" by arrogant, imperfect persons in positions of power in government can accomplish what free people, acting individually, each in his/her own interest, can accomplish to create opportunity and prosperity for a society.

Clearly, reading Mao, Marx and Lenin did nothing to incline nor inform the mind of this President toward liberty.

Adam Smith, the moral philosopher, whose "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," would have been a far better choice of reading for a future President of the U. S.

Exposure to Smith and the ideas of the brilliant geniuses who framed our Declaration of Independence and Constitution might have enlightened him as to how the free people of America, living in the wilderness and using ancient axes and hoes, in just decades, began to produce goods and services benefitting the entire world (see Edmund Burke's "Speech on Conciliation," preceding the American Revolution, for documentation of the colonists' economic progress to that early date).

What current generations may not know is that this kind of "planning" and "redistribution" was tried and failed in America before!

If the American citizenry is awakened to the kinds of facts discusssed above, and if they will go back and review the philosophy of the Framers of the U. S. Constitution, they may perhaps begin to understand how America became the symbol of liberty, opportunity and prosperity for millions throughout the world. The following essay, is reprinted with permission.

The Miracle of America

from

axes and hoes to high technology;

log cabins to air-conditioned condos;

horsedrawn wagons to autos, planes, and rockets;

scarcity to abundance; &

from tyrannical government rule to individual liberty

HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN?

Most of our history books don’t tell us that, in the beginning, the pilgrims established a communal economic system. Each was to produce according to his ability and contribute his production to a common storehouse from which each was to draw according to his need.

The assurance that they would be fed from the common store, regardless of their contribution to it, had a peculiarly disabling effect on the colonists. Taking property away from some and giving it to others bred discontent and retarded employment. Human nature was the same then as now, and before long, there were more consumers than there were producers, and the pilgrims were near starvation. Governor Bradford, his advisors, and the colonists agreed that in order to increase their crops, each family would be allowed to do as it pleased with whatever it produced. In other words, a free market system was established. In Governor Bradford’s own words:

“This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corne was planted than other waise would have bene by any means ye Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deall of trouble, and gave farr better contente. The women now wente willingly into ye field, and tooke their little-ons with them to set corne, which before would aledg weaknes, and inabilitie; whom to have compelled would have bene though great tiranie and oppression. . . . By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed. . . . and some of ye abler sort and more industrious had to spare, and sell to others, so as any generall wante or famine hath not been amongst them since this day . . . .” (Wm. Bradford, “Of Plimoth Plantation,” original manuscript, Wright & Potter, Boston, 1901)

Those who, today, favor central government planning, common ownership and redistribution of the earnings of others are advocating a system that Americans tried and rejected over 350 years ago. Their wisdom gave birth to the great American miracle!

(This message originally published in the mid-1980’s by Stedman Corporation’s Government Affairs & Free Enterprise Education Program – a former NC textile firm. For more essays in this series, visit www.ouragelessconstitution.com)

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