The U.S. is the greatest nation in history. We have fought two world wars to save Europe and the Pacific, and when the fighting was over and we declared victory we did not demand territory from Germany or Japan. In fact, we did the opposite; we generously gave financial aid to help in the recovery efforts.

We sent troops to Iraq in 1991 to rid Kuwait of Saddam Hussein’s soldiers, who were plundering the nation’s wealth and raping and killing its women and children. When we were done, we did not claim territory or make any demands other than for peace.

We sent troops to Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein in 2003 after he had ignored 16 U.N. resolutions, continued to fire on American planes, used poison gas to kill thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq, and systematically abused, tortured, and murdered all his political opponents. Granted, the war was not perfectly executed on the part of the U.S. (no wars are) – but it could have gone better had the United Nations (which liberals so love) worked with us rather than against us. (Kofi Annan and his son should have been jailed for the "oil for food" fiasco which helped Saddam get around sanctions.)

We fought in Kosovo to give freedom to oppressed people and asked for nothing in return. (What did we get? Muslims – and their peaceful religion Islam – persecuting Christians.)

We sent over one billion dollars in aid to tsunami victims in and around Indonesia, out of generosity.

Whenever tragedy strikes in the world, the U.S. is there to help, with money, food, troops, and medical assistance. No nation has ever been as generous as ours.

Critics whine that Americans consume 25 per cent of the world's resources. They forget that Americans also produce 25 per cent of the world’s wealth. Much of the world would starve to death if it were not for the American agricultural industry. Those who moan about the use of fertilizers and insecticides should realize that without them we could not even feed 300 million Americans… let alone much of the rest of the world.

And what was it that made America great? A U.S. Constitution that limited the scope of government, leaving the citizens free to invent, create, work, cooperate, share, develop, build, and produce. That liberty attracted the most courageous souls from Europe, who gave up what little they had on dangerous voyages across the Atlantic, risking death (as my mother’s ancestors did in the 1760s), for liberty. They came not for food stamps or free health care or day care or subsidized tuition payments – they came for liberty. The creative, inventive, brave, producers came to America, while those with fewer of those qualities remained behind to develop European welfare states. Those who preferred liberty came to America; those who preferred security stayed behind.

But, over time, as the dangers of emigration were reduced and the rewards were easier to obtain in America, along with the creative, inventive, producers came some who were looking not for the freedom to produce, but for an easy life. They now flood across our southern border, seeking not an opportunity to achieve but a hand-out.

As 200 years went by the federal government increased its size and power, far beyond what the Founding Fathers imagined or even what the U.S. Constitution allowed. Legislators are now mere politicians, not statesmen, and they routinely ignore the sacred document upon which our nation was based. The Tenth Amendment is a relic of the past... if it gets in the way of a vote-getting federal program, well that's just too bad, say Obama and Pelosi and Reid and Schumer and Dodd and Frank, et al.

We are now at a turning point in our history. The parasites perhaps now outnumber the producers, but there may still be time to convince some that they are heading down a collectivist path that will destroy America. Those who throw the racist insult at any who would dare to criticize their beloved Obama do not understand. Obama is not opposed because he is black, he is opposed because he is pandering to the parasites who will hasten the decline of the United States. Obama is not being singled out. Also opposed are all the free-spending Democrats and Republicans who have no concept of integrity or common sense – let alone an ability to balance a budget. Those hundreds of thousands who attended tax protests on April 15 were also protesting wasteful spending. They were protesting Democrats and Republicans alike. More than one Republican who voted for the "stimulus bill" was roundly booed when he tried to co-opt the demonstrations for his own political purposes. (You didn't see much of that on CNN, did you?)

The media, viewing all issues from the left, could not comprehend why middle-class voters would be protesting against higher taxes for “the rich” when they themselves are not rich. They don’t get it, as the rude “interview” by CNN’s Susan Roesgen illustrated. It did not occur to her that some people who make less than $250,000 nevertheless understand that their freedoms and prosperity are being attacked when Washington spends money it doesn’t have and taxes the heck out of anyone. If the “rich guy” doesn’t buy a new Cadillac he may still be rich – but the middle-class worker on the assembly line loses his job.

The tax protesters “get it.” They understand that most wealthy Americans got that wealth by creating it, not by stealing it. Punishing the wealthy does nothing to better society - something Ms. Roesgen seems not to understand. When she rudely reminded a demonstrator about the $50 billion Illinois was getting from the government in the stimulus bill, it was clear that nowhere in her brain was there room for the fact that the $50 billion first has to be confiscated in taxes before it can be distributed by the federal government. Taking money from your right pocket and placing it in your left pocket (after deducting a hefty federal handling fee) certainly does not make you better off.

But despite the many mistakes made by our legislators in both political parties, America remains the greatest nation on earth. Do not argue that a country like Switzerland is “morally superior” because it has avoided wars. Morality means more than believing in proper values, it means acting upon them. Did the “neutral” countries rise up against Hitler? (Switzerland is like a bystander who sees someone being beaten up or raped and does nothing to help the victim. That is not a shining example of morality. It is proof of a lack or morality.)

Obama seemed to enjoy visiting Europe and Mexico where he went to great lengths to disparage his own country. He thought he was “improving relations” with European and Latin American nations. He was making a fool of himself, while angering and insulting millions of Americans who are not ashamed of their country. (And America’s enemies now see a naive, gullible “leader” they can take advantage of.) Obama's “apology tour” gained nothing for him or the United States. France and Germany gave him nothing that he wanted, not in financial stimulus pledges or support for Afghanistan. (Austria laughed at him when he asked it to take some of his Guantanamo prisoners, basically telling him, “If they are dangerous, why are you even releasing them from Guantanamo, and if they are not dangerous, why not let them loose in the United States?”)  And when virtually every other nation was supporting a military leader from Denmark to be the new NATO Secretary General, Obama sided with Turkey in opposition. Why? Because a Danish newspaper had published some cartoons that offended Muslims. Sarkozy and Merkel had to pull Obama aside and tell him to “grow a set” and understand that the leadership of NATO should be based on the security of Europe, not avoiding the offense of Muslims (who are offended by virtually everything in western civilization).

As long as the nation has a First Amendment, Americans are free to criticize it. Americans have the right to detest their country – but they have a right to expect more from their President.

Those who play the “moral equivalency” game (like Obama and his supporters) refuse to acknowledge the greatness of America. Why? They also apply the same “moral equivalency” standards to individuals. Thus, a pirate who holds a ship captain hostage is not to be shot, he must be “understood.” The man who rapes and kills a little girl “came from a broken home” and must be treated, not incarcerated. Don’t blame that ghetto youth who shoots someone in a drive-by; after all, he is a descendant of slaves and we must be compassionate.

Nonsense. Some nations are better than others and some people are better than others. You are morally superior to rapists, pickpockets, kidnappers, and murderers. You are superior to those who hide their income to avoid paying taxes, who goof off at the office and then attempt to take credit for the work of others. You are superior to wife-beaters and child-abusers. You are morally superior to the world’s bullies and thugs.

Those who play the moral equivalency game do so because they choose not to judge others. They choose not to judge others because they are themselves afraid to be judged. Those who want more benefits from the government say they are compassionate and are only looking out for others. Do not believe them. They cannot judge others and blame them for the circumstances they are in, because that requires accepting the fact that all people in a free country are responsible for their own lives. They do not want to force that responsibility in others, because they do not want to accept it for themselves. What is their solution? Avoid blame, avoid responsibility – everything that goes wrong is someone else's fault: business, capitalism, slavery, racism, discrimination, broken homes, bad schools, a snowstorm, my dog ate my homework, and on and on. Buy why allow others to avoid responsibility? So that they themselves can avoid responsibility! (Don't blame me for something my buddy Bill Ayers did years ago; Don't blame me for the Bay of Pigs fiasco; It's all Bush's fault; We Democrats did nothing wrong; It's not my fault, I voted "present" 130 times.)

Evidence of the moral equivalency phenomenon appears throughout modern society. An example is the school which refuses to name a valedictorian, out of fear of harming the self-esteem of those who did not finish first with their grades. (“Well, they all tried and did their best, so that should be reward enough.”) Nonsense. The person who does the best deserves awards and congratulations. Period. Another example is seen in the preliminary auditions for the “American Idol” talent show. Granted, some of the “singers” know they have no talent and are simply trying to get their five minutes on national television, but how does a nation end up with tens of thousands of young people who clearly are not great singers believing they are? It is the result of parents and teachers not being honest with children, afraid that the truth will hurt their feelings… and failing to recognize that misleading them does them even more harm in the long run. It is the result of people being afraid to judge.

The person who is reluctant to judge others is also afraid to judge himself. That is the appeal of Obama, who spent two years campaigning with the message that everything that is wrong in your life is someone else’s fault. That approach certainly appeals to anyone who is afraid to judge himself, for anyone who has not succeeded in life, for anyone who has spent his entire life blaming others for his own failure.

While I fault Americans for voting for Obama, I can understand the psychology behind his own actions. He was, after all, abandoned by his father, his step-father, and his mother – all by the time he was 10 years old. One cannot go through that experience without severe self-doubts, a lack of self-esteem, and a feeling that “there must be something wrong with me to have been abandoned by the people who were supposed to take care of me.” What does he do? He surrounds himself with people who feed the “blame everyone else” need inside him, the anti-capitalists, the radical terrorists, the anti-Semites, the black nationalists, the racists, the Chicago politicians on the take. He needs to blame everyone else for everything that is wrong with society, because he has to also avoid facing his own inner demons. He then inflates his ego to compensate for his feelings of inadequacies (as do most people with low self-esteem). And as a politician (who learned from Saul Alinsky's teachings) it is easy for him to manipulate the crowds of less successful Americans, convincing them that it is all someone else’s fault – because he believes it himself. (He understands that he is manipulating the emotions of the voters, yet he also does believe that others are to blame for every difficulty he has ever had in his life.)

Thus, Obama appealed to the losers and the parasites, those who want free health care and free day care and free college education and subsidized housing and on and on – all paid for by someone else.

The McCain supporters certainly did not want McCain, who is as close to a Democrat as any Republican in the Senate. There was no substantial pro-McCain vote, there was only an anti-Obama vote. A true conservative candidate could have exposed Obama for the fraud he is, but the media did its best to help John “Maverick” McCain get the nomination… knowing full well that he would be easy to beat. (Liberals may have trouble beating conservatives, but they have no trouble beating “Democrat-lite” Republicans.)

And now Obama is printing trillions of dollars in funny money to pay off unions and everyone else who supported him. The result will be hyperinflation, which will certainly hurt the poor much more than it will hurt those earning more than $250.000. (Inflation is the most regressive “tax” of all.) But the die-hard supporters of Obama will stick with him. Why? Because they cannot now turn away from him without recognizing why they voted for him. To admit that he is wrong – no matter how destitute they become with unemployment and hyperinflation – means admitting that they voted for him either on the basis of pure emotion, or “race guilt,” or the fact that they do indeed want something for nothing. They are afraid to acknowledge their own shortcomings, so they need Obama to reassure them that it is all still someone else’s fault. They cannot yet afford to give up that security blanket – which is why you hear the convoluted arguments of people who “still support Obama” even though they disagree with what he has done as president. There has been some very tortured logic in defense of Obama, and the reason is clear.

But at some point the economy will get so bad that even many of the die-hards will have to admit that Obama is a failure. At that point they can stop blaming America, capitalism, slavery, Christopher Columbus, et al, and blame Obama. He will then be safe to hate, because they can then blame him for their problems.

And when that eventually happens, Obama’s fall from grace will be fast and severe…

But as an ex-President he’ll be making a fortune from books and speeches, while Americans will spend the next 50 years digging out from under the debt he created.

Don Fredrick

April 28, 2009

Copyright 2009 Don Fredrick