The Dream Is Dying

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The Dream Is Dying

By Kenneth L. Hanson

President Barack Obama recently declared, “The nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism.”

Tell a story? Well, there are a lot of us these days who have stories to tell. And far from reflecting unity, purpose, and optimism, these are testimonials to another sad reality: the “American dream” — at least under the Obama administration — is dying.

My story is not that special, though it is unique in some ways. My wife is a medical doctor from the former Soviet Union — as smart as she is beautiful. A surgeon by training (holding a Ph.D. in medicine on top of her M.D.), not only is she extremely capable as a hands-on physician, but she is also a businesswoman. Being a doctor has always meant everything to her, but she also knew that state-employed doctors in Russia earn on average only about $400 a month. She, however, had enough of an entrepreneurial spirit that, after practicing many years in emergency rooms and in cardiovascular surgery, she established her own plastic surgery clinic in the heart of Siberia.

Over time, she was grossing a “respectable” $2,000 a month. When we married and she came to America, I was thrilled to bring her to the “land of opportunity,” where, as a doctor, she could earn multiple times her Russian income. Earning her American citizenship, she dug in and started studying to meet the American medical requirements. That meant passing a series of exams, every bit as stringent as the ones she took when she first became a doctor. Over the course of three years, studying day and night, in what was for her a foreign language — English — she did it. She took her exams and passed. Now “certified” as a physician in the United States, she still lacks a license to practice medicine. That’s because the U.S. first requires the completion of a medical residency program, under supervision in a hospital, that takes anywhere from three to six years, depending on one’s specialty.

Bear in mind that not all countries require this for incoming medical doctors. In the European Union, for example, there are reciprocity agreements, whereby my Russian wife could work as a medical doctor with no further hurdles or obstacles in front of her. There are many regions in the world where a properly credentialed doctor in one country can practice in another. Not so in the United States.

Here, medical residency positions (of which there is a drastic shortage) first go to graduates of American medical schools, which of course my wife is not. She must therefore wait far back in line for a residency position to open somewhere, anywhere — which never does — regardless of her qualifications. These include training medical doctors in cardiovascular surgical techniques at one of the largest medical academies in Russia.

Now, after years of frustration, along comes ObamaCare, with its promise of providing free medical coverage to how many millions of new patients, including throngs of undocumented aliens? Respectable estimates are in the range of thirty million. Now, wouldn’t one imagine that if the administration were really serious about this, the first thing they would have done would be to take some of that initial trillion dollars of “stimulus” money and fast-track the creation of new residency programs for all the doctors trying to get their licenses? Maybe they would even eliminate some of the residency requirements altogether and foster more reciprocity agreements, so that more foreign-trained medical graduates could legally work in this country.

Has the Obama administration contemplated any of that? Of course…not! There is not a single new residency program, and there will not be a single additional doctor in this country to care for the thirty million new patients. And “we the people” are expected to believe that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it”? We’re expected to believe that there will not be “rationing” of medical services in this country?

The truth is, the new health care law (now upheld by the Supreme Court) isn’t about providing medical care to the millions who can’t afford it. It’s about creating enough phony “compassion,” via the biggest bloated entitlement program ever invented, to buy the votes of the “dependent class” and forge a permanent socialist/Marxist power bloc that will indeed “fundamentally transform” America. > > > READ MORE

Socialism v Free Enterprise: Translating ObamaSpeak

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Class Warfare, Declaration of Independence, Socialism v Free Enterprise, tax "fairness", US Constitution, Who is responsible?

What He Said v What He Meant

by Mark Alexander via The Patriot Post

“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.”
Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richards Almanack, 1735)

Barack Hussein Obama never so much as operated a corner lemonade stand, but his perspective on free enterprise, shaped by his lifelong socialist indoctrination, is certainly getting some traction.

Invoking the two pillars of his re-election campaign, tax “fairness” and class warfare, Obama first focused on the tax piece, asserting, “I’m not going to see us gut the investments that grow our economy.”

In ObamaSpeak, “gut the investments” translates as “cut taxes,” and “grow the economy” translates as “grow the government.” This remark was a smokescreen in regard to Democrat efforts to let the across-the-board Bush tax rates expire, which, in effect, will raise taxes on all Americans who earn a living rather than live on the dole.

To that end, Obama’s Senate lap dog, Patty Murray (D-WA), served up this ultimatum: “If we can’t get a good deal — a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share — then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013 rather than lock in a long-term deal this year that throws middle-class families under the bus.”

Of course, EVERY aspect of her classist rhetoric requires a secret decoder ring.

“Good deal” means “raising taxes” and “balanced deal” means “more spending.” If the Demo-gogues were serious about balancing anything, they’d do precisely what “middle-class families” do during tough times: cut expenses.

“The wealthy” means “tax payers rather than tax consumers.” As for paying their “fair share,” the producers and job creators who earn $250,000-and-above (which is the target for Obama’s looming tax increase) while constituting just two percent of the population already pay 43.6 percent of all federal income taxes. Obama is also keenly aware that the top 25 percent of income earners already pay more than 84 percent of income tax revenues and the top 50 percent of earners now pay almost 98 percent of all income tax revenue collected — which means he’s all but created a voting majority who pay little or no federal income tax.

Clearly, Democrats don’t represent the “99 percent.” Instead, they pander to the 50 percent who are the beneficiaries of confiscated and redistributed wealth from the other 50 percent. I invoke again the timeless words of George Bernard Shaw: “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”

Continuing with the translation exercise, Murray says Senate Demos won’t “lock in a long-term deal,” meaning “extend tax relief for tax payers,” and “throwing middle-class families under the bus” is what Obama and his Socialist Democrats do best.

Every dollar paid into the bloated federal coffers is one less dollar to be spent or invested in the private sector — where all those “middle-class families” Obama and his cadres use for cannon fodder — are barely making ends meet.

After pitching his plug for tax increases, Obama then got way off his teleprompted script with the most pointed classist and collectivist rhetoric he has yet to regurgitate: “If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. … If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

Of course, in the context of his socialist agenda, “somebody else” is his collectivist euphemism for “government,” a.k.a. Hillary Clinton’s “village.”

Finally, he asserted that collectivism is responsible for the existence of the middle class: “So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That’s how we created the middle class.” (As a half-truth, he may be partially correct. More middle-class folks could be wealthy if socialist government taxes and regulation weren’t holding them back.)

According to Obama, then, we owe all that we are and all that we own to government.

Notably, after having presided over four years of a flat-lined economy, despite spending trillions of dollars with nothing to show but trillions of dollars in debt, Obama’s chronic Narcissistic Personality Disorder enables him to completely ignore reality.

Every time he diverts from his ObamaPrompter, as he did with his assessment of free enterprise, he exposes his ultra-Leftist agenda. Some memorable examples include his recent assertion that, “The private sector is doing fine,” but we need more government jobs. Then there was his infamous comment to Joe the Plumber that we need to “spread the wealth around.” My personal favorite, however, was when an open mike caught his whispered assurance to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev: “After my election I’ll have more flexibility.”

Contemplate those words again: “After my election I’ll have more flexibility.”

As if he hasn’t yet done enough damage to our economy, culture and world standing in his first term? One wonders just what other damage he’d do with “more flexibility” in a second term.

Obama leads his lemmings to believe that business owners are millionaires driven by greed who don’t care about the jobs they create and the families those jobs support. In fact, the vast majority of small businesses — those which make up the foundation of our economy — are owned by men and women who put in long hours for not much more money than their managers and supervisors. But that’s during a healthy economy.

In a failing economy, like the current one under the Obama regime, small business owners who are personally liable for the debt required to operate their businesses, are taking out second home mortgages, maxing their credit cards, and borrowing from relatives and retirement savings in order to keep their businesses solvent.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wasted no time returning fire in defense of free enterprise.

“The idea to say that Steve Jobs didn’t build Apple, that Henry Ford didn’t build Ford Motor, that Papa John didn’t build Papa John Pizza, that Ray Kroc didn’t build McDonald’s, that Bill Gates didn’t build Microsoft — you go on down the list … to say something like that is not just foolishness, it is insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America and it’s wrong,” Romney said. > > > READ MORE

BLOGGER’S NOTE: Many Americans have a confused concept of compassion. Many of these Americans are very well intended, faithful people who have been beguiled by the misconceptions in various media that surround us. It is true there are many needy people among us – those with genuine needs as a result of devastating situations in their lives. These people need help. No one denies this. The question is who is responsible for the care of those in need. “GO & DO LIKEWISE” I propose that it is my responsibility and yours – as INDIVIDUALS – to personally tend the needs of the poor and help those in need in whatever ways we are each able. If we each put that on ourselves, the government would not be in the debt it finds itself. We ARE our brothers’ keeper, my friends, and the sooner we begin to take up the slack, the sooner our government can tend the duties for which it is responsible – i.e securing our borders and protecting our citizens via the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Check the video below!