Obama's State of the Union Was Meant to Divide Not Unite

If you were looking for something new during President Obama's State of the Union address last week, you hopefully weren't holding your breath. While it was delivered with some of the best oratorical skills of any President, the actual substance of his address was thin and the promises regurgitated.

The President began by praising the military for capturing Osama Bin Laden, a smart move and one the entire country - especially Navy SEAL Team Six, which executed the mission - should be proud of. He then went on to use the military's "team" approach as an example for the rest of us: "At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they [the military] exceed all expectations. They're not consumed with personal ambition. They don't obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand."

While it was smart for Obama to try and compare his political fortunes to those of the military, the comparison is faulty, even if it is just a metaphor to serve his political purposes. The country is deeply divided on its path, while the military undertakes clearly-articulated orders. Our government is built on the democratic process, not a top-down command structure. That's the difference he seems to have ignored.

But Obama sees himself as commander who has put forth his plan and expects us all to line up behind it. From green energy to taxes on the rich, he appears to want us to faithfully execute his vision. Never mind that while our military can claim plenty of successes (but rarely mentions them), Obama has lost most of his fights. And those that he won - like Obamacare - were not even worth mentioning on Tuesday night. That made it so much harder to see him as the leader behind whom the rest of the nation will march.

A unity message - of which this was some version - was more believable in 2008, when Obama made it a hallmark of his campaign, since he didn't have a record to run on. At that time, there was very little class warfare rhetoric in his stump speeches. Sure, one meeting with a voter who famously came to be known as Joe the Plumber revealed the President's views on how "spreading the wealth around" is good, but wealth redistribution wasn't the defining issue it has become for Obama this time around.

The crux of what the President was pushing last week was designed to divide, not unite, and was peppered with class warfare, which breeds envy and sows discord. While the message of everyone paying his or her fair share sounds fair on its face, it means that in order to get income equality some must be punished for having amassed wealth. More specifically, successful capitalists Mitt Romney - who has taken a beating for his Bain Capital career - should be taxed at a much higher rate, even though they already contribute plenty to our tax rolls.

Tuesday night kicked off the campaign season in the most political of ways. So when the President talks about coming together with a speech that pulls people apart, bookended by praise for the military, be wary. As Obama himself said, "Simple recognition won't usher in a new era of cooperation. What comes of this moment is up to us." The "us" includes the President, not just the voters who he expects to fall in line with his one-sided battle plan for the nation.

Obama: The Last Great Marxist

“Whether you like it or not, history is on our side.   We will bury you,” Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev declared when addressing Western ambassadors at a reception at the Polish Embassy in Moscow in 1956.

This was an assertion of the Marxist contention that capitalism as a system would collapse and be replaced by socialism.  By this philosophy, wealthy people exploit the working class, and the capitalist system must be replaced by a socialist government that would redistribute wealth.

If that philosophy sounds familiar, it’s the approach taken by President Barack Obama and the Occupy Wall Street movement he has embraced.  At every turn, Obama demonizes those who have achieved financial success.

“I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” Obama told Joe the Plumber.  In a radio interview, Obama expressed regret that the Supreme Court hadn’t engaged in “wealth redistribution.”

When talking about financial regulatory reform in April 2010, Obama said, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”  Many find it difficult to understand how Obama could hold that worldview.  On Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly often asks guests how Obama, if he wants to be re-elected, can cling to failed economic policies.

For the answer, look to the fact that the Soviets clung to communism despite its obvious economic failure.  Like the Democrats who want to provide coverage for all Americans, the Soviets flattered themselves by saying they had good intentions.  They reasoned that if the government ran everything and distributed wealth equally, everyone would be happy.

But under their government-run economy, Soviets had no incentive to work hard.  The government paid their salaries regardless.  Eventually, the system collapsed.

Obama’s class warfare campaign strategy ignores the fact that nearly three years after he took office, he is the reason for increasing joblessness that has jumped to 49.4 percent for black youths.

Rather than encouraging business, he vilifies it.  Rather than making it easier for companies to grow, he has made it more difficult by creating uncertainty about the extra costs imposed by Obamacare, future taxation, and a myriad of new regulations.

Rather than spurring economic activity by cutting spending and the nation’s deficit, Obama has increased the national debt by $4.2 trillion.

By its nature, capitalism produces inequality in income and wealth.  In general, those who strive to achieve – think of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Donald Trump, or Warren Buffett – do better under capitalism than those who do not.

Obama rejects this underlying premise of the capitalist system that is a key to this country’s success.  At the same time, he disses Americans for being “a little bit lazy” over pursuing foreign investments and for having “lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do things that built the Golden Gate Bridge.”

In the past, his comment about “bitter” small-town voters who “cling” to their faith, along with their guns, and their “antipathy to people who aren’t like them,” suggests just how much disdain he has for a large segment of Americans.

Like his self-described mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama appears to despise America.  On the Sunday following 9/11, Wright characterized the terrorist attacks as a consequence of violent American policies. Wright said America created the AIDS virus to kill off blacks.

“We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty,” Wright has said.  Like Wright, the Occupy Wall Street protestors fundamentally hate America, ignoring the fact that as it is, the top 1 percent of tax returns paid more than one-third of all federal individual income taxes in 2009.  Wall Street protesters reflect Obama’s anti-capitalist agenda and will help sink him.

Khrushchev was proven wrong when he said the Soviet Union will bury America.  Obama will be proven wrong about this country and what it stands for when he is defeated in 2012.

We Asked For Change and We Got It

President Obama ran for the presidency on a platform of “change”.  He certainly did not break that promise since his election.  Let’s take a look at the change that we got since Obama took office in January 2009:

Federal spending – from $2.5 trillion to $3.3 trillion

Federal deficit – from $642 billion to $1.7 trillion

Federal debt – from $10 trillion to $14.8 trillion

Foreclosures – topped 1 million in 2010 for the first time in history

Gas prices – over 110 percent increase

Healthcare insurance premiums – 9 percent increase for the year 2011 compared to 2010

Poverty – 15.1 percent of Americans (the highest poverty rate in 28 years)

Unemployment – above 9 percent for 26 of the last 28 months

Regulations –published over 80,000 pages in the Federal Register (the highest number since 2000)

Meanwhile, the number of American who think the country is headed in the right direction:  less than 20 percent.

We asked for change and we got it.  We have no one to blame but ourselves.