"America's Collapse is a
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - UNLESS!"
from "In Defense of
Rural America"
By Ron Ewart,
President
National Association of Rural Landowners (www.narlo.org)
and nationally recognized author and
speaker on freedom and property rights issues for over 10
years
©
Copyright Sunday, January 31
The following article
was published on Newswithviews, January 27, 2016
This article is also
available on our website at:
"There is only one social system that reflects the sovereignty
of the individual, the free market, capitalist system."
William E. Simon, Treasury Secretary.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Over 34 years ago, in October of 1981 William E. Simon,
Secretary of the Treasury, said this at the start of the Reagan reformation.
"In the first 10 months in office, President Reagan has made great strides
toward restoring America’s economic vitality. Major cuts in federal spending,
substantial tax reductions and long overdue business deregulation have been
achieved against great odds. But much more remains to be done – and can only be
done with the full support of the American people."
In Simon’s short book, "A Time For Action",
(ISBN: 0-425-05732-1 1980) he describes what the liberal progressive
policies have done to the country over the last several decades. He derides the
exploding debt, the lack of capital for business expansion and rising taxes and
regulations. If only Mr. Simon could see where we are today. Unfortunately,
there is no Reagan around, or the support of the American people, to "fix" it.
The masses have gone daft and for all we know, they always were.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released its
fiscal predictions for 2016 to 2026. The report is dismal if not apocryphal. Now
the CBO hasn’t been the best predictor of future trends. But if they are even
half right, America, without intervention of some kind, is doomed as a sovereign
nation. That statement is so important, we are going to repeat it:
"America, without intervention of some kind, is doomed as a
sovereign nation."
If no changes are made to the trajectory of government
spending, the CBO predicts that annual spending will rise from $3.7 Trillion to
$6.4 Trillion in 2026, or 23% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The growth in
government spending in those 10 years will exceed the growth in GDP by several
percentage points. The drivers of rising government spending, according to the
CBO are, Medicare, Medicaid, Obama Care and Social Security.
But what is even more alarming is the increase in the
interest on the national debt, which could exceed what is spent on national
defense and other government priorities combined. The CBO predicts that the
interest on the national debt will double in the next 10 years. And the national
debt itself is predicted to rise 82% over the next decade. If true, the national
debt will exceed $33 Trillion by 2026. $33 Trillion IN
DEBT!
Even 34 years ago, William Simon predicted what would happen
if America stayed on the same course. Reagan came along and blunted the growth
in federal spending, jump-started the economy and reduced taxes and regulations.
The results of his efforts were seen in the economy for at least the next 15
years. Even President Clinton finally gave in to reforming the welfare system
and that helped some.
But along came Obama, a liberal, progressive, socialist, who
unilaterally removed the work requirement in the Welfare laws, re-igniting the
Welfare Queens and Kings of years passed. Then, with the help of a
Democrat-controlled Congress, passed money-sucking, freedom-robbing Obama Care,
without a single Republican vote. There was no reaching across the aisle for
Obama.
Here is the simple truth for those who have difficulty
understanding the Progressive mentality that has led America to the precipice of
national bankruptcy. Progressives, liberals, Democrats, or socialists, whatever
you want to call them, 100 years or more ago, knew that if they could use the
public treasury to buy votes, or pass laws to pander to different constituency
groups, they could remain in power forever. They did not and do not care that
their plans would grow exponentially due to human weakness and that entitlements
used to buy votes were and are unsustainable. They did not and do not care that
those plans have sent America on a path from which it cannot recover because of
the very human weakness of the masses that fell into the Democrat trap of
government dependency ….. in exchange for their votes. The Democrats purposely
exploited that human weakness for their own gain, all the while promoting that
they were the compassionate ones.
Hungry, totally dependent chicks in the nest, with their beaks
wide open, will continue to scream to be fed by their feathered mother.
Dependent humans, with their hands out stretched, will scream to the top of
their lungs if someone tries to take away their government subsistence, whether
earned or not. America is doomed by the welfare queen’s and king’s vote and
those dependent on government.
If the Republicans pounded the current, dire predictions of
the CBO message every day for the next year on every TV and radio channel, those
living off the backs of the taxpayer wouldn't care and they would vote out
anyone who proposed cutting, or passed legislation to cut entitlements. This
is illuminated very well with the rise of Bernie Sanders, a socialist, who wants
to increase entitlements exponentially, while drowning American businesses and
the middle class in massive tax increases. The difference between a Bernie
Sanders socialist and the rest of the Democrat crowd, is a hair’s breadth.
The Democrats purposely set up the "GIMEE" generations over
the last 80 years or more using Progressive policies, from the New Deal and
Social Security, on to President Johnson’s War on Poverty, to Medicaid, Medicare
and now Obama Care For the "CBO prediction of financial doom" message to have
any wide spread effect, the Democrats would have to align themselves with
Republicans. Since Democrats are addicted to power (they have had it for so
long) they are never going to join the Republicans for the good of the
country.
The Progressive, collective mindset is so imbedded in
government institutions and the body politic, it will take several generations
to change that mindset, if at all. This mindset is so pervasive it is said that
there are 10 liberal professors for every one conservative professor in our
colleges. Teachers in our public schools probably follow the same pattern since
they are taught in our liberal colleges, teachers from whom our kids
learn.
But that’s not all. This liberal mindset gives greater
priority to the collective than it does to the individual, thanks to endless
Progressive propaganda. In contrast, America was founded on individual,
unalienable rights. It was not founded on the collective. The collective is only
found in the writings of Karl Marx and in the freedom-robbing policies of
socialism and communism.
In fact, it is even worse than this. The Republicans, in order
to remain a viable political party, have been moving left to join the Democrats
since the days of FDR. Smaller government, individual freedom, capitalism, free
markets, less taxes and less regulations are only campaign slogans for the
Republican Party. Even when Republicans control Congress they constantly side
with Progressive policies like social justice and radical environmentalism,
along with budget deals to fund those policies. A Republican-controlled Congress
just passed an Omnibus Spending Bill that must have sent Obama into fits of
euphoria. Many Republicans will side and have sided with Democrats to continue
increasing CO2 emission limits to "feed" the insanity of Climate Change, alias
man-caused global warming. Republicans and the Democrats don’t seem to care
about the cost to the economy, or even that their efforts to reduce CO2
emissions WILL NOT have any effect whatsoever on the climate.
Republicans will do nothing, while they control Congress, to
rein in government agencies, like the EPA, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.
S. Fish and Wildlife Agency and the Forest Service, from those agencies running
rough shod over private landowners and ignoring long settled law of allotments,
in furtherance of the government’s aggressive policy to shove radical
environmentalism down the throats of those same landowners. As a result, a war
is brewing in the West. (See: "
The Makings of An American West
Rebellion.")
The American economy became wealthy and strong, financially
and militarily because the American people were free to create, innovate and
work their little behinds off in search of a better mouse trap and the rewards
that came from bringing the better mouse trap to an anxious buying public. The
major ingredient that funded that creativity and innovation came from available
capital. As long as Americans were creating and innovating and as long as there
was capital to fund that creativity and innovation, America and Americans
prospered. But when government started "sucking" the capital out of the markets
to fund entitlements, there was less and less capital to fund creativity and
innovation. Then the government added more restrictive legislation and taxes to
creativity and innovation, which inhibited them even further. As a result, new
business formation and job creation are at an all-time low.
But one of the more serious aspects of the entitlement
mentality was the stripping away the individual’s self-worth, personal pride,
and incentive to be a productive, proud human being. Now they are just "birds"
in a nest, with their "beaks" wide open, crowing to the government for their
dinner, on the backs of the taxpayer. If these "birds" couldn’t vote, America
wouldn’t be going broke today. The Progressive policy of irrational compassion
has severely weakened the human fabric of America.
Unfortunately ladies and gentlemen, there is no Reagan on our
horizon and it remains to be seen whether the current gaggle of Republican
presidential candidates can do what Reagan did, that is if a Republican
president can even be elected. And even if a Republican is elected president and
the Congress remains in Republican control, if they try to rein in entitlements
to save America from going bankrupt, they will be thrown out of office at the
next election.
The only things that will change the course we are on is an
economic collapse, or a revolution, or the Democrat Party finally seeing the
light for the good of the country, or all the welfare Queens and Kings die off
all at once, along with their offspring ….. bringing the obliteration of their
votes.
Since none of that will happen, the only other event that
will change it is when "a critical mass of dedicated American citizens
finally decide to resist government tyranny by acts of civil disobedience on a
grand scale, punctuated by the threat of force if necessary." The recent
event at the Malheur Nature Preserve in Southeastern Oregon is a very small
example of that civil disobedience. We discussed this civil disobedience in a
recent article entitled, "There is Only One Solution, Force Government’s
Hand!" The Bundy militia is doing
just that, in the true spirit of American civil disobedience.
But the peaceful protest style of civil disobedience seldom
works. Several times a million men and women have descended on Washington DC to
seek redress of grievances, but nothing has changed. Protests, even
million-man marches, do not have the power to undo the corrupt system that has
grown unchecked, in federal, state and local governments.
Because there have been so many years of government
dependency, starting with the days of FDR during the Great Depression, a
depression precipitated by the Federal Reserve, the votes to preserve, maintain
and defend government dependency far exceeds the votes to preserve, maintain and
defend the Constitution of the United States, as envisioned by the Founding
Fathers. For this reason "The collapse of America is a self-fulfilling
prophecy." In simple terms, you can’t stop an avalanche.
For those not familiar with the phrase …..
"a self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly
causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to
positive feedback between belief and behavior."
Therefore, we predict that by the year 2038, 250 years after
the ink started drying on the ratified U. S. Constitution in 1788, the economic
collapse of America will be complete. At that point America will either be
merged into the one-world-order, or become a third-world banana republic, or a
dictatorship, or an absolute democrat monarchy ….. unless a critical mass
of dedicated American citizens finally decide to resist government tyranny by
acts of civil disobedience on a grand scale, punctuated by the threat of force
if necessary. Bullies will always be in charge unless confronted by a
greater force. A critical mass of dedicated Americans is that greater
force.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
Ron Ewart, a nationally known author and
speaker on freedom and property rights issues and author of this weekly column,
"In Defense of Rural America", is the president of the National
Association of Rural Landowners (NARLO) (http://www.narlo.org) an advocate and consultant for urban
and rural landowners and a non-profit corporation headquartered in
Washington State. He can be reached for comment at: info@narlo.org.
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