Yesterday I had an interesting debate regarding a post I put on Facebook (yes, I know it’s the destruction of privacy, Satan, mark of the beast, blah blah). Many of you may have seen it if we are already connected there, but for those of you that haven’t seen it, this presents a disturbing trend amongst Americans.
The post began as a picture that stated, “American troops come home…we need you to protect us from the government”. Of course there is a bit of irony in there as the US has essentially colonized the planet with military bases in 137 different countries and naval forces in nearly every ocean. Considering this constitutes nearly 25% of the US federal budget, military spending is one of our biggest fiscal and moral issues in the country.
(Before I get overburdened with hate mail, I have no problem with military personnel or even defense in general as they are doing their job, but if it weren’t for stupid politicians and their hidden agendas the military would be significantly smaller than it is today.)
In response to my leading statement Cliff said, “Protect us from what? The government is not perfect, but I can’t complain about the job that Obama has done especially given the circumstances, namely, the economic crisis he inherited and endless opposition from the Right even on such things as requiring health insurance companies NOT deny children the right to health-care due to pre-existing conditions.”
I will paraphrase a bit with my responses as this conversation went quite long, but my response was something along the lines of, “Cliff, you cannot be serious about Obama’s job performance. He has done more fiscal damage to the American people than all previous presidents combined. He has robbed people of their freedoms, criminalized activities like conducting international business, and made it very difficult in general for entrepreneurs. And don’t be so naïve to think insurance companies got so large and powerful without government intervention. They were, along with drug companies, the largest lobbyists supporting Obamacare – there’s nothing like an extra 20-30 million new customers to boost profits.”
Of course I went on in my futile attempt to berate and/or educate Cliff on the ways of the world beyond CNN and his local newspaper, but I think he has already drowned himself in the kool-aid at this point.
Cliff actually went on to argue that FDR was the greatest president in the history of the US and if it weren’t for his policies, the country would never have recovered from the Great Depression and he was a savior and a hero for taking such decisive action.
Ironically Cliff goes on to suggest that FDR’s ‘New Deal’ were all just temporary policies meant to fix an immediate situation and they were all designed to be ended. Folks, how many policies and agendas have the people been sold as temporary only to see them continue forever? Maybe a better question is, how many of them have actually been ended as planned?
I don’t think Cliff is aware of executive order 6102 signed by FDR on April 5, 1933 forbidding the hoarding of gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental US. The order criminalized the possession of gold or gold equivalents by any person, company, trust, association or partnership. The irony is that it was rationalized by saying the people were responsible for the hoarding of gold which was making the depression worse. The order was under penalty of a $10,000 fine or 10 years in prison, or both.
The order required all citizens to deliver all gold (except a very small amount – up to 5 ounces) on or before May 1, 1933 in exchange for $20.67 per ounce. A few months later the Treasury revalued gold to $35 per ounce effectively robbing its people of approximately 70% of their net worth in gold.
Hey Cliff, is FDR still the greatest US President in the country’s history?
At this point, I mentioned FDR was only the 2nd worst president in history followed by the Obamessiah. I am still laughing at Cliff’s reply;
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1) Kept our country from reaching financial Armageddon… check
2) Brought our nation’s #1 enemy to justice… check
3) Defended the rights of brave soldiers who could not openly serve their country… check
4) Saved GM and the American Automotive Industry… check
5) Prevented greedy health insurance companies from denying children health benefits… check
I’m sorry, does he need to do an exorcism, turn coal into diamonds and perform David Blaine’s levitation trick to make you happy?
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Folks, this was a direct copy/paste from my FB wall. No editing needed. The real problem here is not just that Cliff is delusional, it’s that his ideas are running rampant throughout the country. People are weak-minded non-thinking sheep who will follow anyone who sounds nice or has been granted a position of authority.
Did Obama keep our country from reaching financial Armageddon, or did he just pass the buck on to future generations so that he could look like a hero for the nearest election? Did he really take down OBL? I thought it was a brave Navy Seal Team who completed that task.
Ideas are the seeds that can either create or destroy a nation. There are many organizations out there like the Ayn Rand Institute and the Cato Institute that are trying to plant the seeds of individualism, hard work, self reliance and productivity.
Unfortunately they don’t control mass media which is where people like Cliff are fed their ideas through a daily fire-hose of political propaganda subtly reminding the world of how we cannot survive without government.
One friend of mine has written a few books on this subject and does an excellent job of discussing these ideas in an entertaining and easily readable format. I just finished his book, “Production vs. Plunder” – which discusses the rise and fall of civilizations throughout history and the implications for us today and in the future. Many will find this book eye-opening and others will find it a bit offensive. Regardless it is excellent and thought provoking read. I recommended it to Cliff, but I highly doubt he will stoop to such a level in an attempt to enlighten himself.
The point I want to make with this article is these ideas are very strong within the US. As long as they tend to remain the dominant ideas in the hearts and minds of the people, the country will continue to degrade both from an economic and moral standpoint. This means your quality of life will deteriorate as will that of your children unless you do something to stop the trend to protect yourself.
This is done through reading books like the one I recommended above as well as teaching these principles to your children. Turning the tides however may take decades which means you need to take precautions to ensure you are not slowly robbed of your wealth over the coming years.
