Change: Capitalism to Marxism;
Adam Smith to Barack Obama
October 31, 2008 | By Jack Yoest
The easiest tactic to sell anything is to find Pain. Maximize it, magnify it, monetize it.
We Are The Change, election night 1988
There is some economic Pain in the American people. Obama promises to heal this nation and heal this pain with Change.
Change from Capitalism to Marxism. To "spread the wealth around."
As Wes Pruden writes in A game-changer by Obama, we are at the close of the biggest sales and marketing pitch in history. Pruden reports,
To redistribute wealth, you first have to confiscate it from those who earned it with hard work, and the way to do that is with confiscatory taxes. Then you give it to those who didn't earn it.
But do the American people really want to change to a new economic system? A centrally controlled economy? A Change to Marxism?
Even with a half-billion dollar marketing campaign and its extension in the compliant main stream media and a single quarter of negative growth, the voters have still not bought the Barack bill of goods. Pain as bad as it's been in decades.
Barack Obama has trouble selling this Change to more than 50 percent of the public.
This means that there is still hope for capitalism in our country. Hope for our 200 year-old tradition.
Every new presidential candidate runs on some version of change. Your Business Blogger(R) joyfully attended the Election Night victory party on November 8, 1988.
The theme of the celebration? "We Are The Change." And this was from Reagan to Bush. (A Republican rockin' party...no alcohol was served 'til after 8pm.)
The word "Change" has come to mean a bit more in this campaign season in the Obama sales pitch.
We enjoy an orderly transition of power every few years. Let us pray that change is only in political individuals.
Not in an economic tradition.
This week, I asked my college business class when the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith was written.
"1930...?" guessed one of my better students. This was as far back as she would dare recede into ancient history. Not the 200 years to 1776.
Two hundred years of tradition that unleashed the individual's spirit to create and to provide and to enrich. Centuries of building an economic powerhouse that dominates the world. Created by American Exceptionalism.
Quin Hillyer writes at The American Spectator,
There is something special about this country. The United States is exceptional. We are blessed by the good Lord, and in turn we have done more, far more, than any other people to spread freedom across the globe, and prosperity across the globe, and human rights across this great good Earth. We are a particularly good people...
Benjamin Franklin wondered if we, a good and virtuous people, could keep a republic, a system of government that would enable the system of capitalism.
Obama promises a change to Marxism. Other changes are sure to follow, if he is elected.
Thank you (foot)notes,
Hillyer continues comparing McCain to Obama,
We are a particularly good people -- and John McCain understands all this and believes it with every fiber of his being, down to his very marrow, in a way that is deeply spiritual in nature.
There is nothing fake about McCain's belief in American Exceptionalism. His belief in this is as genuine, and as deeply felt, as is a son's love for his father. He will defend this country, fight for this country, with every last breath in his body...
So there you have it: John McCain as a patriot firmly rooted in the American traditions of free enterprise, limited government, strong defense, personal accountability, and a decent respect for the cultural standards of the broad middle of the American public.
Those are the constituent elements of American exceptionalism -- and to his great credit, John McCain is an American exceptionalist, and an exceptional American.
Comments
John McCain is convinced America is exceptional. Barack Obama is ashamed of America and wants to change the fundamentals of our economy and constitution. What a contrast. The liberal illuminati have been working hard to make this look like it's a great change, but it's trying to change an apple into an orange. A rotten orange!
Posted by: A. | October 31, 2008 7:47 PM
An email from an Alert Reader at USNA at Large:
I recently got hold of a book, Idols of Destruction, by Herbert Schlossberg. About a third of the way through the book the author opines thusly:
"Since government produces no goods, it can distribute only what it takes from others. This process is indistinguishable from theft. When an election, or in some countries a coup, changes the identity of the plunderers and plundered, yesterday's injustice becomes today's justice. In a redistribute society, the law is a thief."
To say that Mr. Schlossberg was prescient is to state the obvious. This book was copyrighted in 1983, but the quote is more germane to the American Experiment today than when the book was first published.
Ray C '65
Posted by: Ray C | November 3, 2008 8:54 AM
A. I think you got it right:
McCain is exceptional, but not perfect.
Obama is not exceptional, but perfect...
No one agrees with everything about McCain, but we do know about his love and honor for country -- and his track record.
About Obama we know little -- and what we know is simple Marxist theology.
A vote for McCain is a vote for a man, with a heart of flesh.
A vote for Obama is a vote for a logo, with a heart of stone.
thank you for commenting,
Jack
Posted by: Jack Yoest
|
November 3, 2008 9:09 AM
Ray C's pull quote from Schlossberg is instructive.
Your Business Blogger(R) read his book some two decades ago and well remember his theme, A man's highest value is his idol.
Obama's highest idol is not God, the Creator mentioned in the Founding Documents, but his god of Government.
When your god is Government, then the stealing is lawful: There is no law.
Proof? Obama's favorite Auntie is a Fugitive Alien who evaded a deportation order. She and Obama will ignore the law.
Obama's criminal Auntie will remain in the country on the taxpayer dole.
Under Obama, "The Law is a thief."
Posted by: Jack Yoest
|
November 3, 2008 9:26 AM
John Howland from USNA at Large sends this from one of his members,
John Adams is credited with observing that democracies never last long; they age early and then die a suicide.
I did not give half of my life in a Cold (sometimes very hot) War to see the nation to which I pledged my essence and wore its uniform, die, having ground down a foreign version of the very doom we may soon implement upon ourselves!
Shame on us! It is astonishing that intelligent, free people do not see the coming danger. One can only explain it by attributing the problem to ignorance - or intent.
Karl Marx, now but a handful of dust and bone, would smile knowingly if he could. "Unvermeidlich!" he would say - "Inevitable! My theory is proved!" If you don't believe me, go to you local library and slog through a chapter of the socialist's Bible; as well, peruse words by Friedrich Engels, Georg Wilhelm Hegel, or Ludwig Feuerbach, more European intellectuals whose thought influenced Marx, the Soviets - and now, apparently, some of us.
There, in his English grave, the German author of "Das Kapital" will be well on the way to restored fame and credential.
The tens of millions of human lives snuffed out under the boot of failed Marxism's police state variations no longer will be able to find justification for their sacrifice if John Adams' ominous words are true.
Recall, also, another Founder's words,, when Thomas Jefferson spoke about occasional need to refresh the Liberty Tree.
Vote! - As if your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness depend on it - for they very well may....
Steve
Posted by: Steve | November 4, 2008 8:52 AM