By Oyen Hoffman
Idyllwild

There is a distinct difference between what America is and what the government of America is. Some of the unwise have recently argued that the U.S. government is our friend. Those same folks have projected feelings of dislike and shame toward America, her people and our history. The problems are not with the liberals as people, the problem is with liberalism as a part of governmental policy. Liberals seem to have bought into the idea that people are fundamentally bad and incompetent; that people need to be cared for by the government and that it was the government that has protected us all these years from evil capitalists, a.k.a., Americans and everyday business owners who are in it to make a profit, employ workers and invest in America’s economy.

President Obama took office two and half years ago. America has been headed in a disastrous trajectory ever since. After two failed stimulus packages, a failed jobs package, two events of quantitative easing (money printing), and everyone should remember the summer of recovery (how many summers ago was that?) America’s economy is now worse than ever. Among the failures of the Obama administration are a 9.2 percent unemployment rate, the worst housing dilemma since the Great Depression, a severely weakening dollar, still no budget, a universal health care bill that is wrought with problems and is far from fair or universal, failed foreign policy, and a third war. His one success — Obama has succeeded in accumulating more debt than every other president in history combined!

Unfortunately, many liberals will continue to believe the Earth is flat; they will refuse to see the truth even though it is right there in plain view, hidden from no one. Obama claims to help the poor, the middle class, and obtain energy independence. At the same time, he stops drilling, taxes and regulates the coal and natural gas industries to death, ostracizes the private sector job creators, and is planning to increase taxes.

These actions create higher gas and energy prices, a dollar that is worth less, and no end in sight. The very people he claims need his help, he is destroying. What is Obama’s response to his administration’s failures? He has the audacity to tell the 14 million Americans out of work that this is just a “bump in the road.” Liberal Democrats foolishly think that another stimulus package and another quantitative easing will work … after two failures!

Liberal elites think in terms of “themselves” and “everybody else,” while conservative leaders with solutions think in terms of “We” as in “We the people …” Harry Reid’s entire state of Nevada was awarded a waiver from Obama care, while 80 percent of Nevada homeowners are under water with their homes, and [the state] struggles with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Nancy Pelosi’s rich friends in her California district all were awarded waivers from Obama care. Obama care is not for them — Obama care is for everybody else.

The government is not a good investment my liberal friends, but America is. It is the people who are successful at teaching our children, not the government. It is Americans that create jobs and perpetuate charity, not the White House. President Obama and the progressives want you to give them your money, they will give it to the people they see fit, because you are incapable of doing it yourself. This, of course, relieves you of all responsibility, but also robs the act of charitable giving from its spirituality because Obama now wants to tax charitable donations. The government did not enact women’s rights, civil rights, environmental causes, gay rights, or equality ­­— the people did. Don’t let them fool you; holding on to their ideals is all the liberals have left.

The government is ruled by the Constitution and the 18 enumerated powers thereof, the people are ruled by Congress’s laws, but government is beholden to its people, people are not beholden to the government. The bigger and more powerful the government becomes, the more vulnerable and weaker the people become. The government cannot fix the problems that it created; in fact, the government is incapable of reparation. The people, however, will fix the problems, if only the government allows us to.

It takes courage and intrepidness to keep moving forward, while the flat Earthers scream, “You’re gonna fall off, you’re gonna fall off!” Americans will care for their own. The government-provided hammock will again be turned into the necessary safety net it once was. Some, with unleashed egos, will not or cannot admit their misconceptions and mistakes. Remember, what the people allow their government to provide inadvertently gives the government the power to withhold and ration those same provisions.