The 2012 Election Is Between Liberty and Tyranny

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The 2012 Election Is Between Liberty and Tyranny
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Tipping Point -- Liberty in the Balance
The 2012 Election Is Between Liberty and Tyranny

By Mark Alexander

November 1, 2012

"Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual -- or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country." --Samuel Adams (1781)

As a student of history, I would assert that in no election since 18601 has our nation been more viscerally divided along clearer battle lines than in the current contest between Romney/Ryan2 and Obama/Biden3.

The contentious contrast4 in this campaign cycle is not so much about political policies as it is about the overarching themes of tyranny versus Liberty5 -- Rule of Law6 versus rule of men7.

In just a few days, we will learn whether our nation has elected to move toward the restoration of Liberty, or if Barack Hussein Obama's8 propaganda machine has succeeded in fast-tracking our nation down the road to Democratic Socialism9.

In preparation for that revelation, I pause to take account of our bearing.

Today, as has been the case since the dawn of American Liberty, Patriots10 resist the temptation to set their course on moving objects. We are not moved by contemporaneous trends, such as polling and focus groups11. Instead, we set our compass on true north, on eternal truths "endowed by our Creator12" as outlined in what Thomas Jefferson called the "the declaratory charter13 of our rights, and the rights of man." Those rights are codified in our Constitution, which many of us have sworn to "support and defend14 against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

This eternal bearing is central to our Patriot mission, and it will not change with the outcome of any election -- though the task before us will be much, much more difficult if enough of our countrymen lack the wisdom to vote for Liberty over tyranny.

In addition to the written records from our Founders of wisdom in support of Liberty and eternal truths, our team here at The Patriot Post is also blessed and humbled to count among the ranks of our readers hundreds of men and women from the Greatest Generation -- a generation that possesses wisdom that only comes with age. They have lived through presidential administrations from Wilson to Obama, and their wisdom has been forged in the fires of the Great Depression and World War II. They have witnessed the proliferation of socialist tyranny through Eastern Europe and Asia and the resulting slaughter of hundreds of millions of innocents. They have witnessed the grotesque tribal carnage in Africa and the Middle East.

They are also the generation who, through hard work and innovation in the context of a free-enterprise economy, built the strongest manufacturing operations in history; an economy based on tangible products "Made in the USA" by skilled workers and managers.

I receive letters almost every day from these elder Patriots, many of them expressing grief for the state of affairs they're leaving behind. Many of them bear a burden that they have somehow failed their posterity because the generations after them have not been instilled with a spirit of Liberty and civic duty sufficient to discern between candidates like Romney, who promote American Liberty, and those like Obama, who seek to undermine Liberty in their relentless pursuit of statist power.

One of these letters arrived Tuesday, from one of my heroes -- my father15. He was born in 1923 and remembers well the hardship of the Depression. He became a Naval Aviator in World War II, came home to start a family, and over three decades built a small manufacturing operation into a company with hundreds of employees. That company was dealt a deathblow during the last Great Recession under Jimmy Carter.

On the eve of his 90th birthday, my father is very concerned about the future of Liberty, and his concern has the bold bona-fide stamp of the wisdom of age.

His generation created great abundance, with the unintended consequence that following generations became progressively complacent, apathetic and dependent. This progression follows the fatal "Cycle of Democracy16": From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to Liberty (Rule of Law6); From Liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage (rule of men7).

Our nation is now suffering under another Great Recession. Like the last one, this recession is the direct result of statist interventionist policies17. These policies led to the collapse of real estate values, which cascaded into the banking collapse, which nearly took down the entire economy. (For the record, I outlined this sequence of our current economic decline a month before Obama was elected in 2008.)

John Adams wrote, "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." But it's certainly easier to accept Obama's recurring premise: "It's George Bush's fault."

Just prior to the 2008 election, Obama said his objective was "fundamentally transforming the United States of America," and he called on his adherents to join him in "remaking this nation, block by block." Four years later and that transformation is well underway.

Since his election, Obama has undertaken measures in the name of "economic recovery" that will ultimately, by design, break the back of free enterprise18. His "stimulus plan" is modeled on the Cloward-Piven strategy for economic transition, which he studied in depth as a student at Columbia University. This socialist stratagem calls for overloading the government welfare system to the point of crisis, requiring the replacement of that system with a national system of "guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty." This collapse is written into the genes of our nation's projected debt load, a burden that will crush free enterprise in the coming decade, without dramatic intervention.

So, how's that strategy working thus far?

There are 23 million unemployed or underemployed Americans. Tens of millions who are working have not received sufficient pay increases to even keep up with inflation. On Obama's watch, we have record spending on welfare -- households considered impoverished have grown to one in six, and 47 million are on food stamps -- up 50 percent since Obama's election. Obama has also amassed $5 trillion in new debt, and our national debt now totals $16 trillion, which for the first time in history now exceeds U.S. annual economic output. Finally, median household income has declined by $4,520 (8.2 percent) since Obama took office. This is the real "Obama tax." On top of that, energy prices have doubled because of Obama's restrictions on exploration, and economic growth has slowed to an anemic 1.3 percent.