Common Sense Government Blog

An Open Letter to Ron Paul Supporters

By John Eberhard

The United States is heading down a dangerous road. 50% of all U.S. households receive some kind of public assistance. Roughly the same percentage pay no taxes.

Common sense says that that is mathematically unsustainable. But Democrats have bloated government spending and government borrowing to continue to fund unsustainable entitlements. And the number of people on food stamps and other government assistance has rocketed under Obama, not to mention the fact that the Democrat controlled Congress did away with the welfare reform that was enacted in the 1990s.

Historian Alexander Tytler, a contemporary of the American Founders, stated “A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”

Meanwhile we have a mainstream news media that is fully in the tank for any liberal candidate, concept or idea, and won’t even report anything positive about any conservative candidate, concept or idea, despite the fact that conservatives make up 46% of the population compared to 20% liberal.

But you know all this. That’s why you support Ron Paul, because he’s for fiscal responsibility and returning to upholding the Constitution. And I have to say that in many things, I agree with you and I agree with Ron Paul. We need to have a balanced budget and get rid of the national debt, get rid of bloated bureaucracy, and start applying the Constitution.

But it’s time to give it up.

What do I mean by that? Well, recently I read that Ron Paul basically suspended his campaign, but urged his supporters to continue to try to disrupt the activities of Mitt Romney.

And I happen to know quite a few Ron Paul supporters, and have been active in a political forum where I have spoken a number of times on conservative political values. And most of the Ron Paul supporters I have spoken to have asserted that whether or not Ron Paul is nominated for the Republican ticket, they will still vote for Ron Paul, even if they have to write him in.

But it’s time to face that fact that Ron Paul is not going to win the Republican nomination. We haven’t even had the CA primary yet, but it’s pretty much wrapped up that Mitt Romney is going to win the nomination. And winning a few delegates here and there isn’t going to do it for Ron Paul.

So even though Mitt Romney is not my idea of the ideal Republican candidate, it’s time to support him and stop trying to “disrupt” his activities, whatever that means.

Why? Because the Ron Paul supporter vote could be the thing that turns the tide and puts Romney into office, and throws Barrack and Michelle Obama out on the street so they can indulge in one permanent vacation. You could help make Michelle’s dream of walking out the front door of the White House and never coming back, a reality.

And yes I’ve seen your stuff on Facebook, saying how Obama and Romney are the same and they’re all part of the one world order. So it doesn’t matter which one gets elected.

But that’s where you’re wrong.

Yes I know the Republican Party is far from the perfect entity in terms of upholding the Constitution and fiscal responsibility. But let’s look at some facts:

• Barack Obama is really like no other President in my lifetime. While we have had creeping socialism for over 100 years, he has put the whole effort into warp drive, and is steering us toward the cliff at warp 8.
• It was 100% Democrats in Congress who voted for Obamacare. Not one Republican vote in the House or Senate.
• It was Republicans who gave us welfare reform in 1990s. True it was Bill Clinton who signed it but the Republican Congress created it. And it was one of the most successful reform measures ever, getting lots of people off the dole and back into the workforce. Then it was Democrats who three it out the window as one of the first things the Obama-Reid-Pelosi triumvirate did.
• Obama is running for re-election basically on a platform of attacking capitalism. Throughout his entire Presidency he has attacked business, attacked producers, waged class warfare, pushed for the rich to pay more in taxes, and pushed for more people to get on the dole.
• Getting a Republican majority in the House is probably the only thing that has kept the Democrats from pushing through cap and trade, card check, and other liberal wet dream legislation.
• Obama is committed to bankrupting the coal industry and pushing energy prices up to unaffordable levels. His Energy Secretary said he wants to push gas prices up to the level of Europe.
• It has been Republicans who have fought for budget cuts and Democrats who have fought them tooth and nail.
• It has been Republicans who have fought raising the debt ceiling.
• It is the so-called Blue States which have been under Democratic Party control for the last 30-40 years that are going off the cliff financially the quickest.
• Obama has refused to approve the Keystone pipeline, estimated to produce over 100,000 jobs. Romney says he would approve it as one of the first things he would do.
• The level of accumulating debt under Obama is significantly higher than any previous President. I have seen figures indicating that his level of debt is equal to all previous Presidents combined.

I could go on. But the point is, that Obama and his cohorts have been doing everything they can to basically destroy this country. We could argue about whether or not they are doing it on purpose. But the destruction should be obvious to anyone who has not drunk the liberal Kool Aid.

Recent polls I have seen put Romney and Obama nearly neck and neck. Now a number of events between now and election day could significantly swing it in one direction or another, like the Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare for starters.

But right now it’s a close race.

And I think that whether we have Romney or Obama matters a great deal. Would Romney reverse everything that Obama has done? No. Would he support a total return to the Constitution? No. Would he support getting rid of the Departments of Energy and Education? Probably not.

But he is a supporter of capitalism and someone who actually understands how capitalism is supposed to work, i.e. a meritocracy, the market deciding winners and losers, property rights, rewarding producers, etc.

I was reading an article the other day that was saying that Obama is not really the problem, he is the result of the problem. We have a society made up of people who have been seduced by the idea of easy credit, and now a bigger and bigger segment is being seduced by the idea of living on the dole, letting the rest of us support them.

The recent financial crash came as a wake up call to some of us, realizing we couldn’t keep refinancing our mortgage to pay off our credit cards every year (i.e. living above our means). But many people haven’t woken up, and some have fallen deeper into the entitlement mentality.

I think the fact that the race between Obama and Romney is neck and neck is a scary thing. Don’t people see the things Obama has done? And why is it the Republican Party keeps nominating the most liberal guy in their own field? John McCain? Mitt Romney? Why can’t we get a principled conservative up there?

Well it could be the fact that our mainstream media has descended to the point of being a liberal propaganda machine. But it’s also the society, the population, the civilization. They like the easy way out, not paying taxes, having someone else pay their way. Class warfare sound good to them. That’s why Obama’s numbers aren’t at the bottom, at least not yet.

My point is that it’s going to take time to convince a population that has been sold a bill of goods, that they can live above their means, that someone else can pay or should pay, that there is such a thing as a free lunch.

Ron Paul has created a big effect. He has launched a big idea. Do I agree with everything he says? No. But he has pushed ideas of fiscal restraint and adhering to the Constitution forward into the public consciousness. But it’s going to take time for those ideas to take root. Hopefully we can do it and not descend into riots like the babies in Europe when they threaten to take their free lunch away.

Letting Obama get re-elected would be in essence allowing him to keep the throttle down as the train goes barreling off the cliff. Voting for Romney slows the train down, giving time for conservative principles to take root.

Obama Won’t Be Changing Course

By John Eberhard

Recently I saw an article on Newsmax.com about the fact that James Carville, a Democratic political strategist who worked for Clinton and who has written at least one book on politics, was advising President Obama to “panic.”

Carville stated "We are far past sending out talking points. Do not attempt to dumb it down. We cannot stand any more explanations. Have you talked to any Democratic senators lately? I have. It's pretty damn clear they are not happy campers.

"This is what I would say to President Barack Obama: The time has come to demand a plan of action that requires a complete change from the direction you are headed."

And then, Carville offers advice to the president in a CNN column. Step 1: "Fire somebody. No — fire a lot of people."

I thought about this and decided this was actually pretty savvy political advice. If Obama were to fire Timothy Geitner and all his other top financial advisors right now, admit he screwed up, and change course, he could buy himself another year of broader public support, and maybe even get re-elected.

But I am sure he is quite incapable of that, because results are not what motivates him. Prior to being elected President, Obama has never worked at a job where he had to produce a measurable result. He has never been the CEO of a company, or the Mayor of a city, or Governor of a state, or even a sales manager.

He was a college professor, a community organizer, a state senator, a U.S. Senator, and then President. And often in his positions as state senator and U.S. Senator, he voted “present,” rather than commit himself.

I don’t think results even occur to President Obama. He never had to make sure a company was profitable. He never had to make sure the company made payroll. He never had to balance a budget for a city or a state. So results don’t even enter his equations. (And that’s I think one of the generalized problems with liberals of even politicians in general, that they don’t look at results to measure their actions.)

Obama probably looks at the situation now and thinks he’s done a pretty good job. Because he is a total ideologue. His measure of success is how much liberal/socialist policies he has been able to put into effect. And by that measure, he’s done pretty well, because he has rammed more socialist policies and actions down our throats than anyone since FDR.

Obama talks a lot about jobs. But since he doesn’t understand how jobs are created, or what really motivates employers to hire people, or how many of his actions have actually and totally discouraged businesses from hiring people, he thinks he can just talk about jobs or sort of “order” businesses to hire people and they will.

So the fact that the economy has been in a funk for 3 years doesn’t phase Obama. And the fact that unemployment has been over 9% for some time now, I don’t think those facts even register. Since his thinking follows the Marxist line of thought that businessmen and entrepreneurs are the bad guys (and he regularly demonizes business) he probably thinks they are not hiring because they’re just bad people and not appreciative of all the fine speeches he has made on the subject of jobs. (And yes I did says “Marxist” and for the uninitiated, that means “socialism” and if you don’t think what he’s doing is socialist, you need to read “The Communist Manifesto.”)

Obama is one of those guys who's been mad for 35 years that more liberal/socialist stuff hasn’t been implemented and figures now is his chance to be the liberal hero.

But some other liberals are starting to realize that results DO matter, at least to the public, and so they are starting to seriously distance themselves from him.

Despite the fact that some liberals are beginning to realize that the state of the economy does matter for some reason to those dolts out in middle America, Obama isn’t one of them. He won’t be changing course, because he thinks he’s doing fine. And November, 2012 will be an evil surprise for him.

Socialism

by John Eberhard

A friend sent me this on Facebook. Seems like a good experiment in how socialism works. Also seems like an unusual college professor these days.

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Socialism

An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little.. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that....Socialism