In early January 2014, Bob Lonsberry, a Rochester talk radio personality on WHAM 1180 AM, said this in response to Obama’s “income inequality speech”; [paraphrased]
Two Americas Democrats are right, there are two Americas. The America that works, and the America that doesn’t. The America that contributes, and the America that doesn’t. It’s not the haves and the have-nots, it’s the dos
and the don’ts.
Some people do their duty as Americans, obey the law, support themselves, contribute to society, and others don’t. That’s the divide in America. It’s not about income inequality, it’s about civic irresponsibility.
It’s about a political party that preaches hatred, greed and victimization in order to win elective office. It’s about
a political party that loves power more than it loves its country. That’s not invective, that’s truth, and it’s about
time someone said it.
The politics of envy was on proud display a couple weeks ago when President Obama pledged the rest of his term to fighting “income inequality.” He noted that some people make more than other people… that some people have higher incomes than others, and he says that’s not just.
That is the rationale of thievery. The other guy has it, you want it and Obama will take it for you.
Vote Democrat.
That is the philosophy that produced Detroit. It is the electoral philosophy that is destroying America. It conceals a fundamental deviation from American values and common sense because it ends up not
benefiting the people who support it, but a betrayal.
The Democrats have not empowered their followers, they have enslaved them in a culture of dependence and entitlement, of victim-hood and anger instead of ability and hope.
The president’s premise, that you reduce income inequality by debasing the successful, seeks to deny the successful the consequences of their choices and spare the unsuccessful the consequences of their choices.
For the most part, income variations in society are a result of different choices leading to different consequences. Those who choose wisely and responsibility have a far greater likelihood of success, while those who choose foolishly and irresponsibly have a far greater likelihood of failure.
Success and failure usually manifest themselves in personal and family income. Choose to drop out of high school
or to skip college and you are apt to have a different outcome than someone who gets a diploma and pursues additional education.
Have your children out of wedlock and life is apt to take one course. Have them after marriage and life is apt to take another course. Most often, our destination is determined by the course we choose. My doctor, for example, makes far more than I do. There is significant income inequality between us. Our lives have had an inequality of outcome,
but our lives also have had an in equality of effort. While my doctor went to college and then devoted his young adulthood to medical school and residency, I got a job in a restaurant. He made a choice, I made a choice, and our choices led us to different outcomes. His outcome pays a lot better than mine.
Does that mean he cheated and Barack Obama needs to take away his wealth? No, it means we are both free men
in a free society where free choices lead to different outcomes.
It is not inequality Barack Obama intends to take away, it is freedom… the freedom to succeed, or to fail.
The pursuit of happiness means a whole lot less when you face the punitive hand of government if your pursuit brings you more happiness than the other guy… even if the other guy sat on his backside and did nothing… even if the other guy made a lifetime’s worth of asinine and short sighted decisions.
Barack Obama and the Democrats preach equality of outcome as a right, while completely ignoring inequality of
effort. Obama would turn our world upside down, demanding that achievers be punished as enemies of society
and rewarding those who fail as wards of society.
Entitlement will replace effort as the key to upward mobility in American society if Barack Obama gets his way. He seeks a lowest common denominator society in which the government besieges the successful and productive and fosters equality through mediocrity.
He and his party speak of two Americas, and their grip on power is based on using the votes of one to sap the productivity of the other. America is not divided by the differences in our outcomes. It is divided by the differences in our efforts.
It is a false philosophy to say one man’s success comes about unavoidably as the result of another man’s victimization.
What Obama offers is not a solution, but separatism. He foments division and strife, pitting one group of citizens against another for his own political benefit. That’s what socialists offer… Marxist class warfare and the destruction
of the middle class.
These two Americas come closer, every day, to proving the truth to Lincoln’s maxim that a house divided
against itself cannot stand.