The big question on everyone‘s mind right now is just how far will President Barack Obama take the country down the path towards socialism. Congressman Mike Pence, the chairman of the House Republican Conference, thinks the President has already began the journey with great enthusiasm. He called Obama‘s stimulus plan during an interview on Fox News Channel last Wednesday “the European Socialism Act of 2009.“
So is Obama‘s stimulus plan a means by which the government can expand itself? Absolutely. If you read carefully over what the stimulus bill entails, you will find that the expenditures are primarily on government-based projects that will not only be the antithesis to economic recovery, but will also expand government influence. After all, it‘s quite difficult to pull the country out of a slump by doing more of what helped bring it into the mess in the first place: spending too much, too quickly. With every president, we are getting further and further away from what the founding fathers of our nation envisioned for the country.
Let‘s take a step back and look at our own past. We‘ll start with the 19th century. How many economic recessions and/or depressions did we have during that century? We had an incredible amount. They were deep and they were bad. But they were over quickly. Why? Because government intervention did not hamper recovery. Government expansion and spending did not divert money needed in the private sectors to climb out of the economic down turns. Instead, the money was where it needed to be, in the hands of the individuals; in the hands of the people who need it the most.
Fast forward to 1921. Republican President Warren Harding is in the white house when the greatest economic crisis to occur since the early 19th century befalls the nation. Unemployment hit extremely high rates and production declined sharply as the country looked on in horror. What did the President do? Nothing. The economy not only fully recovered by 1923, but the economic expansion that occurred afterwards encouraged by a huge growth of production that was unprecedented and ultimately set off the roaring ‘20s.
These examples prove that the country can not only survive, but prosper under the prospects of genuine democracy and capitalism. Just take a look at the major technological advances made by this country in the 19th and 20th centuries. What do the other, government controlled, countries have to show? Britain quickly learned the lesson in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when its government began to release its stranglehold on its own markets and thereby triggering a global industrial revolution.
We are slowly putting that stranglehold back in place. By the time we see the end of this economic downturn, we will see the government with its grip on most, if not all, industries. Federal rules and regulations, inefficiency and high tax burdens will dominate the economy bringing progress to a halt.
Free market and real democracy are, as of now, a thing of the past however. And with every new bill the President signs into law, we are painfully reminded of it. Some say we should embrace socialism while others say it cannot be helped. I reject both of those statements. The American people need to rally together behind democracy and the free market, not some deified president who is dragging our country ever closer to European socialism.
European socialism. Not American socialism.
That is the way it should stay and in order to defend what so many Americans have died for in the past, when our country was more truly democratic and our markets free, we need to act now. We are not socialists. We are free-thinkers, individuals and entrepreneurs. We must hold on to the idea of capitalism through perseverance and personal responsibility. That is the American way. Let‘s rally as true Americans: behind real democracy and real capitalism.
The original article was written for Despotic Democracy and can be found here.
