And just as we condemn intolerance and extremism abroad, so will we stay true to our traditions here at home as a diverse and tolerant nation.
President Barack Obama, September 11, 2010 [1]
We have been subjected to a hell broth of sanctimony occasioned by an opportunistic New York imam and a publicity-grabbing Florida preacher who lost a gamble and found himself waiting for an audience on his target’s home turf. Terry Jones’ Koran-burning hoax had the sole virtue of focusing attention on the intractability of Imam Rauf’s plan to build an Islamic shrine at Ground Zero.
Jones also handed the president an unprecedented opportunity to extend arguments for tolerance. Whether Mr. Obama will succeed in calming anger over the mosque project, or whether Rauf will realize the hypocrisy of his plans and decide to do the right thing, remains to be seen. What we know for a fact is that tolerance in America is not a matter of right. It is a matter of political convenience. The president demands that we be tolerant towards the Ground Zero mosque, while he argues that we should be intolerant towards the wealthy.
The presumption that the affluent unfairly benefit at the expense of the middle class is a time-honored building block of Democratic campaign platforms. Jimmy Carter made the following statement during a presidential debate in 1976:
We’ve had a 50-percent increase in payroll deductions since Mr. Nixon went in office 8 years ago. Mr. Ford has advocated, since he has been in office, over $5 billion in reductions for corporations, special interest groups, and the very, very wealthy, who derive their income not from labor, but from investments. [2]
What is different this time around is the strength of the diatribes the president has leveled against the well-to-do, and his leveraging of desperation to target the rich for retribution. This is prime territory for stirring up class hatred, and the president has proven that he is up to the task with an unending stream of accusations that go back to the early days of his administration. For example, only the wealthy benefitted while George Bush was president:
And keep in mind wealthy Americans are just about the only folks who saw their incomes rise when Republicans were in charge. [3]
The wealthy are responsible for our national debt:
And third, even though his [John Boehner’s] party voted against tax cuts for middle-class families, he would permanently keep in place the tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans – the same tax cuts that have added hundreds of billions to our debt. [4]
The wealthy hoard our money while real Americans lose their jobs and their homes:
Across America, families like the people who join me have had tough choices forced upon them because of this economic downturn. Many have lost a job; many are fighting to keep their business open. Many more are struggling to make payments, to stay in their home, or to pursue a college education. And these Americans are the backbone of our economy, the backbone of our middle class…. They need a government that is working to create jobs and opportunity for them, rather than simply giving more and more to those at the very top in the false hope that wealth automatically trickles down. [5]
The wealthy are tax evaders:
Currently, wealthy Americans can evade paying taxes by hiding their money in offshore accounts with little fear that either the financial institution or the country that houses their money will report them to the IRS. [6]
Letting the wealthy be wealthy will not benefit our recovery:
And the Congressional Budget Office has found that tax cuts like these for American workers are more than three times more effective in stimulating recovery than tax breaks for the very wealthiest Americans. [7]
The president knows full well that the issue he has created has nothing to do with taxes, job creation, or the national debt. Now that he has fixed Wall Street, Mr. Obama is targeting one segment of society as the source of our ills, diverting anger away from himself and his party, and inciting intolerance and class hatred so he can keep his party in power.
It was heartening to see that both conservatives and liberals recognized Terry Jones’ threat to burn the Koran as an act of hate, and responded in kind. Now we need to call the president’s war on the wealthy what it is – an effort to incite hate for political gain – and demand that it stop now.
1..Remarks by the President at the Pentagon Memorial. September 11, 2010.
2..Jimmy Carter, Presidential Debate with Gerald R. Ford, September 23, 1976.
3..Remarks by the President on the Economy in Parma, Ohio. September 8, 2010.
4..Weekly Address: President Obama Praises New Wall Street Reform Law; Says GOP Plan Will Take Us Backward. July 24, 2010.
5..Remarks by the President on Taxes. April 15, 2009.
6..The White House. Office of the Press Secretary. May 4, 2009. Leveling the Playing Field: Curbing Tax Havens and Removing Incentives For Shifting Jobs Overseas.
7..Remarks by the President on Taxes. April 15, 2009.
The sooner Americans wake up to the old rule “Divide and Conquer” the sooner Mr. Obama and his minions can be relieved of their duties of destroying our country. It is vary difficult to get a pay check from a poor person, therefore people who have money can spend it by giving jobs to those who want to work and make their way in life. This is known as the free enterprise system, which is why we became such a great country with freedom for all. The government gives jobs to themselves first and what is left over goes to those who get on their knees and beg.