America is about being on top. Our nation is the preeminent economic and military superpower. We also pride ourselves on our ethical and moral leadership, but now these testaments to our strength are under fire. Socialists like presidential candidate Bernie Sanders who target vulnerable Americans are determined to cast doubt on what makes us great:
We must put an end to the obscene income and wealth inequality in our country, and ensure living wages, quality health care, and retirement security for our seniors as human rights. If we do not urgently act to solve the economic distress of millions of Americans, a whole generation will be condemned to early death.1
Can socialism save Americans who are condemned to death by their country?
Subversive attacks create vulnerable Americans
Harris confuses patriotism with discarding America
Failing presidential candidate Kamala Harris summed up perfectly how outrageous this dialogue is during the last Democratic Party debate when she said that Donald Trump is the most unpatriotic president ever.
Trump is a lot of things, but unpatriotic? That’s a tough one for even the most deluded liberal crazy to swallow.
The sad truth is that patriotism isn’t what it used to be. Democrats target the weak and vulnerable. That means changing the ideas that made America so powerful and eroding our faith in American greatness.
When that faith falters patriotism is dead.
We are in the midst of an unprecedented flood of subversive, politically-motivated attacks from Democrats who refuse to honor the outcome of a legitimate presidential election. Thanks to their discontent the world hears about ethical problems like an “amoral president”2,3 overseeing a “morally bankrupt” administration.4 Those at fault disregard the impact of their words. Seizing power is more important.
We can’t be the ethical and moral gatekeeper if our president is amoral and unethical, but this has nothing to do with reality and certainly not with ethics or morals. The goal is a national upheaval of our values to trick us into destroying what stands behind them. If polls like a recent Pew Research finding that 42% of Americans have a positive view of socialism 5 are any indication, the strategy is succeeding.
Subversion from the politically powerful weakens our nation. Whether we buy into the negativity or not it still has an effect, especially on vulnerable Americans who are easy targets for liberal socialist politicians intent on trading promises of financial security for votes.
America’s future speaks to strength, not Democratic socialism
U.S. Army Graphic*
Vulnerable Americans are created
America wasn’t vulnerable after World War II. We were untouchable.
Even under the Obama Administration the rhetoric that targets the weak and vulnerable could not compare with what we hear now from a party determined to prey on people who can’t resist their socialist offerings and buy into the falsehood that we need the government to make ends meet.
Vulnerable Americans don’t trust our country or our people
If the number of people who are storming the gates to get into our country is any indication, America is a great place to be.
We hear another story from Democrats.
Don’t trust your friends and neighbors
Labeling our friends and neighbors deplorable, xenophobic, racist, or any of the other Democratic Party names for Republicans because our views challenge party priorities is anti-American and wrong. So is calling out the nation for being inhumane, cruel, and racist for laws that other countries enforce without question.
Not only are we told to distrust our neighbors for their political beliefs, we should also distrust them if they make more than we do.
Prosperity defines America: don’t trust it
Overt socialists like Bernie Sanders and socialists of opportunity like Elizabeth Warren enjoy a shameful popularity while a president who has brought prosperity and unprecedented low unemployment is a target for impeachment.
Does this make sense? It does if prosperity is something to distrust.
Power-starved Democrats are threatened when Americans are not as vulnerable as the party wants us to be, but after years of asking where the jobs are they have the jobs they wanted. Now more jobs aren’t enough. Wages are our new failing. That means turning workers against their country by questioning the morality of prosperity and the institutions that make growth and higher pay possible.
The government doesn’t make us prosperous. Private industry does, but that’s not the socialist party line espoused by presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren.
Warren set the stage to destroy large-scale free enterprise that drives markets and investments with her “Accountable Capitalism” bill and its very socialist vision for the government’s role in capitalism:
Requiring very large American corporations to obtain a federal charter as a “United States corporation,” which obligates company directors to consider the interests of all corporate stakeholders: American corporations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue must obtain a federal charter from a newly-formed Office of U.S. Corporations at the Department of Commerce. The new federal charter obligates company directors to consider the interests of all corporate stakeholders — including employees, customers, shareholders, and the communities where the company operates.6
This is an affront to the idea of free enterprise in America. That’s the point of the bill and it’s partially our fault. Our bad habits make us vulnerable and weak, even while the economy offers us opportunities we have not seen in decades. That means promises to spread the wealth of others around when we run out of the money we should have generated for ourselves.
Democrats blame our financial vulnerability on others
Capitol Hill’s overspending is the stuff of legend.
The American people’s spending habits aren’t much better. Our retirement savings are nil. Our credit card debt is soaring. We don’t have anything to fall back on if we lose our jobs or become unable to work.
Debt opens the door for Democrats wide.
It’s widely accepted that we can’t rely on Social Security as our retirement income even though the program is faltering. Instead of blaming our refusal to save, Bernie Sanders points out that 43% of the elderly would be in poverty without Social Security.7
Who is at fault?
Do I have to ask?
Social Security is the most successful program in our nation’s history. At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, we have got to demand that the richest people in this country pay their fair share,” the senator said.8
There is nothing like fear of the future to make us vulnerable, even when the refusal to save for when we’re not working is our own fault.
Instead of telling Americans the truth about living on Social Security, Democrats in the House overwhelmingly support the Social Security 2100 Act to expand the spending:
Social Security should not only be protected, it should also be improved and expanded,” Sewell said. “Let’s be clear: Social Security is not an entitlement. It is a retirement plan that hardworking Americans earn and pay for throughout their careers.”9
No. Let’s be clear: Social Security is a program we are told to depend on for retirement even though it’s common knowledge that it’s not enough to support even the most meager lifestyle. When Democrats tell the American people that this is a retirement plan and something we can depend on in lieu of private savings and investment, they are not telling the truth.
There is not a word in the rollout press release for this bill about how our retirement plan pays out benefits that have nothing to do with retirement like disability and survivor’s benefits. Instead, Democrats offer a 2% benefit increase which they claim:
strengthens the most reliable and universal leg of the retirement system.10
2%? In June the House pushed for a 3.1% increase for government workers who are paid with your tax dollars, including the tax on Social Security benefits. Remember that the next time you hear about vulnerable seniors.
We aren’t accountable for our debt
It’s hard to save for retirement when you’re in a massive hole of debt. To that end, New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney praised the Credit Card Accountability Act:
The lesson from 10 years of the CARD Act is simple: strong consumer protections work,” said Rep. Maloney. “Before the CARD Act, banks were ripping off their credit card customers by charging them outrageous fees and jacking up their interest rates without any warning — even on purchases the consumer had already made with the credit card. Because of this, consumers were drowning in credit card debt and I knew we had to do something about it.11
Wrong. Consumers drown in credit card debt because cards make it easy to spend money we don’t have. Americans would be better off if the bill had cancelled their cards and forbid them to apply for more.
Americans are vulnerable to lenders and Democrats when we amass more debt than we can manage.
Rep. Maxine Waters explains the enormity of our student loan debt problem:
The burden of student loan debt is preventing young people from saving for retirement, starting small businesses, starting families, and becoming homeowners. This crisis is affecting people across the country, and ultimately it negatively affects our entire economy.12
Except we don’t save for retirement or put money away for that rainy day. We spend and create more debt.
One solution according to Elizabeth Warren and prominent Democrats including Jerry Nadler and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, who comes from a state that knows all about creating debt, is to allow bankruptcy for student loans:
Most forms of debt, such as credit card debt and medical debt, can be discharged through the bankruptcy process. Only a limited number of debts, such as child support payments, alimony, overdue taxes, and criminal fines, are treated as nondischargeable in bankruptcy. However, current federal law also makes student loan debt nondischargeable except in extremely rare cases.13
Many of us paid back our loans and experienced great hardship to do it. Then we moved on with our lives. That’s not the Democratic Party line for vulnerable Americans who are offered an ever-expanding list of ways the government can erase personal responsibility for our actions whether that means crime, too much spending, or the failure to use a booming economy to our benefit.
Weak Americans will beg amoral politicians to steal our future
Are we so naïve about how the system works that we don’t consider that there aren’t many poor people in Congress?
There is no future for the American people in socialism. There never will be. The only future will be on Capitol Hill.
It’s amoral, unethical and wrong to tell naïve, vulnerable voters that the government will make their lives better than free enterprise possibly can and that there will be no cost to any but the wealthiest Americans.
If we don’t see that cost perhaps we deserve what we get.
Sources
1. “Poverty a Death Sentence, Sanders Declares, as GAO Links Inequality to Mortality.” Bernie Sanders. September 9, 2019. https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/poverty-a-death-sentence-sanders-declares-as-gao-links-inequality-to-mortality, retrieved October 21, 2019.
2. “Levin Votes Against Unconditionally Funding Trump’s Immoral Immigration Policies.” Andy Levin. June 27, 2019. https://andylevin.house.gov/media/press-releases/levin-votes-against-unconditionally-funding-trumps-immoral-immigration-policies, retrieved October 16, 2019.
3. “Rep. Madeleine Dean Calls for Impeachment Inquiry.” Rep. Madeleine Dean. May 21, 2019. https://dean.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-madeleine-dean-calls-impeachment-inquiry, retrieved October 16, 2019.
4. “Levin Votes Against Unconditionally Funding Trump’s Immoral Immigration Policies.” Andy Levin. June 27, 2019. Op. cit.
5. “In Their Own Words: Behind Americans’ Views of “Socialism’ and ‘Capitalism’” “em>Pew Research Center. October 7, 2019. https://www.people-press.org/2019/10/07/in-their-own-words-behind-americans-views-of-socialism-and-capitalism/, retrieved October 16, 2019.
6. “Senator Warren and House Assistant Speaker Lujan Announce Plan to Reintroduce the Accountable Capitalism Act.” Elizabeth Warren. October 4, 2019. https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senator-warren-and-house-assistant-speaker-lujn-announce-plan-to-reintroduce-the-accountable-capitalism-act, retrieved October 16, 2019.
7. “Half of Older Households Have No Retirement Savings.” Bernie Sanders. June 2, 2015. https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/half-of-older-households-have-no-retirement-savings, retrieved October 21, 2019.
8. Ibid.
9. “Reps. Sewell, Larson introduce legislation to strengthen Social Security.” Terri Sewell. January 30, 2019. https://sewell.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/reps-sewell-larson-introduce-legislation-strengthen-social-security, retrieved October 23, 2019.
10. Ibid.
11. “Maloney Celebrates 10th Anniversary of CARD Act with Consumer Groups.” Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney. May 21, 2019. https://maloney.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/maloney-celebrates-10th-anniversary-of-card-act-with-consumer-groups, retrieved October 14, 2019.
12. “Nadler, Katko, Neguse, Durbin & Warren Introduce Bill Making Bankruptcy Relief Available For Student Loan Borrowers.” Jerry Nadler. May 10, 2019. https://nadler.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=393914, retrieved October 22, 2019.
13. “Waters Opening Statement at Haring on Student Loan Debt Crisis.” Maxine Waters. September 10, 2019. https://financialservices.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=404289, retrieved October 22, 2019.
*Image: U.S. Army Graphic in Drew, Maj. Jerry V. “Visualizing the Synchronization of Space Systems in Operational Planning.” Military Review. January-February 2019. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/Jan-Feb-2019/Drew-Space/, retrieved October 23, 2019.
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