Time to Pack Up and Leave Our Chief

By Terry Paulson

Obama's an articulate bull roaming the china shop

President Barack Obama is no horse whisperer wooing America into embracing change. An articulate bull has been unleashed in America’s china shop. His sweet talk and promises of bipartisanship have given way to a radical liberal bent on transforming America into a socialistic nightmare we can’t afford!

He may actually believe that his vision for America is best, but the poll numbers for his plans are dropping fast. Americans are taking off their rose-colored glasses because the economy is not improving.

Brian Thompson of the Museum of American Financial History asserts: “Wall Street is predicated on optimism. The very acts of raising capital and making investments are based on the simple belief that tomorrow will be a better day. And that’s what makes economic growth and opportunity possible.”

Why are entrepreneurs not jumping at the opportunity to start and provide capital to new companies? It’s simple. All Obama has brought to our economy is an unprecedented soaring deficit racing past a trillion dollars, unemployment raging toward 13 percent, continuing economic uncertainty, constantly expanding regulations and higher taxes for the corporations and investors who could fund job-creating private- sector growth!

Conservatives want a world where we can celebrate more citizens becoming rich by earning it. Liberals seem committed to spreading misery by making everyone poor by taxing away wealth, killing incentives and making more citizens dependent.

As a result, Obama creates more fear than optimism, and that fear is warranted. China and other countries are balking at funding our debt, which means the government is left to printing money that will ultimately obligate future generations and devalue the savings citizens have worked hard to create. That means inflation and continuing economic stagnation are on the way.

Our next stimulus package ought to be what Obama calls a return “to the failed policies of the past.” Free enterprise, capitalism and limited government created this country’s unmatched economic strength. After the 9/11 attacks, our economy was severely tested. Within months, America was back on her feet and produced a sustained period of economic growth that lasted well into 2008.

Why? President Bush didn’t put his faith in Washington; he put it in the American people. He knew that when inspired and rewarded for their entrepreneurial and productive excellence, Americans would again rise to the challenge. He passed tax reductions, and the economy rebounded. The Bush plan was not a failed plan; it’s the American plan that has always worked and would work again.

In a recent Time magazine article, Michael Grunwald described how “a world-famous team of genius scientists, psychologists and economists” helped manage Obama’s winning campaign. Grunwald writes: “President Obama is still relying on behavioral science to transform the country. Because when you know what makes people tick, it’s a lot easier to help them change.”

“People want to do what they think others will do,” says Robert Cialdini, author of the best seller “Influence.” When they conveyed through the liberal-leaning media that “everyone is voting for Obama,” others joined the herd.

That’s Obama’s change mantra! “All reputable scientists agree” that global warming is caused by man and remains an imminent danger to Earth. Obama asserts: “Economists on both the left and right agree that the last thing a government should do in the middle of a recession is to cut back on spending.”

Not all scientists agree with Gore’s environmental jihad and, certainly, not all economists agree with Obama’s record spending and higher taxes. There is no united herd, but Obama wants you to believe everyone that is anybody is on his team, whether it’s true or not! He’s the master in using empty words and empty phrases to manipulate you into buying his America.

Behavioral science, popularized by “Freakonomics, The Wisdom of Crowds, Predictably Irrational, Nudge and Animal Spirits,” has become a must-read in Obamaworld, and it’s already shaping dozens of administration policies. For example, since it is hard for people to choose to change, policies will be constructed that require you to opt out if you don’t want to participate. They put you with the herd and force “radical” mavericks to choose to resist. Most just go along!

This is political paternalism at its worst. Well-meaning or not, America has become a nanny-state run by an elitist Big Brother who wants to manipulate us into driving smaller, eco-friendly cars, eating less fat and using less carbon-based energy.

It’s time to resist Obama’s manipulations and socialist vision. Some native Americans had a way of taking care of chiefs they no longer respected. The chief would wake up one morning in their dwelling and find that the rest of the tribe had left them during the night. Get your tent ready!

Re-published by permission of Terry Pauson.  Originally published by the Ventura County Star, July 20, 2009.  — Terry Paulson of Agoura Hills is a psychologist, speaker and author. E-mail him at terry@terrypaulson.com. Website: http://www.terrypaulson.com

Paulson: What would we do if Ayn Rand's novel were real? Galt wants Atlas to strike

By Terry Paulson

President Barack Obama’s rapid race into socialism is creating an escalating tax revolt. With a never-ending stream of stimulus packages and new entitlement programs, the Americans who will be stuck with the bill are shouting a clear message: “Enough!”

Many organizations are calling for a Tax Day Tea Party (http://taxdayteaparty.com/) on April 15. To Democrats, “the rich” aren’t paying their “fair share,” but many of the top 20 percent of wage-owners who pay 83 percent of the income taxes are taking to the streets.

Yes, Obama is my president, and as Warren Buffett said, “We’re all in the same boat.” But if the boat’s captain is so busy enjoying his applauding throng to notice that he’s sending us full-speed into an iceberg, you’d better do more than just disagree.

Writing letters, complaining to your representatives, even tax-revolt protests may not be enough. When workers reject their contract, they strike. Maybe it’s time for Atlas to do more than shrug! Is it time for the top tax-paying Americans to strike?

John Galt, the fictional protagonist in Ayn Rand’s classic novel “Atlas Shrugged,” responded to the growing regulations and taxation in Rand’s fictional socialist America by convincing “the rich” to leave and let socialism fail. How would you respond if John Galt wrote this letter today?

My fellow taxpaying Americans,

I write you to warn you and to challenge you. We deserve this economic collapse. We’ve allowed our politicians to sacrifice justice to forced compassion, trade our freedom for government dependence and confiscate earned wealth to fund more entitlements.

For more than two centuries, the American Dream has demonstrated what excellence unleashed can do, but for decades, politicians have conducted a war on excellence. Personal responsibility has given way to entitlement. Instead of honoring excellence, we elect politicians to confiscate as much money as possible from wealth producers to fund entitlements for those who haven’t earned it.

Some of today’s bailout recipients are no better than burglars, but burglars don’t ask us to sanction their crime. As the government seizes your wealth through unfair taxation rates, liberal politicians want voluntary compliance from you, the tax-paying victims.

When America began, government cost the average citizen $20 in today’s money. That’s $20 a year! Taxes rose during wars, but for most of the history of America, spending never exceeded a few hundred dollars per citizen.

During and after World War II, government just kept expanding.

The cost of the recent stimulus packages alone is more than $18,000 per household. We are witnessing the climax of over 70 years of creeping socialism. America created a system that produced the wealth of the world, and we’re letting the destroyers dismantle it.

Citizens and companies now compete not to achieve but to receive the biggest bailouts. The responsible citizens pay, and the beggars collect. But money taken from the achievement of others won’t buy intelligence for the fool, admiration for the lazy or respect for the incompetent. The irresponsible takers are unwelcome hitchhikers.

We have always been a compassionate people, but compassionate Americans, not the government, should help their neighbors in need.

When those who fund our growing federal debt stop buying, who’ll pay the bill? Washington could confiscate all the taxable income of everyone making over $75,000 and it would barely produce $4 trillion.

Our unchecked entitlement system will eventually collapse; I challenge you to make that happen now! It’s time for Atlas to shrug — to calmly, consciously and deliberately go on strike for true fairness. Our collective response must be simple and non-violent: “No more! I will cease to achieve, invent, produce, hire, serve or invest until all Americans pay the same flat income-tax rate!”

Re-engage when America once again is a country that protects everyone’s rights — the right to property, the right for every person to rise as far as she’s able. We ask for no special rights — only freedom to take our own risks, to bear our own losses and to experience our own rewards.

For those of you who voted for this liberal takeover, take pause. Do you have so little confidence in yourself and your children’s ability that you can’t succeed without government subsidies?

It’s not too late to choose freedom over dependence, earned rewards over entitlement and personal responsibility over collective rights.

American automobile companies can emerge from bankruptcy with a smaller but more vibrant business model. Out of a bankrupt America can emerge a leaner government based on America’s founding principles. With shared equal responsibility and shared equal opportunity, a new optimism and entrepreneurial spirit will unleash an economic recovery like we have not seen in decades.

Risk striking for a new America worth believing in!

— John Galt

There is no letter. There is no strike. John Galt does not exist. How would you respond if he did?

— Terry Paulson of Agoura Hills is a psychologist, speaker and author. E-mail him at terry@terrypaulson.com. Website: http://www.terrypaulson.com