 |
| Rob's Soapbox | ||
|
Congratulations!
You have finally landed on the one page on this entire site (and on the entire internet for that matter) that is purely without bullshit... my soapbox page. There are a lot of times during our show that, whether it's because of time constraints and other obligations, I don't always get to address some issues that I feel don't get the attention they deserve. There are even more times when I just don't feel like waiting until the show the next day to get some things off my chest. Thus, I have started the "Rob's Soapbox" page. If you have clicked on this page looking for someone to coddle your fragile sense of self-esteem, or tell you what you want to hear or to reinforce your outdated world view, then exit this page right now and go somewhere else. If you are in search of the last forum for reason and common sense left in the world, then sit back, relax, and enjoy. I make only one promise with this soapbox page... if you read long enough and often enough, you will eventually be offended. So here's my latest soapbox. Listen up, 'cause you just might learn something... |
||
|
||
October 13th, 2008 WILL AMERICA REMAIN EXCEPTIONAL As Election Day approaches and the $700 billion economic bailout continues to rumble through our psyche, more and more people are uttering the word “socialism.” What is it? Why should you be deathly afraid of it? Why is it literally anti-American? It’s too easy to bury your head in the sand and hide from the facts and/or pretend that extreme and alarming words like “socialism” aren’t being uttered. The time to be ignorant and blissful and wave your hand at the sky saying “whatever,” has passed; it is time now to be engaged and educated, lest you wake up and discover your country is gone. I have spent my adult life speaking of the terrors of socialism; it is a flawed and failed system that bases itself upon the restrictions of freedoms of the individual. Moreover, socialism punishes success, rewards laziness and demands that you are too stupid to think for yourself. It is also, and has been everywhere it has been tried, an abject failure. Socialism is ultimately the precursor to communism, as founded and heralded by Lenin and Marx. Some call socialism nothing more than communism-lite; since Marx literally referred to socialism as the transitional bridge between capitalism and communism. But why take my word for it? I am clearly an opponent of socialism, so certainly my version of the truth is going to be biased. Perhaps you will find a greater chill run up your spine by reading a defense of socialism by a supporter and believer of it. Lest you think that no one you know supports such a shift in America, I again ask that you check your ignorance at the door. Pretending that there isn’t a movement within your neighborhood, your state and your country to literally change America is a dangerous level of apathy on your part. Uttering untrue, asinine clichés like “eh, it’ll never happen,” results in awaking one day to find yourself living in the socialist republic of America. Your neighbors, your friends, your family members and your co-workers are being corrupted by a movement of fear and false security to take a new look at the failed system that is socialism. The following is a letter I received this week from a listener; someone just like you; he wakes up every morning and listens to the same radio show you do as he prepares for his day: Hi Rob, I know you are going to call me a nut job but I wanted to give you my This letter writer is far from alone, unique or even rare in these uncertain times. I have received dozens of such letters in the past few weeks, but none so eloquently and devastatingly defined socialism. Many people who have written me recently with socialist ideas haven’t even been aware that socialism is exactly what they have been proposing; and there in lies part of the problem. People like the letter writer are full-on committed communists. Up until a few weeks ago they and their crazy ideas wouldn’t be given the time of day in America; but in the wake of unmitigated fear, panic and an immense lack of understanding, combined with a total complacency on the part of our nation as it relates to our freedoms and liberties, more and more people are looking to the government and saying, “please save me,” and it is time to stop the fear. I cannot, as an involved, aware American, understand for a moment how you cannot be terrified, offended and outraged at the letter’s words. In fewer than a dozen stanzas, the man who wrote the note perfectly summarized the ideals of a socialist while simultaneously shredding all that is America: - He begins as all socialists do; by defining his qualifications for his observations. In his world, education equates to intelligence and therefore makes him better than you (and me for that matter). The overwhelming majority of socialists are highly educated individuals who somehow find a way to also be abject idiots. They believe that degrees, diplomas, and experiences such as travel abroad somehow makes them more enlightened than the rest of us and therefore more qualified to tell us all how we should live. Their enlightenment, you see, is their “gift” to us. - Not far into his note the second classic sign of a socialist emerges; elitism. In socialist and communist systems of government, the elites (i.e., the “educated”), make rules for the peons and then follow an entirely separate list of rules. It’s sort of like if Hollywood ran the world. How many times have you heard a Hollywood star bemoan all of us for “wasting energy,” before boarding their private jet via an SUV limo to fly home to their 50,000 square foot mansion? That is how the elites, the ruling class, the “intellectuals,” live in a socialist state. For you see, my uneducated fellow American, the socialists are so much smarter than the rest of us that we must make sure they are comfortable for their hard days of thinking for all of us. So while all of us will live in identical houses of identical size, the ruling elite educated guardians of our well being will occupy the mansions; and we will thank them for it (otherwise we’ll be imprisoned). - “I believe that government needs to make decisions for us…” he writes. Bear in mind that he, the letter writer, is the type of person who believes he is qualified to be part of the “government,” since he is after all, highly educated and learned, and the rest of us are too stupid to think for ourselves. There is of course, no such thing as “the government.” People govern. Who do you suppose someone as arrogant and elitist as the letter writer would pick to be part of a ruling class in America? Only people “smart enough” to make decision for themselves and others…people exactly like him. - His basis for government making our decisions for us is “because most Americans are too uninformed and stupid to make decisions for themselves.” Let’s give him credit for something most socialists in America lack; honesty. At least this guy is actually saying to our faces that he believes we’re all too stupid to know how much we should eat, how to raise our kids and what type of cars to drive. Thank god for such sages and he and his ilk, who will save us all from ourselves. It’s almost as though he and his kind are the ones we’ve been waiting for. - And then (I say facetiously) he jumps the shark. Not only does he actually defend and endorse “living for the state,” and not giving young people any form of choice as to what type of recreation (if any) they pursue, he concludes as all socialists do by stating unequivocally, in the words of one of his heroes that there is such a thing as too much freedom. Living for the state, of course, is a strange coagulation of the two extremes of extremism; fascism and communism. In America, we are free to dedicate our lives to a service to the nation and equally free to refuse to do so. In his America, we will serve the state as he and the other anointed intellectuals deem fit, rather than giving us a choice to do otherwise. What a utopia. Bear in mind that he has held China up as a system to be revered. Socialists are, if nothing else, consistent. They believe in too much success, too much money, too much pride, too much ambition and too much happiness. They endorse sameness, as in everyone (except them, remember) should be equally miserable, held down and not allowed to excel. This is accomplished (bringing things full circle) by restricting the freedoms upon individuals. I often bemoan the stupidity of our nation. I am, however no where near thinking as does this letter writer. In the end, I acknowledge first and foremost that we all have the freedom to choose to be uninvolved, ignorant and apathetic and I have the freedom to speak out against such. The socialist wishes to take such freedoms away from all of us. Throughout the history of the greatest nation ever on Earth, the United States of America has come desperately close to making fateful decisions on many occasions; in each of those instances we as a collective nation needed to stare our demise in the face before we acted. Whether it was the march of Fascism which we allowed until the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Civil War, the events of 9/11, Prohibition or even the War of 1812, America has come dangerously close on numerous occasions to crumbling beneath itself. Yet in each moment in time, America rallied around itself and rose to become stronger than it had been before. In all instances, two things were constant. For starters, for some reason beyond me (perhaps because I am too uneducated), we had to come so close to destroying our nation that we could almost literally see and feel it. Why we have constantly allowed ourselves to step so close to the line of peril is something I have never understood about our history, but I have always respected its’ unmitigated consistency. The second and far more important constant thread throughout time in America has been the unrelenting passion of the thing that has made this nation so remarkable; we the people. This is where I stand on the polar opposite realm of the universe from a socialist; I demand that the people of America are not only not stupid, but rather are the greatest, most generous, most innovative, most courageous of all citizens on Earth throughout time. American exceptionalism is always questioned in times of crisis, but never revered in times of heroism. No one questions how exceptional our nation is when we are the ones who arrive first at the shores of impoverished nations in the wake of horrible natural disasters. No one questions how exceptional our nation is when our economy booms and the rest of the world follows. No one questions how exceptional our nation is when we shed our blood in the name of saving others and never ask for anything more than allowing other human beings the freedom to be as great as we are. America is exceptional and always has been thanks to Americans. Throughout time we have occasionally been forced to put down what we are each individually doing and stand as one, looking in the mirror or our nation and decide whether or not we collectively will beat back the latest threat launched at our greatness. Today we stand at the threshold beginning of one of those times. It will get darker before we rally. More Americans will become scared and look to others and the government for solace. More bad decisions will be made and more government elitists will be empowered. The time is not now, but it is imminent. Our next test is coming; our future is where it has always been: in the faith and hands of how exceptional Americans have always been, as long as they have been allowed the freedom to be exceptional. The question is not whether we will rise to the challenge but at what stage and what cost; will it take a second great depression, a seizing of our guns and surveillance cameras placed in our homes, or will it take a nuclear decimation of major cities in America? Or all of the above within one, say, for example, four year time period. America is poised once again to rise from the ashes and lead the world in a way most of you can’t even imagine. Let us all prey that the ashes are figurative and not literal ruins of what was once the greatest nation on Earth.
|
||