A Confederacy of Fools
By Tim Donner | Wednesday, February 15th, 2012 | PoliticsAs we all bash Barack Obama for leading America down an irreversible path to European-style social democracy, it is important to stop and remember that he is just one man…one man who requires the assent of millions of voters to allow him to do what he has done. In that spirit, consider this quote attributed to the newspaper Czech Republic Observer. While I have been unable to confirm the source, the content is nevertheless worthy and profound.
“The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their president.”
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About the author
Too radical for the establishment and too establishment for the radicals, Tim is a former candidate for the US Senate and longtime entrepreneur, conservative public policy advocate and broadcast journalist. He founded One Generation Away, an educational and public policy organization, and Horizons Television, which specializes in documentary, educational and promotional video production.
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10 Responses to "A Confederacy of Fools"
Tim,
This is a subject on which we can agree, but I think that the article gives the American voters too much credit. The problem is not voter apathy or poor judgment. It is far more sinister–greed.
The people who elected Barack Obama labor under a delusion that once upon a time in America everyone was guaranteed an upper middle class living, that the rich got less rich while the middle class got wealthier, and that the government made it all happen. How else do you explain the when 50% of all employed wage-earners pay no income tax at all and the top 5% of all earners pay 65% of all the tax dollars collected, the voters rally to the politicians who promise to “make the rich pay their fair share.” Pure greed driven by a mistaken belief that the government owes them a good living, regardless of whether they worked to get a good education or steadily pursued a career path that led them to success in life. At the extreme end of this class of voters are the Occupiers. They want everything handed to them for free with no sacrifice or hard work on their part. And don’t ask them to start in the mail room–they want a corner office in the executive suite right out of college or they will protest the tyranny of “the 1%.”
My parents were born poor and grew up during the Great Depression. They died upper middle class. The government gave them nothing except a level playing field for capitalism and they used it to build a profitable company and to ensure that their children had a much better education than they ever got. And they instilled in their children an unshakable truth: there is nothing that guarantees that we would enjoy the same lifestyle as they did unless we were willing to work hard for it. I can remember my mother telling us many, many times, “You have got to work hard and get a good education or you’ll be digging ditches for a living.”
Today we have a new generation that has been raised to believe that self-esteem is more important than achievement. Everyone who shows up for the soccer league on Saturday gets to play and everyone gets a trophy at the end of the season. Why would we think that they wouldn’t vote for the guy who promises them a free ride with no pain?
I would argue we have a problem with fools in the GOP too..
Don’t be so hard on yourself, Turbo.
Yeah, and unless you speak Czech or the Czech Republic Observer is an English language paper then neither you nor Glenn Beck will be able to verify it.
Heck, maybe at a minimum you could link to the article you’re quoting or at least provide a link to the newspaper itself. Do you even know what the article was titled, when it was published, or who the author is? Do you even know its from the paper you say its from?
My understanding is that you’re either plagiarizing or violating a copyright. And since you founded a company specializing in video production, I’d think you’d be pretty careful in that regard.
I wonder how much money Tor (I like Thor better) has given to Bearing Drift ???
Tor, you can mail a check (made out to Virginia Line Media) to:
P.O. Box 16828
Chesapeake, Virginia 23328
Or just send money, lots and lots of money.
If you’ve already given to the campaign, please give more money, give until it hurts.. Your generosity is sincerely appreciated.
For those who haven’t…the time for soft pitches is over. Go to the PayPal link. Click on it. Fill in the required credit card information, including the dollar amount. Then hit submit.
It’s that easy.
“50% of all employed wage-earners pay no income tax at all and the top 5% of all earners pay 65% of all the tax dollars.”
Thank you, MD Russ, for addressing the content of this article unlike others who prefer to diffuse the issue. You make an excellent point about people voting their own narrow self-interest.
As Ben Franklin stated, “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
The real foolishness is perhaps more long- than short-term, as the people to whom you refer fail to realize the freedom they are forfeiting over the long haul. How many who will vote for Obama and his leftist cohorts are aware or care about the foreshadowing of Greece, Italy, Portugal, etc.
No matter the outcome of the upcoming elections, I fear that a majority may have already decided the value of a republic is not worth it compared to voting themselves money.
Precisely my point, Tim. In addition to being greedy, these voters either aren’t very good at math or haven’t looked at the numbers. I won’t take up bandwidth here to lay it all out, but anyone with Google and a pocket calculator can figure it out. Obama’s plan to pay down the debt is to reduce Defense spending and to increase taxes on the wealthy. Talk about peeing on a forest fire. If you look at the growth rate of entitlements spending, which is currently about 16% of GDP and is projected to rise to 25% of GDP in the next 20 years, you could totally eliminate the Defense budget of $675B and double income taxes on the top 5% and would still be running a budget deficit. Obama is quite literally nibbling around the edges of the problem with his single-digit Defense reductions and millionaire tax surcharges that sound impressive but will amount to less than one week per year of entitlements spending.
We cannot take another four years of this or we will be on the threshold of being the next Greece. The longer it takes us to reform entitlements spending, the greater the risk that it will become politically impossible to do so–if we haven’t already reached that point.
MBP,
Unlike you (and most Republicans) I don’t believe in paying for access, to my elected officials and, apparently, to blogs. Since when did donating to this website give one preferred access?
Either way, Tim should never have copied and pasted this from Beck or any other conservative blog without citing and linking to it. It’s probably not from the Czech Republic Observer but from an observer (read: person) who lives in the Czech Republic.
MD Russ and Tim,
You’re quick to bash the southern European counties: Greece, Portugal, and Italy, but don’t forget to throw Spain and Ireland in that mixture.
Of course you seemingly reject the northern European countries: Finland, Sweden, and Norway. How are their tax rates, economies, and balance sheets looking? I’m glad you’re coming around to the idea of higher taxes. It’s nice to have someone on the right thinking rationally. We can’t continue to borrow and make our grand kids pay it back. What options do we have: cut spending, raise taxes, or both. Since Republicans will not raise taxes and won’t cut defense spending and Democrats will not cut services and entitlement programs then we’re stuck in the situation we’re stuck in. Maybe they can work together: raise taxes, cut spending, and balance the budget.
And Tim,
I realize you’re having problems understanding how quotations work, but you need to tell the reader where that comes from. You quoted in your post without a reference and now you’re making quoting in the comment section without a reference. Are you sure you own a video production company?
ToR,
Last things first. Tim was quoting from my comment. No citation was necessary.
I only mentioned Greece because the people there are rioting in the streets and trying to burn down Parliament. The other countries you mentioned haven’t yet succumbed to mob violence.
As for the Scandinavian countries, that is exactly what the Democrats want to create here. An all-powerful government that provides cradle-to-grave social welfare, confiscatory taxes that makes it impossible to accumulate wealth, and a toothless palace guard that they pretend is a military force. No thank you. That is not a country I would want to live in and it certainly isn’t the country my father left to me.
As for higher taxes, I’m all in favor of it provided that it is matched dollar-for-dollar with spending cuts. Debt reduction is a two-way street–we can’t tax our way out of debt while entitlements spending increases exponentially. The Greeks have some of the highest taxes in the EU, if they actually pay them which most Greeks don’t. In case you have never studied taxation policy, there is a curve that is based on the effective tax rate on one axis and the compliance rate on the other axis. There is a knee in the curve along the compliance axis where the curve drops dramatically when you reach a certain tax rate. The Greeks passed that knee in the curb long ago. If you want to see a local example of that curve, look at Maryland. A few years ago their legislature, under the ‘inspired’ leadership of Martin O’Malley, passed a surcharge on all taxpayers earning over $1M a year. The year before the surcharge went into effect, Maryland had 3,000 millionaire earners. The year it went into effect 1,000 of those taxpayers vanished from the tax rolls. One-third of Maryland’s highest taxpayers were gone, taking not just the surcharge out of the tax revenue but all the taxes they had been paying. Obama’s “make the rich pay their fair share” tax policy is going to have a similar effect nationwide, leaving the Treasury with a net loss in revenue.
One other criteria for higher taxes I didn’t mention: the tax increases must be proportionately distributed among all tax brackets. We are already in a situation where the median taxpayers pay no income tax at all and, therefore, have no skin in the game when it comes to spending cuts. If we put all the increases in the highest brackets, like Obama wants to do, not only to we drive wealth underground where it can’t be taxed at all but we also increase the number of voters who see no advantage to reduced entitlements. It is time that everyone living above the poverty level pay some income tax. Then, watch the popular demand for real spending cuts.
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