American Slogan

The time is nearing for President Obama and his trusty companion, Joe Biden, to head to the Democrat Party Convention and lead the party faithful in the shouting of the re-election mantra chosen for the next four year term. As one might recall, the term, “Hope & Change” was used in the last effort to elect Obama to the office. One might also recall that few, if any, who cast their vote on the basis of the slogan, ever really asked, “Hope….hope for what?” “Change….change for what? The assumption was that the answers to those questions were far too obvious to talk about. Even Obama embraced that assumption leaving the explanation off the table while promising everything from slowing the movement in the Universe to eliminating world hunger. The people only cheered for they knew the savior was surely standing on the podium. In retrospect, one must surely ask, “What were we thinking”, or better yet, “Were we thinking?”

I suppose we can assume that “Hope & Change” is behind us now that we are submerged in more debt than ever continually grown by an ever-increasing annual deficit as each Obama-year passes on the books. After four years, who is it that now truly has “hope” other than those who desire to see this so-called savior removed from the office after one term of fumbled footballs? What change is it which has occurred in the past four years that convinces us that the savior has arrived? Could it be the squandering of over $800 billion borrowed dollars as an economic stimulus which seemed to simply disappear into thin air yet end up in the pockets of far too many of the messiah’s cronies? Could the change come in the form of the promises of Obama-Care as the death panels for the elderly take their seats to decide who lives and who dies on the basis of what it will cost in terms of healthcare and what the value of their remaining lives might be to society? Please, Lord, let there be more to “Hope & Change” than those outcomes.

Obama says that we cannot go back as he speaks of the days prior to his taking office as something worse than the Great Depression. He insinuates that he indeed has led the American people to another place in the past four years…a place better than we have ever seen. He stops short of calling it “Utopia” or “Eden” only to say that we have more to do to get to the sweet spot said to be out there somewhere before us. One cannot be certain of that belief but one can be certain that if we do arrive somewhere out there that we will do so burdened by crushing debt that has buried our children and the generations beyond promising them that their lives will fall short of our own in terms of personal wealth and pleasures of life. We can be sure that we will truly have “spent ourselves into prosperity and Utopia.”

Now Obama and company look to the coming of another term in office on the back of a single word slogan…”Forward”. The word offers a powerful and positive promise that we are truly headed somewhere good as a nation. It implies that we are already on the road to the right place as long as we continue to progress…”Forward!” That progress, by the way, is defined and measured by the Obama Administration as the primary judge. It goes unquestioned by the mainstream media. On the contrary, it is embraced and supported by those agencies who seldom question what it is that we have achieved in the past four years or where we are really headed in the next term. The foregone conclusion seems to be that as long as Obama, the anointed savior, is at the helm, there will only be glassy waters meeting our bow.

Our nation is approaching a national debt burden of $16 trillion dollars and the spending deficit continues to be very high. Annual spending has increased by a factor of 140% over the past four years while revenue into the government has increased only by a mere 43% over the same term. One must concede that there was a time when a 43% increase in revenue might be considered significant in such a short period yet the spending so far overshadows the revenue increase that it is simply lost in the noise. The growth in Gross Domestic Product, the output of the nation, is all but stagnant and miserable while our debt burden rushes to exceed it. Soon our liabilities will exceed our assets as a nation yet we have a sitting president who really lends no credence to motivating the private sector as it believes that sector of our nation if fine. In fact, it is so good and so aggressive that he is will to increase the Environmental Protection Agency’s operating budget by 125% just to keep a regulatory watch over it making doubly sure that it does not fire up and run to its potential. A second term will guarantee that this action stays in place.

Employment fall out and a lack of employment opportunities also stem from this stagnation of the private sector under this president. Obama believes that a large central government is truly the answer to all ills of the people. He believes that the more the government spends, the healthier the potential becomes for the economy to flourish, with or without the private sector’s participation. In four years alone, Obama has grown the size of government by a factor of 18%. In essence, the federal government has expanded by approximately 1/5^th in size in the time Obama has been in office mainly on the platform of government take-over and growth of entitlement programs. Much of the government’s energy, effort, and spending have gone into making people more dependent on the government than they have ever been before. This fact is particularly evident in the black population of the nation with exceptionally high unemployment numbers and government assistance levels. Black people stepped up and voted in great masses for Obama in 2008 to elect him to high office. Is this the payback they get for that devotion and loyalty…the promises of growing government dependence?

When it comes to redistribution of wealth, the government has two choices. It can declare its authority and power thus seizing the assets of those who have earned it on the justification that revenue is needed to provide for those in need, or, the government can spend money that it does not have to cover such entitlements while creating even more in the process only to use that growing debt burden to rationalize raising taxes on those who earn to higher and higher levels. Either way, the money goes to the government and is redistributed in the name of “caring and sharing”. In effect, such redistribution eventually only creates more and more who need such assistance and eventually breaks down the machine which generates the assets leaving us all out of work and in need. All that is left then are those in power in the government who have managed to keep their assets out of the mix and us, the poor and starving masses. Yes, “Forward”, must be the answer to our ills as a nation.

We live in a free country at the moment. We are guaranteed those rights and freedoms under our founding documents associated with our Constitution. Little by little, as this justification to grown government and rationalize ever-growing entitlement spending expands; we lose more and more of those precious freedoms as a people. Far too many of us will trade them like beads for whiskey for the promises of immediate gratification and security yet, in truth, most of us are on our own regardless of what politicians may promise will happen in the future.

“Forward!... To where, Mr. President?” “Forward!...How, Mr. President?” Forward! Why, Mr. President?” Where have you heard those questions asked and how many more times have you seen that same reporter who asked them in the next crowd assembled around the president? The media trades its responsibility to report the facts and to maintain the honest for a place near the arm and the ear of the president. The result sells advertising but does little or nothing for the objectivity or the credibility of those who engage in the media profession. Our Founding Fathers counted on a free press to keep the government honest and functioning on behalf of the people. Those days are long since gone; the free press has sold out. In this day and time, the people must listen, learn from their observations and experiences then vote their convictions. Otherwise, they are simply sheep being herded by the politicians and the sold-out media.

This upcoming presidential election of November 2012 is not really about the conservatism of Mitt Romney. It is not about the wealth or religion of Mitt Romney. In effect, it has no bearing on the potential dangers of a Romney presidency for there is only one real danger in Mitt Romney becoming president and that is the possibility that he would continue upon the same path on which Obama has established his direction in the past four years…the only real and apparent danger. On the other hand, the election is pivotal to stopping the erosion of this country as we know it at a four year point rather than allowing such damage to continue for an additional four years. It is time for the American people to realize that when Obama yells “Forward!” that his intentions do not at all match the visions which come into their heads as a result of hearing that word. It is past time. If ever there was a time for “hope & change”, it will come in November and America’s fate will be determined.

©Copyright WBrown2012. All Rights Reserved.

2 September 2012