Is this fair?

Of course not!

This is reverse discrimination, plain and simple. People are being penalized because their skin is white (or they came from China or Japan, etc.). Such a policy fosters resentment from those who are discriminated against and exacerbates racial tensions and is counterproductive.

In the following editorial by Sen. James Webb of Virginia, a Democrat, he calls for the abolishment of this divisive, inequitable, morally wrong and unconstitutional (strictly speaking) policy. He states that:

“Nondiscrimination laws should be applied equally among all citizens, including those who happen to be white. The need for inclusiveness in our society is undeniable and irreversible, both in our markets and in our communities. Our government should be in the business of enabling opportunity for all, not in picking winners.”

We strongly agree.

Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege
America still owes a debt to its black citizens, but government programs to help all 'people of color' are unfair. They should end.
James Webb    July 22, 2010

The NAACP believes the tea party is racist. The tea party believes the NAACP is racist. And Pat Buchanan got into trouble recently by pointing out that if Elena Kagan is confirmed to the Supreme Court, there will not be a single Protestant Justice, although Protestants make up half the U.S. population and dominated the court for generations.

Forty years ago, as the United States experienced the civil rights movement, the supposed monolith of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant dominance served as the whipping post for almost every debate about power and status in America. After a full generation of such debate, WASP elites have fallen by the wayside and a plethora of government-enforced diversity policies have marginalized many white workers. The time has come to cease the false arguments and allow every American the benefit of a fair chance at the future.

I have dedicated my political career to bringing fairness to America's economic system and to our work force, regardless of what people look like or where they may worship. Unfortunately, present-day diversity programs work against that notion, having expanded so far beyond their original purpose that they now favor anyone who does not happen to be white.

In an odd historical twist that all Americans see but few can understand, many programs allow recently arrived immigrants to move ahead of similarly situated whites whose families have been in the country for generations. These programs have damaged racial harmony. And the more they have grown, the less they have actually helped African-Americans, the intended beneficiaries of affirmative action as it was originally conceived.

How so?

Lyndon Johnson's initial program for affirmative action was based on the 13th Amendment and on the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which authorized the federal government to take actions in order to eliminate "the badges of slavery." Affirmative action was designed to recognize the uniquely difficult journey of African-Americans. This policy was justifiable and understandable, even to those who came from white cultural groups that had also suffered in socio-economic terms from the Civil War and its aftermath.

The injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government have no parallel in our history, not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed. But the extrapolation of this logic to all "people of color"—especially since 1965, when new immigration laws dramatically altered the demographic makeup of the U.S.—moved affirmative action away from remediation and toward discrimination, this time against whites. It has also lessened the focus on assisting African-Americans, who despite a veneer of successful people at the very top still experience high rates of poverty, drug abuse, incarceration and family breakup.

Those who came to this country in recent decades from Asia, Latin America and Africa did not suffer discrimination from our government, and in fact have frequently been the beneficiaries of special government programs. The same cannot be said of many hard-working white Americans, including those whose roots in America go back more than 200 years.

Contrary to assumptions in the law, white America is hardly a monolith. And the journey of white American cultures is so diverse (yes) that one strains to find the logic that could lump them together for the purpose of public policy.

The clearest example of today's misguided policies comes from examining the history of the American South.

The old South was a three-tiered society, with blacks and hard-put whites both dominated by white elites who manipulated racial tensions in order to retain power. At the height of slavery, in 1860, less than 5% of whites in the South owned slaves. The eminent black historian John Hope Franklin wrote that "fully three-fourths of the white people in the South had neither slaves nor an immediate economic interest in the maintenance of slavery."

The Civil War devastated the South, in human and economic terms. And from post-Civil War Reconstruction to the beginning of World War II, the region was a ravaged place, affecting black and white alike.

In 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt created a national commission to study what he termed "the long and ironic history of the despoiling of this truly American section." At that time, most industries in the South were owned by companies outside the region. Of the South's 1.8 million sharecroppers, 1.2 million were white (a mirror of the population, which was 71% white). The illiteracy rate was five times that of the North-Central states and more than twice that of New England and the Middle Atlantic (despite the waves of European immigrants then flowing to those regions). The total endowments of all the colleges and universities in the South were less than the endowments of Harvard and Yale alone. The average schoolchild in the South had $25 a year spent on his or her education, compared to $141 for children in New York.

Generations of such deficiencies do not disappear overnight, and they affect the momentum of a culture. In 1974, a National Opinion Research Center (NORC) study of white ethnic groups showed that white Baptists nationwide averaged only 10.7 years of education, a level almost identical to blacks' average of 10.6 years, and well below that of most other white groups. A recent NORC Social Survey of white adults born after World War II showed that in the years 1980-2000, only 18.4% of white Baptists and 21.8% of Irish Protestants—the principal ethnic group that settled the South—had obtained college degrees, compared to a national average of 30.1%, a Jewish average of 73.3%, and an average among those of Chinese and Indian descent of 61.9%.

Policy makers ignored such disparities within America's white cultures when, in advancing minority diversity programs, they treated whites as a fungible monolith. Also lost on these policy makers were the differences in economic and educational attainment among nonwhite cultures. Thus nonwhite groups received special consideration in a wide variety of areas including business startups, academic admissions, job promotions and lucrative government contracts.

Where should we go from here? Beyond our continuing obligation to assist those African-Americans still in need, government-directed diversity programs should end.

Nondiscrimination laws should be applied equally among all citizens, including those who happen to be white. The need for inclusiveness in our society is undeniable and irreversible, both in our markets and in our communities. Our government should be in the business of enabling opportunity for all, not in picking winners. It can do so by ensuring that artificial distinctions such as race do not determine outcomes.

Memo to my fellow politicians: Drop the Procrustean policies and allow harmony to invade the public mindset. Fairness will happen, and bitterness will fade away.

Mr. Webb, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator from Virginia.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703724104575379630952309408.html

In fact, the primary motivation and impetus for the creation of this website was the realization of the threats and risks to a free America that Obama presented combined with a far-left radical Democrat juggernaut in the Senate and House of Representatives. Information needs to be disseminated so we can all be informed and aware of what is transpiring and act accordingly. As we have just recently learned regarding the media collusion in the Journolist scandal, such information has been egregiously manipulated, controlled and even suppressed to support a far-left agenda (and candidate in Obama). The “main stream” media has become a de facto political wing and propaganda source for the Democratic Party and hence, the functioning government.

This is an incredibly dangerous situation for us American citizens and for the survival of our Democracy.

In the following trenchant, thorough and convincing editorial written by Tom Tancredo, who was a five term member of Congress, he calls for the impeachment of Obama. He concisely sums up the immense danger that Obama presents to our country by stating that:

For the first time in American history, we have a man in the White House who consciously and brazenly disregards his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. That's why I say the greatest threat to our Constitution, our safety and our liberties, is internal. Our president is an enemy of our Constitution, and, as such, he is a danger to our safety, our security and our personal freedoms.

If we can vote in enough Republicans to take over the House and Senate in November, then we will have what it takes to impeach Obama's - though we may also need to coax our elected officials to pursue this course of action.

The case for impeachment
Obama has violated his oath of office over immigration
Tom Tancredo    July 22, 2010

Eleven years ago, like every citizen elected to serve in Congress or any person appointed to any federal position, I swore an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic."

I've always thought it significant that the Founders included domestic enemies in that oath of office. They thought liberty was as much at risk from threats within our borders as from outside, and French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville agreed with that warning.

In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the greatest threat to our nation was clear - and foreign. While Islamic terrorism still represents the greatest external threat to America and American lives, the avowed program of the Obama regime has changed the picture in a fundamental way.

For the first time in American history, we have a man in the White House who consciously and brazenly disregards his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. That's why I say the greatest threat to our Constitution, our safety and our liberties, is internal. Our president is an enemy of our Constitution, and, as such, he is a danger to our safety, our security and our personal freedoms.

Barack Obama is one of the most powerful presidents this nation has seen in generations. He is powerful because he is supported by large majorities in Congress, but, more importantly, because he does not feel constrained by the rule of law. Whether he is putting up the weakest possible defense of the Defense of Marriage Act despite the Justice Department's legal obligation to support existing law; disenfranchising Chrysler and GM bondholders in order to transfer billions of investor dollars to his supporters in the United Auto Workers; or implementing yet a third offshore oil-drilling moratorium even after two federal courts have thrown out two previous moratoriums, President Obama is determined to see things done his way regardless of obstacles. To Mr. Obama, the rule of law is a mere inconvenience to be ignored, overcome or "transcended" through international agreements or "norms."

Mr. Obama's paramount goal, as he so memorably put it during his campaign in 2008, is to "fundamentally transform America." He has not proposed improving America - he is intent on changing its most essential character. The words he has chosen to describe his goals are neither the words nor the motivation of just any liberal Democratic politician. This is the utopian, or rather dystopian, reverie of a dedicated Marxist - a dedicated Marxist who lives in the White House.

Because of the power he wields over budgets, the judiciary, national defense and even health care, his regime and his program are not just about changing public policy in the conventional sense. When one considers the combination of his stop-at-nothing attitude, his contempt for limited government, his appointment of judges who want to create law rather than interpret it - all of these make this president today's single greatest threat to the great experiment in freedom that is our republic.

Yes, Mr. Obama is a more serious threat to America than al Qaeda. We know that Osama bin Laden and followers want to kill us, but at least they are an outside force against whom we can offer our best defense. But when a dedicated enemy of the Constitution is working from the inside, we face a far more dangerous threat. Mr. Obama can accomplish with the stroke of his pen what bin Laden cannot accomplish with bombs and insurgents.

Mr. Obama's actions, not just his words, show the threat he poses. A level of government deficit spending unheard of since World War II and trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see represent an unacceptable threat to our economic security and our children's future. Mr. Obama could be the first president to guarantee that the next generation of Americans has a lower standard of living than their parents.

Mr. Obama's most egregious and brazen betrayal of our Constitution was his statement to Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, that the administration will not enforce security on our southern border because that would remove Republicans' desire to negotiate a "comprehensive" immigration bill. That is, to put it plainly, a decision that by any reasonable standard constitutes an impeachable offense against the Constitution. For partisan political advantage, he is willfully disregarding his obligation under Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution to protect states from foreign invasion.

There is no higher duty of the federal government and our elected representatives than to protect our nation from invasion. Multiple reports and testimony before Congress by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials have stated that a porous border with Mexico is "a path" terrorists will use if they can. Some would-be terrorists, including at least one associated with Hezbollah, already have. Recent reports of contacts between Hezbollah and Mexican drug cartels make it all but certain that terrorists intent on destroying us will come across our southwestern border. Therefore, it is of utmost importance for the administration to do everything in its power to keep Americans safe. Our safety is not a bargaining chip for another amnesty - or for any other political objective whatsoever.

Mr. Obama's refusal to live up to his own oath of office - which includes the duty to defend the United States against foreign invasion - requires senators and representatives to live up to their oaths. Members of Congress must defend our nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Today, that means bringing impeachment charges against Mr. Obama.

Tom Tancredo is a former member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and five-term member of Congress from Colorado. He serves as chairman of the Rocky Mountain Foundation.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/22/the-case-for-impeachment/

This sanctioned and enforced racism of blacks over whites is something that all Americans need to be aware of and react and respond to aggressively. If not, our rights will continue to progressively erode and we will find ourselves in a racially very hostile country that may be balkanized.

Start with a corrupt and ideologically perverted cabal of well connected individuals, add an adulating and negligent far-left press, influential and implacable liberals and idealists, a benighted populating that is more concerned with hedonistic pursuits than education and politics and you have the perfect storm for such an occurrence. Of course, it helps when the offending politicians have full and functionally unopposable powers in the legislative branch.

Most recently, this has occurred in Russia and Cuba. Let’s forcefully thwart it here before it is too late!

Castro, Obama and the Rule of Law
Floyd and Mary Beth Brown     7/10/2010

This week we had the pleasure of sharing a summer barbecue with a refugee from Cuba. Our dinner conversation was starkly different than most.

This refugee came to the United States as a young boy in the early 1960s. His family was more fortunate than most as they were able to bring a suitcase and $100 when they fled Castro's newly formed revolutionary paradise.

Our dinner consisted of all-American fare: hamburgers, potato salad, watermelon and fresh ears of sweet corn. This is a menu shared with family and friends nationwide, while celebrating the birth of our beloved America on the Fourth of July.

We began with a simple discussion about our country and the direction it has taken since Barack Obama came to power. We shared the usual complaints about the sour economy and liberal social engineering emanating from the rulers in Washington.

But then he said it. The sentence came naturally. I assume it was unplanned. But it carried the weight of a freight train.

"You know when Castro took power, none of us knew he was a Communist."

We sat stunned. He continued, "Yes, we all thought he was a patriot, a nationalist. Before the revolution he didn't sound like a radical."

The comparison at this point was easy, and I interjected, "You mean just like Barack Obama?"

He responded, "Yes, just like Barack Obama."

He continued, "We were all shocked as the government just continued to grab more power. First they said the revolution is over, so please turn in your guns. We all complied."

"I remember my uncle saying after it started, 'Castro will only nationalize some of the big industries, he will never come and take our family hardware store.' But that is exactly what happened, Castro started with the sugar mills and the large industries, but they eventually came and knocked on the door of our family hardware store. My family had run this store for generations. They said we now own the hardware store, you work for us.

And that nice, large four-bedroom home you own, it is now our property also, and you can move yourself and five children into two rooms of the house because others are moving in with you."
The lesson learned from this discussion is a lesson most Americans refuse to hear. Political leaders can lie about their agenda and once in office they can take totally unexpected turns.

If you had asked us three years ago if we thought General Motors would be nationalized, we would have never believed it. We could never contemplate a country where the rule of law, the most fundamental building block of a justice society would be evaporating just like it did in Castro's Cuba in the early 1960s.

But the news of injustice keeps increasing. Black Panthers are not charged with wrongdoing by the U.S. Department of Justice because their crimes are against whites. The bondholders of GM are stripped of their assets without due process by the government.

Governmental leaders are bribed in full daylight only to have all investigation of the crimes stifled by the Attorney General. The U.S. borders are overrun with crime and illegal activity and the leaders in D.C. act as if it is important to protect the lawbreakers while the innocent are killed and overrun. When local communities attempt to enforce the law, they are ridiculed and threatened as racists and bigots. They are sued by the very administration entrusted with enforcing the law.

Without the rule of law the U.S. Constitution is a sham. Without the rule of law our beloved America is swiftly becoming a country where only the well connected and politically powerful will be safe. As Michelle Malkin has so eloquently explained in her recent book, a culture of corruption has replaced honest government.

The only way this problem will be fixed is by massive citizen action. All honest citizens that want to be treated equally must come together and demand that the favoritism, the bribes, the uneven enforcement of law end now. And yes, it can happen here.

http://townhall.com/columnists/FloydandMaryBethBrown/2010/07/09/castro,_obama_and_the_rule_of_law/page/full

What Would Our Founders Think About Independence In America Today?
Jane Hampton Cook  FoxNews.com  July 02, 2010

What would Sam Adams think of today’s tea parties? He would applaud them simply because they are free to do what he couldn’t — protest in the open without disguise or fake IDs.

If our Founding Fathers and Mothers were alive, what would they think about independence in America today? Though these architects of liberty placed the cornerstone with the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, would they recognize the country they first constructed?

How about Abigail Adams? This sharp-minded gal would have deep compassion and understanding for those struggling financially. She didn’t need unemployment rates to tell her how bad the economy was in her day.

“A hundred dollars will not purchase what ten formerly would” she moaned.

When husband John Adams joined the Continental Congress, he sacrificed half his family’s income. Abigail took over the other half — their farms. Her problems spouted faster than garden weeds. Inflation. Counterfeit cash. Labor shortages. Terse tenants.

“Frugality, industry and economy are the lessons of the day. At least they must be so for me or my small boat will suffer shipwreck,” she determined.

Abigail kept her family afloat by persevering and employing some Yankee ingenuity. Eventually she sold dresses and household goods that John sent her from Paris, making her the “eBay-er” of her generation.

From Wall Street to Main Street, Abigail would applaud Americans’ unending pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

Take the brash and brilliant Samuel Adams — the voice of the Sons of Liberty, Boston’s underground network that fought the king’s policies. What would Sam think of today’s Tea Parties? He would applaud them simply because they are free to do what he couldn’t — protest in the open without disguise or fake IDs.

Sam’s bold words, such as “LIBERTY, LIBERTY, is the cry” were carefully concealed behind clever nicknames. Instead of his real name, he used “Determinatus” or “Candidus” for his newspaper articles. The Sons of Liberty disguised themselves as Indians for that first Tea Party.

They didn’t dare show their faces as they dumped tea into Boston’s harbor. Sam would applaud today’s Tea Parties because they prove that the freedom to assemble is not only alive but thriving.

What about Ben Franklin, the scientist extraordinaire? He was too thrifty to be first in line for last month’s iPhone4 release, but this electricity chaser would have loved the Internet. If he could have, he would’ve tweeted on Twitter and showed off his spectacles on Facebook.

On July 4, 1776, this language lover would have posted this quip: “We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

Franklin would be thrilled that freedom of press and speech are still vigorously enjoyed. After all he understood this truth: “Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.”

Take, too, Thomas Paine. “’TIS TIME TO PART” he declared in his best-selling pamphlet, "Common Sense," in 1776. Would the sheer size of the federal government today shock him? Would he be appalled at the alleged abuse of power in the Blagojevich trial in Illinois? The federal expansion of health care? Deficit spending? Yes to all.

Today’s problems would seem more glaring than the sun to Paine. However, one fundamental reality would make him smile. His common sense solution is still intact. Paine’s practical plan was to establish a new government with checks and balances among executive, legislative and judicial branches. His remedy for royalty was representation.

While often imperfect, that freedom hasn’t changed. Americans still have the power to vote for their local officials, representatives, president, and often, their judges. They can openly express their opposition to policies they oppose.

Paine’s description of independence still holds true: “The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.” That reality is something to celebrate this Independence Day.


Jane Hampton Cook, is co-author of “Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq and Afghanistan” and author of “Stories of Faith and Courage from the Revolutionary War

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/07/02/jane-hampton-cook-founding-fathers-founding-mothers-abigail-adams-john-adams/

Everything else about her pales in comparison including no judicial experience, few cases argued, a long standing far left agenda, and unwavering support for socialism and big government.

She is a political appointee who hasn’t even reached the level of a judicial lightweight, never mind, having the wherewithal to become a Supreme Court justice.

We're Speechless
Investors Business Daily 05/12/2010

Supreme Court: Elena Kagan's thin paper trail was supposed to be an asset. But the confirmation of Obama's nominee may focus on one position it's clear she holds: that banning political speech can be constitutional.

'The government's answer has changed." That was how Solicitor General Kagan began her frantic damage control during a second round of oral arguments last September in the Citizens United case, which Kagan and the U.S. government ultimately lost and the First Amendment won.

Her deputy, Malcolm Stewart, in March of last year said the government had constitutional powers extending to banning books to limit corporate political influence.

As a result, the justices ordered a second round of arguments last fall to get into broader free speech questions.
For that, Kagan stepped into the fray herself, telling the justices that the government had reconsidered its position and conceding that banning books would elicit a strong court challenge.

So Chief Justice John Roberts asked her, "If you say that you are not going to apply it to a book, what about a pamphlet?"

"I think a pamphlet would be different," Kagan responded. "A pamphlet is pretty classic electioneering," and so the government could restrict such political speech.

Who you are should determine how much you can say — that is the admitted philosophy held by this high-court nominee.
According to the president, alluding to Kagan's role in the Citizens United case as he announced her as his Supreme Court choice on Monday, "powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens."

But who decides who those powerful interests are and how much they can say?

The most powerful interest of all does: the government.

In a 1996 University of Chicago Law School Journal article titled "Private Speech, Public Purpose: the Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine," which gets raves from left-leaning legal academics, Kagan contended that "the application of First Amendment law is best understood and most readily explained as a kind of motive-hunting."

If the motive is compelling enough, in other words, the government can regulate speech in the name of the public good.
The view that "the government may never subject particular ideas to disadvantage" is mistaken, Kagan wrote. "The government indeed may do so, if acting upon neutral, harm-based reasons."

Again, it is the government that decides if, say, a talk radio host or Tea Partyer is doing "harm" by engaging in political speech that allegedly incites some wacko to violence.

Columnist Jacob Sullum hit the bull's-eye on this when he wrote:

"While the government may constitutionally restrict speech based on 'neutrally conceived harms,' Kagan says, it may not restrict speech based on 'hostility toward ideas.'But as she herself more or less acknowledges, this distinction ultimately collapses because people are hostile to ideas they consider harmful."

In last month's 8-to-1 U.S. v. Stevens court decision regarding depictions of animal cruelty, Kagan contended that First Amendment protection "depends upon a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs," a claim Roberts called "startling and dangerous" in ruling against Kagan.

At only 50 years of age, Elena Kagan, a "speech redistributionist," could be on the high court for three decades.

Her upcoming confirmation hearings could be a First Amendment battle royal.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=533863

He sums up this approach of Obama’s by noting that:

"As a result, if you work hard, save, postpone gratification, and take care of yourself and your family, you lose. Not only must you support your family; you’re “forced” to support many others."

This is, in essence, legislated servitude or legalized theft. It’s a government shakedown – and consummately repulsive.

“Give Me Individual Liberty Not Government Dependence”
Terry Paulson    April 12, 2010

Dennis Prager has recently added a pearl of wisdom to his repertoire of truths—“The larger the government, the smaller the individual.” The biggest danger from President Obama’s march to bigger government rests in what this means to the grounding principles that have made America great. Will America renew its commitment to individual liberty and personal responsibility or give in to government dependence and control?

As current Tea Party demonstrators would agree, Benjamin Franklin criticized King George’s high taxes to pay for the welfare entitlements of his time, “I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent. The day you passed that act (taxes for welfare), you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependence on someone else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty.”

Franklin preferred “responsible” caring, "I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it…. Repeal that law (taxes), and you will soon see a change in their manners. Labor…will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them."

Thomas Jefferson concurred, "A wise and frugal government...shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." Abraham Lincoln stressed common sense, “The worst thing you can do for those you love is the thing they could and should do for themselves.”

Our free-enterprise economy has served for over 200 years as the greatest anti-poverty program in human history because it encouraged work, and discouraged idleness, more than any other. Citizens have been free to pursue their American Dream based on the principle that men are created equal in their rights and their responsibilities.

President Obama finds such values outdated. America must go beyond equal rights and responsibilities to guarantee equal outcomes and entitlement programs to ensure that. As a result, if you work hard, save, postpone gratification, and take care of yourself and your family, you lose. Not only must you support your family; you’re “forced” to support many others. Americans have no trouble providing temporary help, but they expect most to bounce back and lift their own weight.

When caring for your neighbor becomes a compulsory obligation imposed by government instead of voluntary, charity turns to confiscation and freedom to achieve to involuntary servitude. To liberals, compassion seems to be defined by how many people are dependent on the government; to conservatives, it’s defined by how many people no longer need help. One promotes dependence, the other freedom, responsibility and achievement.

There is no moral or Constitutional justification for taking money honorably earned from a neighbor to pay for what some citizens can’t afford. With one half of American voters no longer paying income taxes, wealth redistribution has turned envy into legitimized confiscation.

America has always been known for its national optimism--that sense of unlimited possibility. Only a society that allows individuals to secure the rewards from applying their unique talents will ever reap the benefits of human greatness. It’s a tragedy that so many Americans today no longer believe they can realistically achieve their dreams without electing politicians who will take from other citizens to pay for what they can’t provide for themselves.

Incentives matter. You’ll never strengthen the weak by weakening and taking from the strong. Our messy but free republic works because people are free to create value instead of becoming perpetual burdens.

In the midst of a recession, Ronald Reagan said to Americans, “I’m not taking your time this evening to ask you to trust me. Instead, I ask you to trust yourself. That is what America is all about… It’s the power of millions of people like you who will determine what will make America great again.”

Our commitment to individual freedom and responsibility is one of the anchors that has held our country together through our history’s worst economic storms. President Obama would be wise to reaffirm that anchor if he wants our economy to turn around with the resilience that only freedom can produce.

http://townhall.com/columnists/TerryPaulson/2010/04/12/%E2%80%9Cgive_me_individual_liberty_not_government_dependence%E2%80%9D?page=full&comments=true