Printer-Friendly Version(An excerpt from the new book 2010: Take Back America -- A Battle Plan by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, on sale Tuesday, April 13th and available for pre-order (of an autographed copy) at Amazon.com or BN.com now!
In her poem “The New Colossus,” inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty, Emma Lazarus wrote: “Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.”
Americans embraced that image of a nation that welcomed those who wanted to work hard and grow and build their lives.
But Barack Obama has replaced this call for self-reliance with an offer of security and serenity protected, subsidized, and sheltered by the government. Obama heralds his arrival on the battlefield of our politics not with a cacophony of confrontation, but with a lulling siren song designed to sedate and anesthetize us while he transplants our essence and replaces it with something else entirely. His sirens—the modern equivalent of those voices that tried to lure Ulysses onto the rocks and to his death in Homer’s Odyssey—sing the same soothing lullaby that has long since lulled Europe and Japan into a trance.
THE SIREN SINGS: Put aside your ambition. Don’t work so hard. Slow down and live a little. Don’t worry. Give the government your insecurities. Let us take care of them.
BUT REALITY ANSWERS: If we go back to being a nation of childlike dependents, relying on a parental government, we will become poorer and poorer, having to make do with less and less. Government cannot create jobs or wealth. It can only take from some and give it to others. And if people cannot keep their own money, they will stop working, innovating, taking the risks that are key to survival and growth—and we will all have less.
THE SIREN SINGS: You’re not alone in the world. You have your community to surround you and a safety net below you. We have anticipated all the vagaries of life, all of its uncertainties, and have made provision for them.
BUT REALITY ANSWERS: It’s the fear of failure, as much as the dream of success, that motivates us all to work hard, compete, and succeed. If life holds no perils, there’s little to get us out of bed in the morning. While we must protect those who cannot help themselves, for most of us it’s the fear of bad outcomes—as much as the lure of reward—that impels our labor.
THE SIREN SINGS: Give up some of your sovereignty and independence. You won’t need it anymore. Your leaders will show you what to do. You must surrender what you have to the community. We are all in this together. We are a unit, an entity. We will share the sacrifice, take care of each other, and let our government point the way.
BUT REALITY ANSWERS: Government does almost everything worse than private business. The U.S. Postal Service is a joke compared to FedEx and UPS. The Veterans Administration hospitals are a disgrace to the men and women who have served us. Our government cannot control our borders. It can’t even distribute flu shots to those who need them. Private and church schools educate better, for less money, than public educational institutions do. State universities are drowning in their own bureaucracy. And the list goes on. Only in the military, police, and firefighting services—with their extraordinary standards of martial discipline, self-sacrifice, unit cohesion and morale—does the public sector excel.
THE SIREN SINGS: Abandon the delusions of your religious faith. They are old, for a different time. You don’t need them anymore. Secular humanism has made them unnecessary. Turn away from the spurious rituals and the false security they offer. Embrace the real security of a committed community led by enlightened experts.
BUT REALITY ANSWERS: We each have a God-sized hole in our hearts and souls. Without faith, some people turn to addiction; others lose themselves in narcissism. Some become workaholics, others compulsive gamblers, and still others status-seekers who make the acquisition of material goods their own yardstick in life. Where religion falters, self-involvement takes the place of child-rearing, and birth rates drop. Values decline—and an increase in crime, sexually transmitted disease, and suicide are the result.
THE SIREN SINGS: You don’t really need your democracy anymore. Let us experts run things. We know better than you what you need and we have the knowledge to get it for you. Turn away from the cantankerous politics of shrill debate. Trust those who act with benign knowledge of what is best for you.
BUT REALITY ANSWERS: The experts covet power, and power corrupts them as easily as it does anyone else. Bureaucracies become obsessed with self-perpetuation and soon lose sight of the populations they are supposed to serve. They develop cozy relationships with the power brokers in big companies to form a consortium of business and government to control our lives. It is only through democracy that we can fight their tyranny.
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