Self-Interest is undoing America

I can’t imagine that self-interest has ever driven policy in America as it does today. I’m only 50, so I don’t have those Depression-era experiences or those during World Wars, but could this nation have survived this long if it was always like this?

Like millions of my fellow Americans, I’m learning the history now that was kept out of the classrooms of my youth. I’m seeing the Progressive Movement throughout the last 100 years of American history, with people from within both parties who’ve led this nation into electing a radically Progressive president in Barack Obama. But Obama could not be “fundamentally transforming America” if not for the House and Senate that decades of pandering to self-interest has established in Washington DC.

There were times in this nation when even accepting charity was repugnant to Americans. People would sacrifice for their neighbor, or even for a total stranger. What has happened to that American charity? Well, it’s still here, but is being constantly attacked by a growing segment of this nation that has been trained by decades of Progressive education that it is “entitled” to what other’s earn. These people feel empowered at the ballot booth by carpet-baggers from both political parties to demand rights from government at the expense of their fellow citizens, along with “free stuff” that will be paid for with magical pixie dust, but keep them on the Progressive’s leash.

This nation cannot survive this self-interest that ignores the consequences of government largess. Facing bankrupted entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, federal government mandates on the states that cannot be possibly met, and in excess of $100 trillion in unfunded federal government obligations, the question is not when the coming financial collapse will occur, but how devastating it will be.

It does not have to be this way. But it will happen unless Americans can rid this society of the radicals, Marxists, and corrupt who are driving America to this one and only outcome. It begins with all Americans measuring their self-interest against the needs of this nation, and abandoning this Progressive theology that suggests that people can be given everything they need in life for free, and that no one is responsible for the decisions they’ve made in their lives, or the consequences of what they perceive as their own bad luck.

Self-interest should end at the walls of your home, and not in the pockets of your neighbors.