Thank the Democratic Socialist Party

By Henry Lamb

For all practical purposes, the Democratic Party in the United States has become the Democratic Socialist Party of the United States. With Barack H. Obama at its helm, the Democrats have launched an agenda the socialists have pursued for a century. While employing just the right rhetorical tone, Obama ridicules those who call him a socialist, while he is advancing his unprecedented socialist agenda.

Obama is a better salesman than his socialist predecessors, but the result is the same: government control must trump individual freedom in order to achieve economic balance, environmental protection, and social equity. Obama and his socialist Democrat congressional majority are transforming America more dramatically, and faster, than anyone could have imagined.

The Americans who created the government of the United States, accepted by the majority of Americans when the U.S. Constitution was ratified, expressly limited the power of the federal government, and reserved all power not granted to the federal government for the states, and for the people. The purpose of the government was to protect the freedom of its citizens from all enemies, whether foreign or domestic.

The Democratic socialists in Washington reject this purpose, and are rapidly constructing a government in which the expression of individual freedom — as in peaceful assemblies such as the recent Tea Parties — is labeled a threat, or potential threat, or "low-level terrorism."

Instead of defending individual freedom and protecting free enterprise, this government is extinguishing both as fast as possible — while completely ignoring the Constitution's limitation on its power.

Where, exactly, does the Constitution authorize:

• The government's majority ownership of General Motors;
  
  
• The bailout of private banks and insurance companies;
  
  
• Federal jurisdiction over all water — and activity that may affect water — as proposed by The Clean Water Restoration Act (S787);
  
  
• Federal jurisdiction over the production of all food as proposed by the Food Safety Enhancement Act (HR2749);
  
  
• Federal take-over of the entire healthcare industry; and
  
  
• Federal control over the use of energy.
  
  

These are only a few of the major ways the Democratic socialists in Washington are transforming America from the land of the free, to the home of the government-controlled.

Obama is far too smart to impose this agenda by brute force; instead, he is exercising his Chicago-style political skills. For example, Obama, and the Democratic socialist majority, are pushing "Card-Check," otherwise known as the Employee Free Choice Act (HR1409). This bill will allow union thugs to unionize any business without a secret ballot vote. This is payback for union support of the Democratic socialists.

As if this were not enough, Obama and his Democratic socialist majority are considering exempting unions from a new tax on medical benefits paid by insurance companies. That's right, one of the methods under consideration to pay for the new socialized medicine scheme, is to tax every employee who is not a union member for any and all benefits received from private insurance companies. This would immediately force non-union businesses to become unionized, or force their employees to pay taxes on insurance benefits that employees of unionized businesses don't pay.

Slick trick; this is Chicago politics at its best.

The most destructive goal of the Democratic socialists is the sweeping energy policy now under construction. Regardless of what it is called or the final shape it may take, the goal is to not only increase the price of energy beyond affordability, but to ration its use as well.

"Cap-and-trade" is a euphemism for limiting the quantity of energy an entity may use. If government controls what comes out of the pipe, it automatically controls what goes into the pipe. By setting an arbitrary limit on emissions at a level known to be less than is required by the business, and then arbitrarily setting a price for excess emissions, a business must either reduce its operations, or pay the government-mandated extra costs. Regardless of how it may be described, any government-mandated cost is a tax. Therefore, any "cap-and-trade" program is, in reality, a cap-and-tax program.

This program is designed to give government the power and the mechanism to increase the cost of energy produced by fossil fuel to a price higher than the cost of energy produced by wind and solar sources. This agenda item will give government the power to essentially control the economy, by controlling the supply and price of energy that runs the economy. It will also give government the appearance of protecting the environment, which is a sop to environmental organizations and to the international community. And it will extract windfall taxes to allow government to redistribute America's wealth to achieve the social equity goals of the Democratic socialist majority.

This is, indeed, the agenda that will make the rest of the world love America, because it will transform America into a democratic socialist country, and reduce America to the same level of government control — and poverty — that is the international norm.

For this, we can thank the new Democratic socialist party that we sent to Washington.

© Henry Lamb