Celebrate the unequal distribution of prosperity
lawfully achieved. It manifests the lingering vitality of liberty.
Inequality of wealth symbolizes the existence of an underlying free
society. Freedom means we are all born equal before the law with equal
right and opportunity to strive and achieve. Celebrate those hearty
souls who have braved the long journey of rags to riches and finally
reached the summit. 85% of “wealthy” Americans did not inherit their
wealth – they earned it. Government’s primary job is to preserve a level
playing field, fairness in the equal opportunity for everyone to strive
– though ordained by nature that the final results will not be equal for
everyone.
America is the “land of opportunity” – not the land of guaranteed
benefits and subsidies or the “land of milk and honey” unless you are a
working dairyman or beekeeper. A few vocals in the new age of “zombie”
protesters and “occupiers” see success as sinful. They view other
Americans who have achieved wealth through education, self-sacrifice,
and industrious efforts as somehow evil. In July 2012 a gloomy darkness
of pessimism and shock descended on hard working Americans to hear their
President proclaim that hard work, talent, education, determination and
personal sacrifice are NOT the ingredients of success – but rather,
GOVERNMENT makes all good things possible. This insane rhetoric was a
dagger to the throat of every individual in America since the Industrial
Revolution who with burning ambition and drive has lifted himself by his
own bootstraps to achieve success and Exceptionalism. This arrogant and
socialist President challenges the wisdom of the ages. Myopic
“occupiers” and the politicians who egg them on, fail to see the obvious
– it is not government that makes their “student loans” possible. That
is a grandiose illusion fashioned for fools. The “wealthy” taxpayers who
fill the coffers of the national treasury and without whom no government
would be possible, much less student loans – are the nation’s
benefactors – they have always been.
Political demagogues see it in their best interest to perpetuate the
cultural divide in America. This explains why foundational change – a
restoration of federalism – a reinvigoration of constitutional
government will never come by the hand of sub-prime politicians, devoid
of statesmanship, whose best means of political survival after the
implosion of their policies, is vitriolic partisanship – playing the
blame game — the fomenting of acrimony and antagonism between the haves
and the have-nots – divisive class warfare designed to rally supporting
factions such as unions and minorities, turning them hostile toward the
wealth creators, the innovators and job providers in the private sector
– a madness, demagogic chicanery which unfortunately a gullible segment
of the electorate has bought into.
The calculated but transparent political ploy of inciting Americans to
hate other Americans for the tactical gain of re-election to office is a
plan to promote a mob mentality. Stalin called these blind disciples of
collectivism “useful idiots”. Even when the mob starts acting like a mob
the political inciters even from the halls of Congress remain
unapologetic.
In 1789 Paris, they who stormed the Bastille did not learn from the
Englishman’s way which instead, inspired the American Experiment. The
French revolutionists did not have the same debate we had in
Philadelphia regarding the horrors of despots who attain power by the
fomenting of class hatred. The underprivileged having forcefully acceded
to power instantly became collectivist tyrants. Those who deposed King
Louis XVI became themselves more autocratic and cruel than he had ever
been. Predictably for them, their famous shouts of egalite’ and
fraternite’, a collectivist, egalitarian ideology, as might have been
expected, led to Robespierre’s despotic Reign of Terror, which, as fate
ordains, soon consumed Robespierre himself. Collectivist equality
enforced by government and built on the ruins of wealth creators is an
ideology doomed to disaster given enough rope and time.
The gullible are trained to look upon the “wealthy” only at the final
stage – the tail end of what was a long journey and struggle to the
summit. Their looking glass is narrow. The gullible have no wide vision
to see the entire picture – the long, tortuous and rock strewn road
traveled by those aspiring and energetic countrymen who finally in the
end achieve success – the American Dream. They really don’t want to see
it. They focus on the “riches” part but not the “rags” part. They are
incredibly oblivious to the hunger to succeed earlier on that drove the
determination to rise upward.
Philosopher Ayn Rand (1905 –1982) expressed this idea perfectly as
anyone could through the medium of modern language:
“We are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has
not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act
of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement” (Atlas Shrugged).
We have demonstrated that a constitutional crisis goes hand in hand with
a cultural crisis. Restoring original constitutional principles of
limited government and circumscribed federal power to regulate and to
spend public funds will serve as the best antidote. We must open the
door to constitutional amendment to accomplish such restoration. The
need for a Constitutional Convention is a cultural need in addition to a
legal, personal and economic one.
Amendment of the Spending Clause by a Constitutional Convention will
restore a culture of strength to our country. Unfortunately, a people
once intoxicated with the notion of liberty, freedom and self reliance
have grown accustomed to seek redemption in government for all things
earthly.
Prodigious subsidization and expansive regulation by government over a
broadening range of economic activity in tandem with increased taxation
and expansion of entitlements equates to artificial and engineered
“redistribution of wealth”. Final redistribution is the pipe dream of
socialism. A substantial segment of the younger generation has been
persuaded by doctrinaires, their “teachers”, to believe that relieving
others of their material achievements and property is an honorable
pursuit.
Government imposed redistribution of wealth in the name of egalitarian
allocation of resources distributable among the whole population in
merit less fashion – is the Antichrist of a free society. It has never
worked. It does not bring happiness. It breeds misery. It always will.
Society’s cultural norms, social expectations and the Constitution are
interrelated. The cultural pendulum has swung to the left and the
operation of government has gone to the left. The two phenomena exist in
parallel. Big government becomes possible by ignoring constitutional
principles in order to achieve an egalitarian state of wealth
redistribution. A culture of collectivism that celebrates socialist type
redistribution of resources, with government as the enforcer, exists
only because big government exists. This idea remains at war with
American tradition. A culture of dependency is a culture of weakness.
Egalitarianism produces mediocrity as the new standard of achievement.
Restoring the Constitution restores a culture of strength.
Paul Antinori. July 2012. CONVENTION: To Resurrect the U.S.
Constitution.
