Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts. - Nelson Mandela
There has been much controversy on the Internet regarding the "Joe the Plumber". One controversy involves the question as two whether or not Joe is an authentic plumber, a regular Joe. I believe whether or not he is really a plumber and really makes the amount of money stated is not very important here. Fiction and literature, while it can contain half-truths, can still express truth, as all good liberal philosophers know. Even more, economics is a difficult subject to communicate in a short amount of time. The economical system in any country requires one to not only notice what is caused and affected by economic policies, but also what is not caused, that is, what is lost, to borrow a notion from economist Henry Hazlitt. So, ironically enough, of two possible candidates, it is easier for the liar to sound better than the one who is attempting with all his might to be clear to the public about what they will actually lose or gain by a particular economic policy. Whether or not Joe the Plumber is a story powerful enough to achieve truth telling, is doubtful. Like all other McCain's attempts to counter Obama's socialistic policies, he comes off very weak and doesn't quite make the impact that he could.
Obamanian Principles from the Horse's Mouth
What is an authentic controversy is the very nature of Obama's tax plan in relation to small business, nay, in relation to the entire population of America.
First, it always helps to look at a man's principles. So lets but Joe aside for a bit and look at Obama. No better place than from the horse's mouth, correct? I appreciate the following quote from Obama, since it is one of the few times where he has been very clear about his principles and it tells a lot about the nature of the man:
Like so much of the American story, once again, we face a choice. Once again, there are those who believe that there isn't much we can do about this as a nation. That the best idea is to give everyone one big refund on their government—divvy it up by individual portions, in the form of tax breaks, hand it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, their own education, and so on.
In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it—Social Darwinism—every man or woman for him or herself. It's a tempting idea, because it doesn't require much thought or ingenuity. It allows us to say that those whose health care or tuition may rise faster than they can afford—tough luck. It allows us to say to the Maytag workers who have lost their job—life isn't fair. It let's us say to the child who was born into poverty—pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And it is especially tempting because each of us believes we will always be the winner in life's lottery, that we're the one who will be the next Donald Trump, or at least we won't be the chump who Donald Trump says: "You're fired!"
But there is a problem. It won't work. It ignores our history. It ignores the fact that it's been government research and investment that made the railways possible and the internet possible. It's been the creation of a massive middle class, through decent wages and benefits and public schools that allowed us all to prosper. Our economic dependence depended on individual initiative. It depended on a belief in the free market; but it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, the idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we're all in it together and everybody's got a shot at opportunity. That's what's produced our unrivaled political stability.
Obamanian Corruption: You Can Too!
Obamanian is a strange beast indeed, because for the most part it makes little sense even in the context of a single speech First of all, he describes American capitalism as being Social Darwinism, survival of the fittest. Worst of all, he describes it in a way that makes it appear to be economically dependent on government handouts: "Divvy it up by individual portions". It is clear that Obama believes that everyone who is anyone gets a handout from the government, that everyone at bottom is corrupt in America. This notion is ratified even further with the current economic crisis, exposure of Wall Street treachery and complicit government officials. Obama and other socialists can point and say "See, capitalism is a giant scam against the people of this country for the sake of a few individuals." This apparent fiscal corruption perhaps justified his own, as he merrily sees his own nefarious deeds and associations as means to a "more noble" end. He might have said to himself long ago, "America is unjust and corrupt, where the capitalists get handouts from the government; they get a free ticket. I need to use this system to my advantage no matter what, in order to fix it and change the world."
Obama's own corruption is that he has become the very monster he wishes to destroy. True, there is always corruption and greed and there will always be such corruption as long as human beings exist, but Obama's solution is simply this: "Look, folks, those capitalists have taken your money and have enjoyed themselves with it at your expense. These robbers have a huge amount of cash, while you have very little. So, I am going to bring some of this cash to you, that way we can all share the joys of communal robbery."
Obama is not a man who will provide solutions to our economic problems. He will perpetuate our problems further, legitimizing the corruption in the form of government sanctioned taxation policies. He is simply legalizing the robbery of the American people.
Joe (back to him) represents a typically successful small businessman. If he is a plant, he is a plant intended to demonstrate the nature of Obama' philosophy which is to "spread the wealth". Unfortunately, spreading the wealth sounds really great, as long as you are blind to the fact that you would be taking from someone else, i.e. stealing.
The Right To Choose
While Obama supports the right to choose in the case of abortion, he is clearly not for the right to choose in the the case of everything else: "encourage[ing] everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, their own education, and so on" , to Obama, is Social Darwinism after all. Instead, Obama will usher in a new health care system that is government controlled and operated. The taxes he will put on Joe for not supplying the appropriate health coverage for employees will be used to fund this health care plan. In other words, the government is seizing money from Joe to pay for unrestricted health care for other Joes (who aren't so successful and may not even have jobs). Now Joe can choose to provide health care for his employees but he will have to do so in accordance with what the government says is required, which probably won't be worth the costs. As a result, more people will have to choose the government's health plan, which will be an enormous burden on the economy:
Where McCain seeks to address the problems of our health insurance system by building a market for private individuals, Obama seeks to do so by building a public-insurance system. His plan would force all but the very smallest businesses to either provide insurance coverage that meets the plan's requirements (which the Obama campaign has not specified, but would surely involve extensive particular coverage mandates like those in the federal employee health plan, which exceed what most popular employee plans provide today), or pay a tax to the government. Many employers would thus face the choice of increasing their insurance costs to comply with the new coverage requirements or dropping their workers' coverage. Obama, meanwhile, would create a new government-run insurance program (funded by the new tax on employers who don't offer coverage) that would compete with private companies to cover people who are not insured by employers.
In effect, the Obama plan creates an incentive to drop employees from existing plans, and then takes private insurers out of the race to cover them by using price controls to make the public option cheaper. The plan's goal is to drive Americans into a public Medicare-like insurance system by default. - Yuval Levin, The Weekly Standard
Obama has promised his worshippers that they will still be able to keep the health care plan they choose. He lies. What he really means is that they can choose, until they can't.
Ownership Society
For Obama, we currently live in what he coins as an Ownership Society, and it is a society he would like eliminate. Again, despite people who say I am nuts, the truth is that Obama is die hard Marxist, with a capital M. He also mildly agrees with Al Gore in that he believes the government has made the Internet possible. Speaking as a software engineer myself, I have to say that that is utter hogwash. What has made the internet possible was the invention, by individuals, of the telephone network, which in turn was invented by a variety of, again, individuals. Here is a little synopsis of how the internet came to be. Maybe a government official presided over it as a cheerleader, but who knows.
The Internet began as a computer network of ARPA (ARPAnet) that linked computer networks at several universities and research laboratories in the United States. The World Wide Web was developed in 1989 by English computer scientist Timothy Berners-Lee for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
"The design of the Internet was done in 1973 and published in 1974. There ensued about 10 years of hard work, resulting in the roll out of Internet in 1983. Prior to that, a number of demonstrations were made of the technology - such as the first three-network interconnection demonstrated in November 1977 linking SATNET, PRNET and ARPANET in a path leading from Menlo Park, CA to University College London and back to USC/ISI in Marina del Rey, CA." . - IdeaFinder
Furthermore, if it were not for the likes of private companies such as Microsoft, IBM or Google, the internet would not be something that it currently is today: in every home and on every desktop.
Come to think of it, actually, I can't think of a single thing that the government itself has invented, since the Constitution itself which should be enough. For Obama to continue the lies and say that the government has caused our prosperity and wealth is beyond belief. No thinking, industrious and informed American will accept such a statement. No one who knows the meaning of hard work, the joy of striving for excellence and success and the bounty that it in itself brings to those around us, will accept Obamania.
That is why I so fear for this country. If he can win this election, standing on a platform such as this, than I truly question who we have become. Have we become so complacent that we don't even realize the source of our possessions and our freedom? Are we so unaware of surroundings that we cannot see the power of the individual, his impact as the true socializer, inventor, creator, source of wealth and source of empowerment?
It is time we all start to show the truth, that each one of us is a better organizer of community , by virtue of our own light, than Obama ever could be. For when, in history, has a government ever been a hero? When in history, has a government discovered a medicine to cure disease? When in history, has a government every written a profound poem, or painted a beautiful painting? Our American civilization is great because of the greatness of our people, not the greatness of our government.
As such, Mr. Obama, your positions, your ideas, the essence of your soul is grounded in the stupid economics of Marxist principles. That the American people have even thought to vote for you is testament, simply, to our failure to provide the proper education for ourselves and our children. With the election of Obama and the huge taxation that will befall of us, and the resulting lack of innovation and incentive to work and excel, we will lose, even more, our freedom, to such an extent, that we will be unaware of the world around us. This is why, Mendela says that a prisoner cannot enter into contracts. Prisoners have no choice, because they do not know that such choices are possible. They take what they can get. And what they usually get is some kind of Gorbachevian utopia.
So to end this, I will do so in typical liberal style, by quoting Nelson Mandela again, for literary balance, who really seems to know who is the true Community Organizer:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
