Wrecking America

By Alan Caruba

I am always wary of conspiracy theories. Most can be explained away as shared ideologies which, in the case of the current and recently past Congresses and White Houses, can be described as socialism. It did not and does not matter which Party was or is in power.

The other explanation for the national car wreck we’re in is just plain “stupidity.” Another way of describing this is “willful ignorance.” Both apply when the President, Senators or Representatives say things that have no basis in fact either historically or empirically.

We all know, for example, that it is getting colder no matter where we live, but the President has been lying about “global warming” and “greenhouse gas emissions” for some time now.

Similarly, Congress, going back to 1979 or so, has been doing everything in its capacity to thwart access to the tremendous reserves of energy in America, thus forcing Americans to pay more for imported oil and to subsidize the worst possible way to generate electricity, wind and solar power.

It has banned the manufacture or import of incandescent light bulbs starting in 2010.

It determines how much water can be used to flush your toilet.

It determines the content of every gallon of gasoline, requiring that ethanol be a component even though ethanol ensures less mileage and more carbon dioxide emissions from the tailpipe. It also drives up the cost of all foods made from corn or the livestock to which it is fed.

What kind of nation fails the most essential element of a modern society, the maintenance of its infrastructure? America’s roads, bridges, ports and other elements of infrastructure are sorely in need of repair or replacement. It’s not happening along with the failure to build a single new nuclear plant, nor refinery in three decades.

Meanwhile, following a Bush “stimulus” effort and an Obama “stimulus” bill, the economy remains mired in the doldrums. Unemployment has risen above 10%, the worst since 1983. Things like this don’t happen without a cause and, as Ronald Reagan used to say, “Government is not the solution to the problem. Government is the problem.”

In a similar fashion, during a 1959 interview with Mike Wallace, the author Ayn Rand said, “A free economy will not break down. All depressions are caused by government interference and the cure that is always offered…is more of the same poisons that caused the disasters.”

Rand was referring to the Great Depression, an economic disaster made infinitely worse and longer by all the government prescriptions applied by both President Hoover and, in particular, President Franklyn D. Roosevelt. It is now understood that FDR and his economic advisors literally stretched out the Great Depression to ten year’s duration by choking off the free flow of capital and trade.

There is an interesting comparison between FDR and President Obama. Neither had any experience in the world of business and commerce. Neither ever ran a business or met a payroll. A political campaign is not a business enterprise. It is a short-term fund raising effort. It produces nothing except a candidate who either wins or loses. Obama’s economic advisors have been prescribing the same awful “remedies” as FDR’s.

The present dilemma is that Obama is an ideologue, a “red diaper” baby raised on the socialist belief in the “redistribution of wealth” which essentially means taking money from productive wage earners and investors, and giving it to “the poor.” The problem with that is that there has always been about 14% of the population that have been and will be poor. Giving them other people’s money does not make them less poor; only more dependent on government.

This transfer of wealth in exchange for getting their vote comes with no guarantees. The large percentage of Blacks who voted for Obama in 2008 did not bother to return to the polls in this year’s elections. Neither did the worshipful youth who helped elect him by a slim seven points.

As for those youth and everyone else who has passed through the U.S. education system since the 1960s, the bad news is that you received some of the worst education available in any nation on Earth. That’s why you don’t understand much about what is happening in your life or in the world around you. The curriculum has been dumbed down to ensure your ignorance of things graduates in 1950 understood even if you do not.

The good news is the swift plunge in Obama’s popularity among all voters. He has proved himself to be spectacularly ill-prepared for the presidency on the basis of its ideology, his experience, and his judgment. One almost expects him to show up on “Dancing with the Stars” any day.

So what or who is wrecking America? A lot of very stupid people.

Only a Congress that openly admits it does not read the bills put before it votes on them could be so indifferent to the public will or the public good.

Two bills will wreck the economy beyond recognition. There is no public support for either healthcare reform or the energy cap-and-trade bill. Yet both are the keystone legislative goals of the White House.

Beyond stupidity, there is ideology.

The environmental movement, a quasi-religious cult, is fighting every form of energy production except solar or wind. It is engaged in a war on private property. It regards all chemicals as poisons despite the fact that the human body is a virtual chemical processing factory. It is the megaphone for “global warming”, the largest hoax—other than Communism—in modern history.

It’s just too easy to beat up the news and entertainment media, particularly the latter. What passes for entertainment is too stupid, too childish, and too vulgar for words. As for news, Americans are increasingly finding their own sources on the Internet and/or relying on sources such as The Wall Street Journal and others they trust.

So, if you are looking around for an answer to what or who is wrecking America, just keep looking around you. It’s Congress. It’s the White House. It’s people who believe the Democrat Party cares what they think. It’s people who think Islam is a religion of peace. It’s people who follow news of “celebrities.” It’s Nancy Pelosi. It’s Harry Reid. It’s Barney Frank. It’s Barack Hussein Obama.