In the weeks leading up to the election, the hateful comments and misinformed questions flow easily from the Left: How can you support Trump’s Twitter attacks and hateful comments? Are you so shallow that you believe a great economy is the answer to everything? Why doesn’t Trump care for more than just the rich? With systemic racism still evident in white America how can you vote for a man who won’t even reject white supremacists?
Let’s get real. America is and will remain strong because of our cherished freedoms. For now, America remains a land of opportunity where working hard works. Immigrants by the thousands do everything they can to get in and thrive taking advantage of the opportunities and blessings America provides. There are no caravans of citizens fighting to get out of America. Our border wall keeps people out. East German walls kept citizens in, trapped in the misery of a communist socialist economy.
America is not defined by systemic racism; the racism of the past is largely a memory thanks to the hard work of many caring Americans. Certainly, improvement is possible, but the answer is never “special programs” for any minority, reparations, or expanded government entitlements that trap citizens of all races in government dependence. You don’t end racism by making special benefits to one race at the expense of others. You want rights and opportunity for all, but, for citizens of every race, the rewards of freedom must be earned. Certainly, some will have more challenges than others, but the best response bias is to succeed anyway. Millions do to their credit!
Socialism has never worked. It spreads misery wherever it has been tried. Under the guise of caring, Biden’s platform calls for new entitlements designed to meet all needs—healthcare, college tuition, guaranteed income, and the list goes on. It’s clear that those on the Left have no confidence in the minorities they claim to help. To the left, minorities need a political Robin Hood ready to steal from their neighbor to give them what they deserve but can’t earn. What an affront to those they claim to help.
Unfortunately, the reality is that once a citizen is locked into government programs and funding, it’s hard to get out. They live too well. To actually work and start at the bottom and work their way up in a real job means a cut in income. They call it “The Cliff!” Why work when being dependent can meet my needs. Why be married when not having a husband or wife increases my benefits?
After observing the welfare system in King George’s England, Benjamin Franklin reviled the “solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor…. There [was] no country in the world in which the poor [were] more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent." He preferred American freedom and opportunity whose purpose was "not making [the poor] easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." Franklin noted that by offering "a premium for the encouragement of idleness," the English system produced "an increase in poverty." That remains true today, and if Biden wins, socialist changes are promised from day one of his administration.
Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the Republican Party, once was asked by his step-brother John D. Johnston, for a loan to settle some debts. This time, he refused and shared some timely advice for anyone who wants the government to take care of his basic needs. Lincoln wrote: “Your request for eighty dollars I do not think it best to comply with now. …This can only happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I think I know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether, since I saw you, you have done a good whole day’s work in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break the habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it, easier than they can get out after they are in.”
Lincoln continued, “If I should now clear you out of debt, next year you would be just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost give your place in heaven for seventy or eighty dollars. Then you value your place in heaven very cheap, for I am sure you can…get the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months’ work. … If you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eighty times eighty dollars to you.”
This is why President Trump must be given four more years. Making dependence on government easier to have is not caring. It’s a trap that eliminates self-sufficiency and personal motivation, weakening what makes America great.
Terry Paulson is a PhD psychologist, author, and professional speaker on Earned Optimism, Making Change Work, Claiming Your American Dream, and Becoming a Conservative Values Voter. Contact him to speak before your group at terry@terrypaulson.com.