The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) today is reporting that President Bush is really asking citizens to take more risk.   This is the pessimistic view of Bush's vision, the glass half-empty approach.   The other view is a glass half-full one, Bush's vision is for citizens to reap more rewards.   What strikes me about the article is the notion that because this direction is opposite where we (as a country) have been going for 70 years, it is somehow new, radical, or perhaps wrong.

Discussions about where this country is, where it has been, and where it is going are made more important, not less, than ever by Bush's victory in November.   The intelligentsia of this country is hard at work on the next round of congressional elections, not to mention the big one four years from now.   This is really an attack on conservatism rather than an attack on Bush and it is a terroristic assault of one thousand cuts rather than a frontal attack on the foundations of conservatism.   Conservatives need, now more than ever, to not only be on guard against this attack but to apply the Bush Doctrine in the arena of ideas by rooting out this erroneous thinking in the place of its origins.

The WSJ article begins by characterizing Bush approach as "The emphasis would be on the individual, supplanting a 70-year-old approach in which citizens pool resources for the common good." Obviously use of terms like "pooling" and "common good" are meant to evoke positive things.   Another way to phrase this would be using big government supported by big taxes for common mediocrity.   The Soviet Union was all about "pooling resources for common good." Likewise China might claim this phrase as a mantra.   To those who watch only network news and believe the New York Times presents an intelligent unbiased presentation of the news, this may come as a shock to you but the Soviet Union went bankrupt years ago and China, wishing to stave off bankruptcy is placing an ever greater emphasis on free enterprise.

There is a lie taught in our schools and supported by much of what we hear from our media which is that America is the "world's only superpower because of what we achieve together as a whole" as opposed to our collective efforts are great mostly because they are comprised of tremendous individual efforts." As Rush Limbaugh is fond of saying, a review of the history is overdue.   The notion of collective efforts, if it is said to be seventy years old, is not the foundation of this country.   This country was formed well over 200 years ago and the foundations of it were laid long before that.   What was new about our country before it was our form of government was personal liberty and limited taxation.   In the years prior to the discovery of North America by Europeans, the vast majority of people suffered under a form of collectivism we call feudalism in which one person or family owned vast lands and "allowed" those who farmed that land to live there so long as they paid huge sums in the form of taxes to the lord who then decided who got what.   In years subsequent to feudalism, there was some free enterprise which was replaced with another form of collectivism we call mercantilism.   In this collectivism, the lords were basically consolidated into kings who allowed greater economic freedom than had existed in the centuries prior.   This new form of freer enterprise was a greater success, which is why it pushed feudalism into oblivion, at least in part because of the new more free enterprise but it still encumbered its people with large taxes.   Individuals made more money than before but truly existed for the good of the state in the form of the king.   The radical notions of personal property for all and unencumbered industry, if not given their original birth in the New World, at least found fertile fields like never before and defeated the systems which predated them.

The New World gave birth to a new system of representative government not because of some great notions of a few people or because of the tremendous resources and cheap land of North America.   The new system of government sprang forth specifically because of the experience of those who founded it which were rooted in free enterprise.   That is why the early revolts were heavily steeped in anti-taxation protests and why are constitution frequently deals directly with economics.   For those who suffered a poor education, the "Boston Tea Party" was not a revolt about tea.   It was a revolt about the cost of tea which was high because of taxes.   The Bill of Rights was not almost an afterthought by comparison. The United States Constitution, a very brief document and not a bad read if you have an extra ten minutes, mentions the word "tax" seven times.   Taxes were on their minds before, during, and after the American Revolution.

For over a century, this country did not even have a tax on income.   Taxes were mostly upon wealth created mostly from income but they were not intended to encumber enterprise.   In the twentieth century we began to tax income and today we really do a great job of encumbering enterprise.   A reasonably successful self-employed person (you know, the guys responsible for most job creation in this country) will likely be taxed in the 30% range by the federal income tax, 5-8+% by the state, and then an additional 14% by the social security system including federal health insurance.   Add it up, that's more than 50% and that's before the 5-8% sales tax on everything purchased and the personal and real property taxes.   That means government is in to you for more than half.   The media is fond of declaring "tax freedom day" sometime in April but for the guy offering you college kids a job, he doesn't get out of servitude until July!

My apologies for the length of this piece.   This blog is supposed to be a bunch of short quips but sometimes that is just not enough.   There are going to be elections in a couple years for congressional seats and then there is going to be one for President.   To me, Hillary is the most logical candidate for the Democratic Party.   And now she is appearing in public wearing conservative attire.   But make no mistake about it, she is a socialist as much as anyone out there can be said she is a socialist.   Do you doubt me? Do you remember the socialized medicine plans she had for all of us? Do you think these would have cost you? If you think this person is not a socialist, I urge you emphatically to go out and prove me wrong.   You must quarantine yourself from all media and interaction with intelligentsia types.   You must work hard and check out all organizations of which she has ever been a part.   You must read everything she has ever written and spoken.   You must take a good long look at everything legislative she has been a party to.   Last but not least, you must take a good look at what she proposed for your healthcare.   Once you are firmly educated in what she proposes, you will see that she is a socialist and maybe, at your heart, you are too.   So now I urge you emphatically to take a good look at how socialized medicine works in the UK, in Canada and elsewhere.   Talk to ordinary folks whose parents have died while they stood, figuratively speaking, in line to even have their conditions properly diagnosed.   Meet with despondent parents who lost a child and think to themselves I would rather have been in debt for my entire life than to have lost this child because of the lousy care or lack of care he or she received.   Read the news stories of how the Canadian government cut the list of potential doctors one year not because more doctors aren't needed but because funds were short.   Free enterprise takes care of these things by making doctors YES more wealthy after years and years of difficult study.   Would you make the guy who saves your life or your child's life more wealthy?

THE SYSTEM does not take care of anything but itself.   Hillary advocated socialized medicine because she is an advocate for the system.   All so called "progressives" are advocates for the system.   Don't let them twist words around and make you think that going back to collectivism is PROGRESS.   The new government of the New World rooted in free enterprise is progress.   That is why the poorest people in this country live better than the middle class in the poorest totalitarian governed countries.

We are an ownership society.   Bush's views are equally as radical as our founding father's views.   Those views gave birth to the greatest country in the world.   Don't give the country back to collectivism.   Don't be bullied by the intelligentsia.   Read history and join the fight to defeat Hillary and/or anyone else with similar views.