Nothing Good Happens 'Til Something Gets Sold

In his marketing seminars, my big brother Jim, the Marketing Wizard, often finds himself buttressing the much maligned industry of sales and the noble professionals who engage in that challenging occupation by saying, "Nothing good happens 'til something gets sold." Mr. Obama should attend one of Jim's seminars!


Last week, the President of the United States of America; the elected leader of the greatest, most productive, most powerful nation on earth and by extension, the leader of the free world, said that if you're successful in America, you have your government to thank. You owe your success, your standing, your prosperity to bureaucrats in Washington DC and elsewhere who provided for you, the context, the structure, and the resources to make happen whatever success you've achieved.

It's an engaging viewpoint, and at first blush, it sounds reasonable enough. Government provides the infrastructure and support for your prosperity by virtue of the public education system, roads, a monetary system, police protection, and other services upon which we all rely for a well-ordered, civil society.

But think just a little deeper and you'll quickly see that the President is wrong. Dead wrong! And it's actually rather shocking that a US president would be so utterly devoid of understanding of the design and genius of the nation he leads. Stunning that he would characterize the unique American experiment in government of the people, by the people, and for the people in terms so imperialistic.

In fact, Obama is 180 degrees out of phase. He has it exactly backwards. He could not be more incorrect (or more disingenuous). And therefore, he and those who think like him could not be more dangerous to the America we have been blessed to know.

In the United States, government is not the source of power, of wealth, or even of the social order. Government is not the master. It is neither the conveyor of rights nor the purveyor of goods! In America, by divine Constitutional design, the only power the government has comes from the consent of the governed. It is not the bureaucracy that provides for the industry of the people, it is the industry of we, the people, that provides for the government we require. And when we turn that equation on it's ear as the President has done, we say 'AMEN' to the freedom given us by our Maker, and secured to us by our sacred Constitution.

No, it is NOT the government that builds roads or schools, pays police, or manages natural resources. It is you and me. We, the people. OUR industry produces the wealth that pays the bureaucrats that organize the resources to build the schools, roads, and bridges and to pay the teachers, police, and firemen. It is they that do our bidding and that serve at our pleasure; not the other way around. They very much owe their existence to us. Not we to them!

The government produces NOTHING on it's own; not one thin dime of wealth--whether schools, roads, firehouses, or the EPA. Every penny of wealth that it has, it must first receive from us--either by consent or by constraint. All of the wealth of a free society comes from the industry of the people creating vibrant markets of goods and services by pursuing their individual dreams and by fulfilling  each others' wants and needs.

Does the businessman or woman benefit from the public infrastructure and services? Of course! But do they owe their living or their success to any government? HELL NO! In fact, the success of most enterprises in America comes in spite of, not because of government. We all stand on the shoulders of those that have gone before us. In that sense, and to the degree that we value and build upon that foundation, we all should be thankful. And it is part of the reason we're willing to "pay our fair share."

But let's keep first things first. Nothing good happens 'til something gets sold. No teacher enters a classroom, no fireman climbs a ladder, and no cop walks a beat. No public road, bridge or buttress gets built, and no politician authors another unnecessary bill. All these things happen because someone took a risk to build the very first mousetrap or a better one to follow; someone spotted a need or desire and figured out a way to fill it. Only then was wealth created. Only then did a job begin. And only when that activity became PROFITABLE was there something in it for the risk-taker or entrepreneur--despite the fact that the taxman had already taken his toll!

No, Mr. President! While the entrepreneur, investor, tycoon and even the common laborer acknowledge the value of the social order and the government that keeps it intact, none owes obeisance to it. For it is WE that created IT--not the other way around!

Where is the Racism in Presidential Politics?

After Mitt Romney's forthright speech (I'm not willing to call it remarkably bold or courageous--it was politically expedient) before the NAACP on Wednesday, where the Presidential hopeful was booed discourteously by his mostly-black audience, Nancy Pelosi had the audacity to suggest that Romney strategized to incite the reaction in order to energize his racist base. If the charge itself isn't preposterous enough, I wonder what "intelligence" (and I use the term loosely) the former Speaker had to make it. Is she now clairvoyant? Can she read Romney's mind? Or does she have operatives inside the Romney campaign who can substantiate the outrageous claim. Because if she can't we are left to no other conclusion than that it is Pelosi, not Romney, who is race baiting here. What other explanation can there be? Produce your evidence Ms. Pelosi...or apologize for your insane, offensive, inflammatory remark!

I'm continuously amazed and disgusted by the never-ending parade of leftists seeking to turn Tea Party patriots and other conservatives into racists despite the conspicuous lack of evidence to support their ridiculous charges.

For my part and that of every conservative I know (and I know a few!) race is an absolute non-issue. I would be every bit as happy to see a black Constitutional Conservative in the White House or any other political office, as I would a similarly principled white one--male or female, by the way. And although I can't prove that they don't exist, I don't personally know of a single conservative soul that doesn't feel the same--despite the unending, unsubstantiated accusations to the contrary from the left. 

In fact, the liberal establishment is the only constituency in America that has anything to gain by race baiting. The Democrat establishment needs to keep black Americans in tow. Hence, they continue to use this disingenuous, divisive, and destructive tactic to preserve their power. Because if Obama loses even a few percentage points of support among this group, it's AMEN to his Presidency and to the liberal takeover of America. And isn't it ironic that this would be the story in the day of Barack Obama--the first non-white President to be elected by the predominantly Caucasian American electorate. 

All that said, don't you find the almost-universal support of the President among blacks to be a bit peculiar? Fully 96% of African-Americans say they support President Obama over the GOP challenger. Really?! Who gets 96% support of anything among anybody in a pluralistic, secular society?

Are 96% of blacks as liberal as President Obama? Do 96% of them support Obamacare--the now 2.6 TRILLION dollar millstone hanging around the neck of the American economy? Do 96% of blacks really believe the President has improved their economic lot? On what grounds?! Are black Americans really sold on the virtues of welfare, unemployment, foodstamps, Medicaid, and disability insurance over a robust economy and expanding opportunity? Is that honestly the lifestyle to which this vast, united majority of them aspire? I simply don't believe it!

Do 96% of blacks agree with Obama's imperial edict adding 1.2 million illegal immigrants to the workforce to compete directly with the most disadvantaged in their own community? I don't think so. Are only 4% of blacks opposed to same sex marriage, or supportive of the compulsory infringement of religious rights, or the ever-increasing, if well-hidden taxes on the middle class? And do 96% of these Americans really agree that choice in education is a bad idea?  Do almost all blacks support Mr. Obama's "right war" in Afghanistan? Do they, like Obama, see no threat in the Muslim Brotherhood? Do they wish to see more open borders with Mexico and favor amnesty for illegal immigrants in America today?  I'd be amazed if that were true.

So, if among this 96% are many whose views Mr. Obama clearly does not represent, why do they continue to support him? Is it merely because of the color of his skin? If so, that's racism and that's NOT rational.

Heads Up People!

Obama Strategy: Divide To Conquer

Barack Obama has but one arrow in his quiver, one double edged blade in his sheath; divide and conquer. In the complete absence of any meaningful positive policy achievements, the President has only one course to victory: Divide the nation more sharply than it already is and frighten the populace into believing that his political adversaries will make matters even worse. We see evidence of this on every front:

Class Envy - the 1% against the 99%
War on Women - The great contraception scare of 2012
War on Religion - the faithful vs. the secular and specters of theocracy - forced contraception
Black vs. White - The weigh-in on Treyvon Martin and more
Education Envy - The new right to a free college education
War on Wall Street - The takeover of the greedy capitalists
Big Oil vs. Alternative Energy - If you support fossil fuels you hate the environment
Welfare vs. Jobs - Perpetuating the dependent class instead of moving people to work
Union collectivists against "BIG" business - the nationalized Wisconsin recall election
GLBT vs. Christian Conservatives - Obama's "evolved-again" view on marriage

Illegal Immigrants vs. Border Security Advocates  (aka Latino vs. White) Undocumented Youth Amnesty

Obama's strategy involves a wide variety of scares like Republicans throwing granny off a cliff, and ending an array of government benefits including care for mentally handicapped children, food for the poor, contraception for college co-eds, and healthcare for the financially disadvantaged.

Ironically, it's Obama and the Democrats' policies that will seal the fate of those benefits if the course remains unchanged, where Republicans' plans are devised to rein them in and restore them to solvency--along with the rest of the national government.

Obama is unquestionably the most divisive partisan President in my lifetime--bar none! That could be forgivable if his policies weren't so disastrous for the country. Here are the facts:

Unemployment has remained above 8% for over 3 years and is arguably higher since the number of workers in the workforce has shrunken to record lows. When those who have given up or withdrawn from the workforce are counted, the rate is upwards of 15%.

Budget deficits have exploded placing the nation in financial peril. With TRILLION dollar deficits 4 years in a row and a national debt approaching 16 TRILLION the nation is facing insolvency. These harrowing calculations ignore another $50 TRILLION or more in "unfunded liabilities" such as pensions and other retirement bene's for government workers--which the President is content to ignore. And, as a direct result of the endless TRILLION dollar deficits under Obama's budgetless fiscal "management" the nation's credit status has been downgraded once with the potential of further falls to come.

Speaking of divisiveness, the GOP controlled House of Representatives has passed numerous budgets and jobs bills that the Democrats under the President's and Harry Reid's leadership have refused to take up in the Senate. Who are the obstructionists?!

Dependency programs have continued to expand to unprecedented levels under Obama. The "food stamp president" now has almost 46 million Americans dependent on the federal government for their very survival. But that's just the beginning. Tens of millions more rely on extended unemployment benefits to compensate for the fact that the Obama regime's economic policies are prolonging the recession and portend a sluggish recovery, if not a double dip recession, in coming months and years.

But even this, is just the tip of the iceberg. With Obama's takeover of almost all of education funding another loan bubble is threatening to burst. The loose money policy of the United States Government in collusion with the Federal Reserve sees the dollar falling in value on world markets and the threat of inflation looms.

While Obama seeks to take credit for gains in the energy sector, those gains have taken place in spite of his Administration, not because of it. In addition to the President's disastrous over-reaction to the BP oil spill shutting down US oil production in the Gulf (most of those jobs have still not been recovered), he rejected the Keystone pipeline that would have created tens of thousands of jobs and put downward pressure on global prices. Obama continues to keep a lock on domestic production by approving drilling on federal lands and waterways at the slowest rate in decades.

The energy sector alone has the potential to go a long, long way towards pulling the nation out of the slow recovery without endangering the planet, by the way, but for political reasons he refuses to take the brakes off this powerful engine of jobs, economic growth, energy independence, and national security.