Obama Talked Class War -- Now He's Got One

Anyone who listened carefully to President Barack Obama over the last two years could not avoid hearing the rhetoric of a Marxist class warrior bent on dividing Americans by their perceived economic status.

Our president — who ought to be a leader and inspiration for all Americans — sought to motivate his supporters with alleged class-based grievances. He talked up class struggle and now has one — if not exactly the one he envisioned.

There are only two sides in the domestic political conflict Obama has sparked — and they are not the relatively rich and the relatively less rich in this still-remarkably affluent nation. They are not defined by their material possessions but by their attitude toward freedom.

On one side are those who believe they are morally and materially responsible for their own destiny — and are glad to be so. On the other side are those who believe the rest of us owe them something and that government should take it from us and give to them. This side is surrendering its freedom to government dependency.

In the future, America must follow either Obama's Marxist vision or return to the vision of ordered liberty embedded by our Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Tuesday's election was only the first battle in what will surely be the defining political struggle for Americans now alive.

"Look, the bottom line is this: These guys, they just don't want to give up on that economic philosophy that they have been peddling for most of the last decade," Obama said at a Labor Day campaign rally in Milwaukee.

"You know that philosophy: You cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires. You cut all the rules and regulations for special interests. And then you just cut working folks loose — you cut them loose to fend for themselves," Obama said.

"You remember they called it the ownership society, but what it really boiled down to was, if you couldn't find a job, you couldn't afford college, you were born poor, your insurance company dropped you even though your kid was sick, that you were on your own," said Obama.

"Well, you know what, that philosophy didn't work out so well for middle-class families all across America. It didn?t work out so well for our country," Obama said.

Obama repeated this essential point ad nauseam in the 2010 campaign season. His message in one sentence: The philosophy that Americans should "fend for themselves" did not "work out so well for our country."

To spread his gospel of government dependency, Obama preaches gloom and despair: Freedom and self-reliance does not work, he is forever arguing. Give it up.

In return, he offers his would-be acolytes a free lunch: Government will pay for your college education. Government will pay for your health care.

In reality, in the redistributionist America that Obama would build, it would not be government that paid for anybody's college education or health care, it would be the other class of Americans — those who believe in freedom and self-reliance, who take care of themselves and their own, who lead industrious and productive lives, and who value freedom over security.

In Obama's America, members of the self-reliant class would have ever greater portions of their hard-earned income and savings taxed away so redistributionist politicians could give more to the dependent class, which they would continue to nurture and build until there was no one left but the politicians and government dependents — in a bankrupt country.

The lesson of the 2010 campaign is that most Americans do not want more government in their lives, they want less. They do not want handouts from President Obama. They want him and other politicians like him off their backs and out of their wallets. Terence P. Jeffrey is the editor in chief of CNSnews.com. To find out more about him, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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