Dependency or Independence?

During this past July 4th weekend, Americans rightly celebrated American Exceptionalism and our hard-won freedom from European dominance. That’s why Barack Obama’s promise to “fundamentally transform America” into a country of Dependence Day and European-style socialism will fail.

Independence Day marks the founding of a nation uniquely based on liberty, limited government and rights derived from our Creator.

Obama’s vision of relegating free citizens to serf status under an all-powerful government is un-American at its core. He has sold this dangerous doctrine via prolific lies, distortions and class envy. But socialist economics always fails since it violates human nature. Obamanomics is no exception.

The proof is in the rotten pudding he’s served up consisting of a prolonged recession, high unemployment, staggering debt and an incoherent foreign policy. His own party in the Senate has not even produced a budget vote for more than two years. The $1 trillion stimulus has failed, and Obama wants to increase taxes to expand government even more.

Surveys show that people are not buying it, and Obama’s response has been to try to distract from this sorry record by deploying socialism’s pet, the green dragon of envy.

His latest venture into class warfare was this gem from his June 29 press conference:

“If we do not have revenues, that means there are a bunch of kids out there who do not have college scholarships. [It] might compromise the National Weather Services. It means we might not be funding critical medical research. It means food inspection might be compromised. I've said to Republican leaders, 'You go talk to your constituents and ask them, “Are you willing to compromise your kids' safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?”’”

Obama smacked around corporate-jet owners three more times in a performance that would have made Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro envious. It’s a wonder he didn’t go after anyone who puts Grey Poupon on their hot dogs. Where are the guillotines when you need them?

Does anyone seriously think that dunning corporate jet owners will make a dent in our $14.3 trillion national debt?

But abetted by a media that’s a megaphone for Obama’s Marxist economics, this kind of socialist tripe plays well among left-wing-dominated unions and people dependent on working people’s dollars seized by our confiscatory tax system.

The whole socialist scheme envisioned by Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer is immoral. It is not only un-American but it violates America’s Judeo-Christian heritage. This is not just a polite disagreement. And let’s dispense with the notion that the president is above criticism. This is America, not Europe. Excessive deference to a chief executive is a leftover from the monarchy and has no place in a nation whose Constitution begins with We the People.

Socialism is an elaborate socio-economic structure that arises out of envy: It’s not fair that you have more than I do. I want it (or at least some of it) and you must either give it or I’ll take it from you-at the point of a gun. If the government wields the gun, then I’m not morally culpable.

But socialism’s lure goes deeper than envy. By replacing God’s rules with man’s own, it frees man to pursue any vice he desires, no matter how perverse. In fact, the desires in and of themselves are often cited as validating consequent actions. It’s no accident that the same people promoting unlimited abortion, homosexual “marriage” and pornography are pressing for more and more government. They know that destroying moral foundations creates rich soil for government dependency.

Socialism is at bottom a rebellion against God and God’s clear words regarding morality and economics. You can find them all over the Bible, but especially in the Proverbs and in the Apostle Paul’s admonition that if you don’t work, you don’t eat. That’s why so many socialist philosophers were virulently atheist or tried to co-opt God.

Today’s “social justice” advocates, such as Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright, frequently invoke the Almighty for unholy purposes such as redistribution. The problem is that when man becomes a law unto himself, he winds up under other men’s tyranny.

America’s great hope is that enough people now see the financial and moral abyss, and will not follow Obama’s green flag of envy over the cliff.  Over in Hungary, they unveiled a statue this week to Ronald Reagan in Budapest’s Freedom Square. It would be shameful to allow the current occupant of the White House to keep marching us toward the kind of government we defeated when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

A great way to continue the spirit of July Fourth would be to get involved in a Tea Party. It will take all of us working together to stop the socialist juggernaut that seeks to turn our national birth remembrance into Dependence Day.