The progressive activist group MoveOn.org has announced a new Congressional lobbying campaign to be carried out this month. Called, “A Contract for the American Dream,” it’s based on a distortion of the American Dream, an out-of-context quote from the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. (a Republican, by the way) and a couple of assumptions: That America as a nation is not broke, and that Americans need jobs.

The Contract has ten steps, each of which warrants examination:

1. “Invest in America’s  infrastructure.” Yes, but we’ve heard that for three years, and construction  employment remains depressed. Could it be because the Democrats are more  beholden to anti-construction, anti-growth, anti-development environmentalists  than to an industry that loyally supports them, even though construction  unemployment remains more than double what it was during the George W. Bush  presidency?
2. “Create 21st-century  energy jobs.” All right, how? I’d suggest letting the free market do this,  just as it’s done for so many other technological breakthroughs. But if there  is no market for the products, due to factors such as prohibitive cost, then  there’s no benefit. Those same environmentalists oppose this as well. They  claim that solar farms disrupt habitats, especially the sensitive deserts  where they would be most efficient, and that wind farms kill birds and bats  and are visually polluting.
3. “Invest in public  education.” The Contract nowhere calls for efficiency or results-based  accountability. In other words, throw more money at a broken system and keep  accepting inferior results. The call for “affordable higher education” is  especially absurd, given that progressive policies at institutions of higher  learning contribute so mightily to soaring tuition rates while compromising  the quality of the product.
4. “Offer Medicare for  all.” The call for improved quality and efficiency in health care is good, but  thinking that Obamacare is a good start towards this is not. Obamacare is  already violating their goal of lower cost and equal or better results – and  these folks say it doesn’t go far enough!
5. “Make work pay.” The Contract calls for employer  opposition to union organizing to be outlawed. Same for opposing a “living  wage,” which typically means whatever exorbitant amount a majority of  progressives want to force an employer to pay in order to buy the votes of the  employees, whether or not it the employer can afford it. Here’s the text:  “Americans have a right to fair minimum and living wages, to organize and  collectively bargain, to enjoy equal opportunity and to earn equal pay for  equal work. Corporate assaults on  these rights bring down wages and benefits for all of us. They must be  outlawed” (emphasis  added).
6. “Secure Social  Security.” Not by banning the spending of Social Security taxes as general  funds, but by confiscating even more taxes. In other words, give the addict  more fixes. And, of course, only “upper-income people” must pay more into it,  not Congress.
7. “Return to fairer tax  rates.” So who decides what’s fair? The progressives. If you – not them, mind  you, but only you – earn more than they deem appropriate, then the government  has the right to seize the rest. So much for private property rights being the  foundation of liberty, two concepts that are noticeably absent from the  Contract.
8. “End the wars and  invest at home.” Okay, but war doesn’t end until all parties involved  come to that understanding.
9. “Tax Wall Street speculation.” This is the classic  camel’s nose under the tent wall – “A tiny fee of 1/20th of 1%” on each  trade.” The income tax was originally a “tiny” 1.0% to 7.0%; now it is 10.0%  to 35.0%, and the progressives want much more. The same thing will happen  here.
10. Finally, “Strengthen Democracy.” This paragraph  contains more problems than space allows me to address. Suffice it to say that  the goal of “clean, fair elections” translates solely to progressive victory  by any means, and strengthening the Republic is as absent as any mention of  liberty and protection from tyranny.

This 10-point look into MoveOn.org’s version of the American Dream boils down to this: Enticing promises made without any intention of fulfilling them; increasing spending while continuing the status quo of waste and failure; extending failed programs; banning employer opposition to unions; erosion of your right to keep and enjoy the fruits of your labor; raising existing taxes and spawning more; and disregard for the nature of our Republic and the liberty that is its foundation.

Thomas Berry, for the Children of Liberty, http://www.meetup.com/The-children-of-liberty/<http://www.meetup.com/The-children-of-liberty/> .

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Children of Liberty.
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