At the Precipice – What’s At Stake This November

BY PAUL E. SCATES

I turned 59 years old this week. It doesn’t seem like 41 years ago when, at age 18, I went off to war. That was the beginning of my real education, despite the four years I later spent in college. In Vietnam I learned firsthand how deceitful and amoral American career politicians of both parties can be, for they put us into Vietnam, and then dishonored all who served there when the U.S. cut and ran, while they shamelessly called it “honorable” to abandon our allies.

In the years since, I’ve watched politicians in both major parties grow increasingly self-serving and contemptuous of the American people. In the 90s Republicans showed the true nature of all career politicians when they gained control of Congress…and expanded government and spent our money like drunken sailors, exactly like liberal Democrats.

During those 41 years I’ve had to vote again and again for what I perceived as “the lesser of two evils.” The presidential election this year seems to be just more of the same: out of over 300 million Americans, our only choice is between two career politicians, both of whom (like their respective political parties) are apparently willing to prostitute themselves in every way possible in order to gain the office they seek. However, as much as this election seems like so many previous ones, I’m writing this essay because it’s different…far different.

Lest you still suspect me of rank partisanship, let me say this: I am not a Republican, and I despise John McCain. I resent having to cast votes for the likes of him or Bush, but also for the likes of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (alas, I actually voted for both). The Democrats, too, have abandoned even the pretense of principle or character in their candidates. For both parties it’s all about acquiring power at all costs.

As an independent, constitutional Conservative who has little but contempt for both Republicans and Democrats, I’m outraged that McCain co-authored the most un-constitutional legislation ever passed into law (McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform), yet now asks to be put in charge of protecting and defending that same Constitution. He blames money for corrupting politicians, but ordinary Americans know that it’s the politicians’ (of both parties) willingness to take special interest money that is the real problem. In short, he’s just another career politician who thrives because you and I have let them, because we pay attention to what they say and not to what they actually do. However, I’m outraged that Obama has the gall to ask to be our president, too, for he is not just another arrogant career politician (although he is certainly that) who happens to be in the other party.

Obama is a Socialist. While politicians in both parties have pushed us ever closer to big government socialism, it’s simply out of their self-interest and never-ending thirst for more power. Obama is something different: he is a “true believer” in the Socialist philosophy, and his record shows it.

Obama has worked his entire adult life to promote the Socialist philosophy that says it’s necessary to “spread the wealth around,” that the government can take care of people better than the people themselves, and that he (and others like him) are so much wiser than ordinary Americans. Conservative talk radio people keep questioning his ‘judgment,’ but his judgment isn’t the problem; it simply reveals who he really is. He has acted and is acting on what he believes, and associating with those who share his beliefs. Why shouldn’t he be friends with Bill Ayers and work for ACORN? They share his anti-American Socialist views.

I say “anti-American” because a Socialist has to be against the foundations of this country, for they prove how bankrupt and false the Socialist system is. The institutions that have made our prosperity, freedom and strength possible are based on the polar opposite beliefs of what Socialists believe; therefore the Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights must be denigrated and disparaged for its failures, the flag and what it stands for must not be honored, he must not “take sides” by standing with and for America against our enemies. Of course Obama would never admit it (yet), but he doesn’t have to: just listen to what he says, consistently; it’s the mantra of Socialism, all about class divisions and class warfare; about redistribution of wealth from those who earned it to those who didn’t; about fairness and equality, etc.

But if Socialism is so grand and noble then why, when the Soviet empire collapsed, were there such widespread, joyous celebrations throughout the Eastern and Central European nations that had long suffered under that system? And if the U.S. is so unfair and unequal, then why do millions of people of all colors and nationalities risk everything year after year to come here? Is it because, as Obama has been saying, this nation is so awful that we need to be remade into his image? No, the American Dream says that anyone who can make it here…can ‘make it’ here. Black middle class Americans constitute the fifteenth largest economy in the world, so it’s not like blacks who prepare themselves and work hard can’t succeed. But Obama’s Socialism will destroy such opportunities for everyone, especially for minorities and the poor, just as it did in the Soviet Union and their satellite states, in Cuba, China and elsewhere.

Although Obama brazenly disavows his clear record of long-time Socialist activities and affiliations, that’s the modus operandi of Socialists: whatever tactic works is the one they’ll use, and they brag about it, just not in public. Morality is only a “bourgeois” nicety; winning at all costs is the agenda. Barack Obama is not just a contrarian politician, to one side or the other of the traditional American political spectrum. He stands far outside that tradition, and represents the destruction of our political, economic and social foundations. As a Socialist, he believes in the opposite of our Founding principles. He believes those in government (i.e., him and his cronies) are smarter than you and I, that they know how to spend our money better than we do, and that they – not the ‘angry and bitter’ American people – are better able to run our lives. Sound familiar?

Socialism has been tried many, many times, and it’s always marked by the suppression of liberty and the encroachment of government into every area of human life (necessary to keep the anointed ones in power after their policies are revealed to result in such human horror and deprivation). Nobody with even partial reasoning capacity can honestly think that “more government” will benefit Americans, but that’s Obama’s answer to every issue. He’s just being true to his beliefs.

Again, Obama is not “just another career politician,” he is something drastically different from those we’ve held our noses and voted for. He will dismantle the Founding principles and the Constitution that protects our liberty and opportunities to prosper materially…the very liberties you’ve enjoyed in building your lives, the very prosperity that capitalism has made possible. Oh, he’ll do so with good intentions, but in destroying our foundations he will, in effect, kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

History isn’t partisan; the record is clear about what Socialism does to nations and people. If he’s truly as smart as people say, he knows this…which is precisely why he presents himself as something else. He’s willing to deceive you in order to gain the power to try that deadly system here because he believes, as all demagogues have always believed, that because they’re so much smarter than everyone else who ever tried it, “it will be different here.” No…it won’t.

Barack Obama’s entire adult career has been an assault on the nation he now wants to lead; his words have defamed and insulted and disparaged everything good about this country; and his campaign has been one long lie about his beliefs, his associations and his career. I ask you to go on-line and verify these words, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, but also in the name of some others.

Veterans’ Day will come a week after this election, and all those who sacrificed so much so you and I could be free and build decent lives deserve far more than to have everything they stood, fought and died for handed over to one who cares nothing for any of it. As one who followed in their stead but by the grace of God returned home, I believe I’ve earned the right to ask this of you on their behalf.

McCain, for all his faults, at least won’t completely destroy the foundations of our democratic republic. With the Democrat-controlled Congress empowering him, Obama most certainly will.

Is he evil? I don’t think so. Is he wrong? Absolutely, and terribly. Lenin, Castro, Mao, et al, were brilliant and had good intentions for their people, too, and they brought material deprivation, social squalor and third-world status to those they wanted to help, not to mention over 150 million deaths to their own citizens from starvation and the political brutality required to maintain their power.

It’s not about race, it’s not about Democrat or Republican…it’s about the continuation of the American Dream. As I’ve written for years, we desperately need to fix our political system…but we don’t need to replace it with one proven to be drastically, tragically worse. Churchill said, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

The Obama campaign is right about one thing: this November marks a turning point in American history. The American people will either step up and reject the lure of Socialism, re-shoulder our responsibilities to govern ourselves, and begin throwing out the career politicians of both parties…or we’ll surrender to the sweet lies of a deadly political philosophy that will mark the end of the American experiment. Millions of Russians, Cubans, Chinese, Poles and others would tell you, if they could, that some political mistakes can’t be undone. I urge you to look beyond the rhetoric; the Bible says that Satan himself comes to us disguised as an angel of light.

No, Barack Obama is not Satan. But he is a Socialist., and many otherwise brilliant people have succumbed to the sweet lies of that deadly philosophy. Apart from giving away other people’s money as a “community activist,” voting “present” as a state legislator and campaigning for president, he has never actually done anything except talk. Yes, he does that very well, and so convincingly…but so did the serpent in the Garden. Obama hasn’t earned the right to be our president, or the right to your vote. I urge you: don’t give it to him.

Formerly a liberal and an atheist, Paul E. Scates served as a Marine in Vietnam and is a lifelong student of American history, politics and culture. A former contributor to national website TooGoodReports.com, he writes his staunchly independent Conservative and informed Christian commentary for his fellow ordinary, working Americans, the “we, the people” who are ultimately responsible for preserving our Constitutional liberties.