Joe “McCarthy” Biden

 

by

Publius

After he was awakened to the terrible virus called communism, Joe McCarthy, has been reincarnated as his evil “mirror image” twin.  The original version “Evil Joe 1.0” was a master media manipulator and destroyer of people and lives in the name of rooting out communism. He was at the end of the day, a monster created by the times. The 50s decade was a dark time in our history, not because there was not a communist threat, but because a politician perverted his power to find a communist wherever he looked. Businesses, Hollywood, and the Media were complicit in destroying people without reason or cause because Joe told them to do it.

 

It’s clear that communism, since its introduction by Karl Marx, has destroyed more lives, diminished more lives and oppressed more people than any other ideology, religion or movement in the history of the world.  How many were killed for the communist cause in Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, and others?  Some historians say it’s hundreds of millions of people. We have continually heard for more than 100 years that Marx’s promised communist utopia will occur next time or the next time or....

 

Conversely, capitalism has enriched more lives, lifted more people and provided greater hope than any other economic approach. The standard of living within the masses has grown during the entire existence of the United States of America. If you want proof, look at history as depicted by Hans Rosling in his book, Factfulness.  He clearly describes the wonderful economic progress of his own family in Sweden over the past century.  Any person that has paid any attention to history over about the past 250 years knows that America became the arsenal of freedom for the world and the beacon of hope for oppressed or enslaved people anywhere on planet Earth. 

 

In fact, the coveted view of capitalism is clearly evident in the newly anointed Democratic Oligarchy of Joe Biden. His is the party of love that cherishes immigrants over existing, legal citizens. His slogan “Everyone but Americans First” has become the mantra of his Party and Comrades. The Biden/Harris Administration has embraced the lives of so many illegal aliens that instead of calling the frontier to the south, the U.S. border, we should rename it the “Starting Line to the American Dream.”  The Welcome signs at the border say, “Greetings from your new Leader, Joe Biden, to any and all future Democrat voters regardless of race, gender, age, ideology or country of origin to the most racist, misogynistic, homophobic and selfish country in the world.  We will forever be your Big Brother!"

 

So more than 60 years after McCarthy, it’s as if we’ve arrived in an alternate world that’s been turned upside down.  Enter “Evil Joe 2.0” and after 120 days of his reign, it’s clear that we are in an even more sinister time of misguided politics.  Party Leader McCarthy Biden can find a racist anywhere he sees a white person or a police officer.  Once again, Businesses, Hollywood and the Media have put on the mantle of complicit evildoers in responding to their idol, Evil Joe 2.0.  Additionally, Evil Joe 2.0 knows there are others putting our newly minted Communist Republic at risk. Joe is finding “thought criminals” in the military, Republican Party and every Trump voter. This “Resistance” must be crushed by silencing, cancel culture, Social Justice Warriors and Antifa.  This putsch has been ongoing for years but has accelerated over the past 12 months.  Re-education of salvageable miscreants must be achieved through Critical Race Theory indoctrination. Business, military and government leaders are mandating re-education under the umbrella of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training. While this brainwashing has been successfully proliferated across college campuses for more than 60 years, the new frontier of elementary education is training new converts and Woke adherents in how implementing Racism will solve “systemic racism.”  Embracing “New Think” can eradicate what people already know to be true and help hasten them into Marxist nirvana. 

 

Joe Biden’s ultimate goal is to “Reimagine” the Constitution into the Communist Manifesto. Only time will tell whether we can turn the U.S.A. into the promised “Marxist Utopia”. 

 

“From each according to his ability...to each according to his need.”

 

Remember to vote in 2022 & 2024 for those candidates that believe in American greatness.

Where to Begin?

           Old Gadfly:  Gentlemen, do you recall from your understanding of history what happened 100 years ago?

AM: The Russian revolution took place in two phases.  In February of 1917, the socialist movement organized to delegitimize the political regime in power—Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. 

Two socialist groups led the charge—the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks.  The Mensheviks believed in pure Marxism yet were tolerant of liberal views (i.e., individual liberty and property ownership).  The Bolsheviks were far less tolerant of liberal opposition, and classified people as friend or enemy, with Lenin’s vision for utopia facilitated by political elite as the litmus test.  Then, in October of 1917, the Bolsheviks seized political power from the provisional government and became known as the Communist Party.  Those who opposed Lenin’s vision would eventually be silenced—either sent to a Gulag or executed—in the year following the revolution, the Red Terror engaged in an estimated 1.5 million political and religious executions.  Here’s a passage from a Wikipedia account from a book[1] by George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police (pp. 197–198):

At Odessa the Cheka tied White officers to planks and slowly fed them into furnaces or tanks of boiling water; in Kharkiv, scalpings and hand-flayings were commonplace: the skin was peeled off victims' hands to produce "gloves"; the Voronezh Cheka rolled naked people around in barrels studded internally with nails; victims were crucified or stoned to death at Dnipropetrovsk; the Cheka at Kremenchuk impaled members of the clergy and buried alive rebelling peasants; in Orel, water was poured on naked prisoners bound in the winter streets until they became living ice statues; in Kiev, Chinese Cheka detachments placed rats in iron tubes sealed at one end with wire netting and the other placed against the body of a prisoner, with the tubes being heated until the rats gnawed through the victim's body in an effort to escape. 

The same Wikipedia source recounts other forms of brutality as reported in a book[2] by Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev.  A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia (p. 156):

Members of the clergy were subjected to particularly brutal abuse.  According to documents cited by the late  Alexander Yakovlev, then head of the Presidential Committee for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression, priests, monks and nuns were crucified, thrown into cauldrons of boiling tar, scalped, strangled, given Communion with melted lead and drowned in holes in the ice.  An estimated 3,000 were put to death in 1918 alone.

IM:  What is critical to emphasize is that the Bolsheviks were socialists.  A well-documented history reports “communists have killed more than 100 million people. Countless more suffered and suffer still.”  I find it shocking that in America, Bernie Sanders, a known socialist who ran unsuccessfully for President, recently published his own book with the title, Our Revolution.  He does not hide the fact that, ideologically, he is a socialist—as if he is totally oblivious to the atrocities stemming from a socialistic society.  His language is consistent with Lenin and the Bolshevik movement.  He presumes a morally superior perspective, playing upon envy to pit the lower class against the upper class.  What amazes me is the large number of followers who wanted him to be President.

AM:  This is very disturbing to me—Gadfly and I spent over 34 years as a member of our national security team opposing the threat of socialism in Vietnam and during the Cold War.

           IM:  Yet, the younger generation has not been educated on our history, thanks to the John Dewey progressive educational philosophy that has shaped education in America for nearly a hundred years.

Old Gadfly:  I am glad you mentioned Dewey.  We’ll have another lengthy discussion centered on an excellent analysis by Henry T. Edmondson III in his book, John Dewey & The Decline of American Education:  How the Patron Saint of Schools Has Corrupted Teaching and Learning.  Meanwhile, are there indications of how bad history education is in America?

IM:  Absolutely.  There is a stark contrast between baby boomers and millennials in terms of attitudes toward capitalism and socialism.  A recent report indicates millennials are far more supportive of socialism and communism than baby boomers.  Yet, based on my own anecdotal data, baby boomers who have grown accustomed to generous welfare benefits also leaned toward Sanders and his socialistic utopia.  

           Old Gadfly:  Let’s get back to the Russian revolution.  The left is starting to describe the current protest movement as an equivalent to the Tea Party movement that emerged in 2009.

AM:  The Tea Party movement represented rallies, not protests.  No one was arrested, and there was never any violence or damage during these rallies.  These rallies expressed concerns about socialistic policies being forced upon us (such as Obamacare and other crushing regulations).  Compare these rallies with the left wing protests taking place. 

IM:  Even if there is some truth to allegations the Koch brothers financially supported some of the Tea Party efforts, the left ignores solid evidence that George Soros is clearly behind ongoing protests from the left.  In fact, the recent Women’s March on Washington was well organized and at least 50 of its partner groups have been funded by Soros.  The Koch brothers have earned their fortune through sound business practices.  Soros, on the other hand, is a convicted felon, and earned his fortune by betting on the demise of entire national currency systems.   

AM:  But more important, the Tea Party symbolically represented the historical Boston Tea Party that protested tyranny.  Similarly, the modern Tea Party advocated individual liberty, limited government, and a fair market economy.  Compare this with left wing protests that oppose the rule of law and American values of patriotism and individual responsibility. 

IM:  The left believes in identity politics and a manufactured oppression.  With this complex set of strawmen, they can then disparage liberal opposition (classical liberalism now more accurately represented by the conservative movement) by calling them the new set of “N” words—racist, bigot, misogynist, homophobe, xenophobe, Islamophobe, and so forth.  The political left champions themselves as the protectors of the oppressed.  Notice I said protector as opposed to liberator.  The left exploits modern Uncle Toms, like John C. Lewis and Elijah E. Cummings, as ideological warriors.   By the way, the real Uncle Tom in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel was a hero, unlike today’s pejorative meaning advanced by the intellectual left.  The political left exploits this notion of oppression to justify a large central government that imposes social justice, that is, equality for everyone (except the ruling elite).  Ironically, if there were no oppression, then there would be no need for the political left.  None of their ideas of good governance assumes a capacity for self-governing people, as envisioned by our Founding Fathers.  These dynamics explain why the left has gotten away with running inner city plantations for decades.

Old Gadfly:  I want to get back to the Russian revolution because this history is important in understanding the American revolution of 2017.  The Russian revolution was the beginning of Soviet communism.  The Communist International, commonly referred to as the Comintern, was founded in 1919, intended to fight "by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the State” (see here).  According to Dictionary.com, the word soviet means, “(after the revolution) a local council originally elected only by manual workers, with certain powers of local administration. . . . (after the revolution) a higher council elected by a local council, being part of a hierarchy of soviets culminating in the Supreme Soviet.”  Bernie Sanders (and Obama’s) modern bourgeoisie are the top 1%.  Notice the abolition of the State means no borders, no national sovereignty.  This might explain the left’s resistance to building a wall and enforcing immigration laws.

AM:  The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) was very active in the early part of the 20^th Century, and it was totally loyal to the Comintern. 

Old Gadfly:  The Comintern went away after WWII in the 1940s.  Yet, American support of Soviet Communism did not stop.  Thus, like al Qaeda, the socialist/communist ideology remains the organizing principle.  Since our progressive educators will not educate our children on history, we must find a way to fill this gap.  For example, till the day he died in 1996, Alger Hiss claimed he was innocent of being a Communist and Soviet spy.  To this day many, mostly those on the left, believe he was innocent.  Today, Jonathan Brent serves as the Visiting Alger Hiss Professor of History and Literature at Bard College.  Yet, Brent is not a left-wing ideologue.  See this interesting article by John Miller.  The body of evidence of Soviet Communist sympathies and actual spying is voluminous.  See for example,

Whittaker Chambers, Witness, (Washington, D.C.:  Regnery History, 1952).

J. Edgar Hoover, Masters of Deceit:  The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It, (New York, NY:  Pocket Books, Inc., 1958).

G. Edward White, Alger Hiss’s Looking Glass Wars:  The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy, (New York, NY:  Oxford University Press, 2004).

Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood, (New York, NY:  The Modern Library, 2000).

Allen Weinstein, Perjury:  The Hiss-Chambers Case (Stanford, CA:  Hoover Institution Press, 2013).

Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, The Venona Secrets:  The Definitive Exposé of Soviet Espionage in America, (Washington, D.C.:  Regnery History, 2000).

John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev, Spies:  The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2009).

IM:  Is there a major take-away from these books?

Old Gadfly:  To my amazement, the Soviet Communist spying efforts penetrated the highest levels of our government, academia, Hollywood, and the media. 

AM:  The Flynn political assassination episode is a classic example.  On January 12, 2017, Charlie Savage reported in The New York Times, “In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power (Executive Order 12333) of the National Security Agency (NSA) to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.”  This is how the NSA was legally allowed to “share” with another agency the intercepted conversation between Flynn and the Russian Ambassador.  This classified information was then leaked to David Ignatius of The Washington Post who claimed on January 12, 2017:  “According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking.” 

IM:  Combine this soft coup attempt with evidence that the Obama Administration went to great lengths to (a) stack the federal appellate court system—70% are left of center, and (b) absorb political appointees ahead of veterans as career federal employees into the unelected bureaucracy, a strong argument can be made that the federal government is being infiltrated by leftist ideology.

Old Gadfly:   Stacking the appellate system seems to be working in the left’s favor, given recent actions to thwart Trumps temporary travel restriction from seven countries that lack robust vetting systems.  The left has accumulated a lot of political street smarts over the years, to include the Watergate episode in our history.  Geoff Shepard recently revealed formerly undisclosed evidence of left-wing corruption in his book, The Real Watergate Scandal:  Collusion, Conspiracy, and the Plot that Brought Nixon Down.   Here are some key points from the evidence:

First, Nixon, as a junior U.S. Representative, was the lead investigator in the Alger Hiss case.  Although Hiss was only convicted of perjury, Nixon was uniformly despised for his role because Hiss was highly respected among the left.

Second, special prosecutors Cox and Jaworski had political agendas, and illegally colluded with Sirica, the presiding judge, and Bazelon , the chief appellate judge to orchestrate Nixon’s prosecution.

Third, public releases of judicial action were deliberately timed for maximum effect in the media.

AM:  Do you think the left-wing effort is orchestrated?

Old Gadfly:  Again, the organizing principle is the ideology, socialism (today’s socialists prefer the label progressive).  In terms of marshaling resources, let’s look at some more evidence:

First, since 1989, according to Open Secrets.org, of the top 10 donors, six are labor unions, with the Service Employees International Union, being the largest.

Second, in the heyday of the CPUSA, front groups were critical in advancing the cause.  The protests taking place across the nation (and international system) are far from spontaneous.  See for example, the work being advanced by Indivisible.

Third, just like the role Lenin played in serving as a visible symbol for the socialist movement, Barack Obama plays that role today.  He is the leader of the Organizing for America (OFA) initiative.  Check out the OFA website.  This website, www.ofa.us, was originally called Organizing for Obama prior to the year 2009).  Here is a quote from the website:

With more than 250 local chapters around the country, OFA volunteers are building this organization from the ground up, community by community, one conversation at a time—whether that’s on a front porch or on Facebook.  We’re committed to finding and training the next generation of great progressive organizers, because at the end of the day, we aren’t the first to fight for progressive change, and we won’t be the last.

IM:  These developments seem to fit the pattern of the soviet councils following the Russian revolution.  The Bolsheviks fought for progressive change.  Millions died.  So far, fortunately, we have not seen the same brutal conditions.

Old Gadfly:   Mostly because there are a sufficient number of responsible, hard-working Americans who do not subscribe to socialism . . . for now.  But, let there be no doubt, there is a contest for the soul of America. 

---

[1] George Leggett. The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police. (Cambridge, MA:  Oxford University Press), pp. 197–198.

[2] Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev. A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia.  (New Haven, CT:. Yale University Press, 2002), p. 156.

Popular Despite Incompetence

Hillary Clinton is running for a third Obama term, banking on Obama's popularity.  

Can someone tell me why Obama is popular?  It is not due to policy success. Obamacare, his signature legislation, is a disaster—coverage is becoming narrower, premiums and deductibles are climbing, and the number of government-funded Medicaid recipients has skyrocketed.  Even democrats are distancing themselves from this Frankenstein’s monster.  The economy is limping along at about 1% GDP growth.  Labor participation rates are the lowest since 1977, compounding the significant increase in the number of Americans dependent upon government subsidies.  Our national debt is at $20 trillion while unfunded liabilities are in the hundreds of trillions.  Our military has been emasculated.

As the presidential election looms, Russia has become the preferred partner to Syria, Turkey, and Iran. Now, the Philippines have aligned with China. These developments stem from foreign policy incompetence.

          Mr. Trump made this observation in the third debate: "If she did nothing, we'd be in much better shape. And this is what's caused the great migration, where she's taking in tens of thousands of Syrian refugees, who probably in many cases -- not probably, who are definitely...in many cases, ISIS-aligned, and we now have them in our country, and wait until you see -- this is going to be the great Trojan horse.  And wait until you see what happens in the coming years. Lots of luck, Hillary. Thanks a lot for doing a great job."

Thus, domestically and internationally America’s policies have failed to make things better, let  alone maintain some semblance of stability, prosperity, and peace; Obama policies have made domestic and foreign conditions worse.

Perhaps Obama's popularity is due to one major change:  as promised, Obama has in fact transformed America.  This transformation affects the economic, political, and social dimensions of our society.  He has convinced many socialists that capitalism is evil, and that the wealthy have not paid their fair share of taxes (despite generating the most tax revenue in our nation’s history).  He has convinced many progressives that their ideology is the only correct and moral view of the world.  And, he has convinced the secular humanists that Judeo-Christian principles and traditions are a threat to a woman’s reproductive rights, homosexual sodomy, and those who are confused about their gender.  Facts don’t matter, only a good story does (as he emphasized during a 60 Minutes interview in terms of his only regret during his first term).  This is why movements like Black Lives Matter (which emerged from the unsubstantiated belief that Michael Brown was unjustly killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri) are so important in his vision for transformation.  Actual facts are irrelevant as the following FBI data reveals blacks are killed by blacks 10 times more frequently than by whites:

          There are too many Americans who see the truth, but are afraid to share it with their friends because they do not want to be accused of being racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, misogynist, and so forth.  When Hillary trotted out the Gold Star Khan family at the Democratic National Convention, the purpose was not to honor sons and daughters lost in combat, but to demonize Trump.  The Khans became a human shield for Hillary’s (and her progressive mafia) orchestrated attacks on Trump.  This was designed as a trap—one that Trump could not avoid.  Trump’s first comments about this were in response to questions by George Stephanopoulos (a former Clinton policy adviser and Clinton Foundation donor).  This was a masterfully manufactured and orchestrated news cycle to demonstrate Trump's Islamophobia.     

So, why is Obama so popular?  The voice of the public narrative (mainstream media, academia, Hollywood, and the ruling class in general) wants him to be popular because he is the face of progressivism—the ideology that seeks utopia this side of eternity, which can only be made so through social justice administered by a ruling elite.  Yet, the mess that is everywhere reeks of incompetence in light of a once great America known for its vision, declared in the Declaration of Independence, and its system of limited and enumerated governance, described in the original Constitution.

Trump fights for a renewal of this vision, for everyone, especially our indentured classes within Democrat-run inner cities.  Clinton and her supporters represent the domestic enemies I swore to defeat in my commissioning oath:  “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.”  Cicero observed similar dangers in his own day.  We would be wise to recognize the similarities captured in Cicero's statement:

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.

The significant divisiveness and lack of civility that permeates our nation reflects such a rotted soul.  Obama owns this transformation.  It is difficult for many to discern the reason's for America's rotted soul because Cicero’s “traitor” is popular.  Betting on this popularity by electing Hillary to a third Obama term would be foolish because it would reinforce the incompetency that has placed America and the entire international system on the threshold of utter catastrophe. 

          Rise up Americans.  This is our country.  Fight for it!  America must be great again.  Americans and the rest of the world depend upon it.

Character versus Corruption: Two Different Visions

Today’s article is a monologue, not a conversation.  I have been asked by a very good friend, someone I immensely respect for his intellect and sense of integrity and honor, to assess the two major candidates.  Here, I will do my best.  The assessment involves character versus corruption and two different visions for America.

Character versus Corruption

The presidential candidates represent a fundamental difference between character and corruption.  By character, I mean a sense of virtue and the role it plays in a just society.  A just society comprises citizens who possess a civic responsibility to the rule of law.  This is what provides stability and order within a society. 

Virtue does not include pandering, conspiring, colluding; nor, does it include mendacity, complicity, and duplicity.  These are traits that do not define the Trump campaign.  Several virtues define Trump:  honesty, courage, fortitude, and respect for the individual liberty that allows liberty-minded people to innovate and flourish.  Honesty is a virtue, even when it offends.  Trump has been honest and courageous in authentically and sincerely expressing his concerns about the lack of virtue within the ruling elite (some call it the establishment).  He believes in the U.S. Consitution and the rule of law as the framework for governance within America.  He criticizes those who believe otherwise, and as a consequence is attacked with labels—racist, Islamaphobe, misogynist, and so forth.  His greatest critics represent the truly corrupt worldview of the progressive left and even progressives within the Republican establishment (the Bushes, Romney, etc.).  The willingness to fund his own campaign demonstrates his fortitude in fighting for something far bigger than himself:  the American idea spawned by our Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.  His disappointment in how the recent ruling elite has squandered the political, social, and economic capital generated by those who understood the important relationship between a limited government within a system of federalism, inspires a sense of duty within Trump.

It was not virtuous when Senator Harry Reid claimed Romney had not paid taxes for ten years.  He knew at the time it was a lie, but it generated a news cycle very damaging to Romney.  When confronted about it later, he did not deny that the claim was false, but with a grin said, “we won didn’t we?”  So, now the news cycle is about a 1995 tax return, illegally attained and published by the New York Times.  Trump and his accountants completed the mandatory IRS filing based on public law.  In other words, it was an honest and legal filing.  Yet, that is not the issue.  Trump did not pay his “fair share” of taxes.  This immoral notion reflects a dangerous vision for America—more on that shortly.

Dwarfed by the manufactured tax travesty were the allegations, shared at the close of the last debate by Clinton, that Trump demonized a Venezuelan beauty queen.  Despite the fact that there were no witnesses to verify the queen’s allegations, the narrative was compelling enough to dominate all the mainstream news cycles.  The fact that business contracts were involved and the queen failed to live up to the arrangements had no relevance—truth, in this case, was less important than an opportunity to demonize a candidate that threatens the progressive worldview.  This is not virtue; it is corruption.

During the same debate segment, Clinton tattled to the listening public that Trump had not paid an architect (who she invited to attend in the audience) for his work on one of Trump’s properties.  Trump did not deny it.  He said the architect did not perform to expectations.  After doing my own research, I read complaints by the architect that because he did not get paid for this particular job, his company went under.  In other words, he only had one client—Trump.  If the architect had a reputation for meeting or exceeding expectations, he likely would have had more clients.  Nonetheless, there was no law suit, meaning there was no legal standing for one.  This is called accountability, something Clinton has no appreciation for.  She now claims the basement server was a mistake and accepts responsibility for it.  Responsibility and accountability are fundamentally different concepts.  Clinton is a member of the corrupted ruling class, so accountability does not apply to her (Comey got the memo).  Of course, there are plenty of precedents that have convinced her that she can avoid accountability.

Two weeks ago, Peggy Noonan penned an article for the Wall Street Journal:  “Travel Back to an Early Clinton Scandal.”  Calling someone overweight and cajoling them to lose weight to meet contractual terms is far less brutal than what Clinton did to the White House travel office.  Noonan claimed, “It was the first big case in which she showed poor judgment, a cool willingness to mislead, and a level of political aggression that gave even those around her pause.  It was after this mess that her critics said she’d revealed the soul of an East German border guard.”  On May 19, 1993, the entire travel office staff was fired.  Different stories were told over time.  “It emerged in contemporaneous notes of a White House staffer that the travel-office workers were removed because Mrs. Clinton wanted to give their jobs—their “slots,” as she put it, according to the notes of director of administration David Watkins—to political operatives who’d worked for Mr. Clinton’s campaign.”  To cover up the corrupt action, the FBI was asked to investigate; reluctantly, they did, and the head of the travel office was indicted on charges including embezzlement.  He was acquitted by a jury, and retired.  Mrs. Clinton said under oath that she had no role in the firings.  A General Accounting Office report later refuted this.  According to Noonan, “So—that was the Clinton’s first big Washington scandal.  It showed what has now become the Clinton Scandal Ritual:  lie, deny, revise, claim not to remember specifics, stall for time.  When it passes, call the story ‘old news’ full of questions that have already been answered. ‘As I have repeatedly said . . ..’”  Because they have the same worldview as Clinton, the mainstream media consider facts, such as the White House travel-office scandal, “old news.”

Clinton wants to increase taxes and government spending.  This would give the federal government more money to distribute to others (and probable voters) through various programs.  It doesn’t matter that this kind of thinking has accumulated nearly $20 trillion in public debt (not to mention the hundreds of trillion legal obligations for unfunded entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare—programs citizens paid into in good faith as a civil responsibility).  How would this benefit the economy?  Taxation takes resources from the private sector that can be used for investment and new jobs and shifts this wealth to the government to dole out in welfare subsidies—sapping the private sector of productivity and diminishing wealth creation.  The chart below shows the cost of the federal government is 65 times greater today in constant dollars (adjusting for inflation) per capita than when the Sixteenth Amendment was passed (authorizing individual income tax) was ratified in 1913.  American citizens are nowhere close to 65 times better off.  All this shows is that an expanding administrative state has become far more powerful and unaccountable than ever intended by the founding fathers.

The second chart shows the labor participation rate since the mid-1970s.  The significant decline in the labor participation rate coincided with the passing of Obamacare.  While the federal government gets better resourced over time through taxation and borrowed money, the economy has become far more fragile with investment resources either sucked away through taxation or suffocated by federal regulation.  And now American citizens are suffocating from crushing premiums and unaffordable deductibles.  Clinton wants to perpetuate this monster.

    

Facts may be inconvenient, but the data strongly support the adverse effects of a tax and spend orientation.  The progressive agenda is socialistic in its approach because it treats capitalism as an evil.  As scholars (e.g., Hayek) have revealed, socialism is not sustainable.  It morphs into fascism or communism, both far left manifestations.  Add to these dynamics crony capitalism (i.e., health insurance companies) and corporate welfare (e.g., companies like Boeing which gave a large contribution to the Clinton Foundation and receives billions from the Import Export Bank for lucrative contracts to sell fighters to the Middle East and airliners to Iran).  These practices perpetuate the establishment status quo (keeps elected officials in office focused on reelection instead of representing their constituents).  Recognizing these practices allows us to understand what Hannah Arendt explained as a step toward totalitarianism.  In her book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt dedicated an early chapter to the political emancipation of the bourgeoisie—the centers of production within a society.  In the modern age of information technology, we can now include academia and mainstream media (centers for the dissemination of ideas) as part of that emancipation.

Different Visions for America

What we are asked to do in the upcoming election is to choose between two fundamentally different visions for America.  These visions are personified in the actual candidates:  one who still believes in virtue and the other who is terribly corrupted.  I know Hillary Clinton advances a progressive vison for America because President Obama has spent his entire tenure pursuing a progressive agenda. Hillary is committed to continuing this agenda.  This, by the way, is the only way to preserve an imagined legacy for Obama (at least for a few more years), not America.  What Donald Trump envisions is contrary to this vision because he seeks to restore individual liberty, limited government, the rule of law, and a free market; thus, it is soundly rejected by those who subscribe to the progressive agenda.

What is a progressive agenda?  It essentially subscribes to a powerful central government that solves most, if not all, of society’s problems guided by a fundamental principle of social justice.  This sounds noble; but, the means involve picking winners and losers in the name of “professed” equality of outcomes.  This is why, to a progressive, distributing wealth is morally justified.  As a consequence, this practice suffocates any incentive for innovation and entrepreneurial risk-taking.  Anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows that our economy is on thin ice.  Unlike a positive multiplier effect in the private sector, progressive policies impose a negative multiplier effect, sucking value out of the private sector to advance true “trickle-down economics.”  (For an excellent history on the trickle-down economics meme, see Thomas Sowell’s paper here.)  This scheme coercively takes wealth away from those who earned it to dole out to an increasing population of welfare recipients at the individual and corporate levels.  As a cultural consequence, this practice diminishes a moral obligation for an American citizen or legal resident to accept his or her moral responsibility to contribute to the greater good of society at large, to be productive, law-abiding, and self-reliant. 

Most Americans once understood the importance of natural rights and the difference between civil rights and civil responsibilities.  Progressives have long ago dismissed the inevitable truth of natural rights, that is, the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—rights granted by God, to be protected by a government that derives its powers from the consent of the governed.  Civil rights represent the obligation of government and civil responsibilities represent the obligation of the citizens to obey just laws and to contribute to society (from neighborhoods to the nation).  This is the noble and ideal social contract Rousseau advanced before it was perverted by Robespierre in his great reign of terror in the French Revolution.  Robespierre and progressives today believe that only the right political elite know how to determine what is good for the public at large.     

I contend that the progressive agenda is contrary to the founding principles of our Nation.  Trump believes in these principles.  So, this is our choice:  we either vote for the founding principles or for the progressive agenda that is contrary to these principles.  The progressives that include academia and mainstream media are betting that they can convince the American public that the progressive agenda is better than our founding principles.  This is why we see so much positive press for Clinton and negative press for Trump in the politically emancipated mainstream media (unless you watch Fox News).

Dr. Benjamin Franklin had an optimistic view of the potential greatness of a Constitutional Republic.  Yet, at the closing session of the Constitutional Convention, on September 17, 1787, Franklin cautioned us:

In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.

Trump asks voters to help him make America great again.  Clinton asks voters to be with her.   We have a choice: virtue or corruption; a renewed America or a despotic government.  Unlike Clinton who can smugly say “I made a mistake and took full responsibility,” we have a responsibility to make a good choice because we are the ones who will be accountable in terms of consequences.