byDan Freeman
In 1983, Ronald Reagan infuriated liberals worldwide by accurately labeling the Soviet Union as the evil empire. George W. Bush received a similar reaction following his “axis of evil” speech in which he used the politically incorrect term, evil, to describe the regimes of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Although most Americans found it refreshing to hear a politician speak so directly and honestly, the media and the rest of the liberal elites went berserk. Imagine that. It was not that the Kim Jong-il regime kept the people of North Korea in a state of poverty and near starvation that got liberals in a tizzy. Rather, it was that Bush had the audacity to use the word evil to describe it.
The nearly two years of corruption, plunder, and economic destruction—combined with the mockery of the American people and vilification of the private sector—has crystallized for many a realization of a home grown threat more destructive and imminently dangerous to America than any of the substantial external threats we faced over the last century. It’s a threat that has been building quietly for many years but has come to the fore since President Obama was elected. Have you wondered how the radical left managed to capture the reins of power and govern in direct opposition to the will of two thirds of the population? The answer is the New Axis of Evil. It is the power base of the left (and the Democratic Party).
No doubt, the list can be debated and expanded, but here, at least is a starting point—the dirty dozen if you will, with a few prime examples included.
- Old Media (ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, NPR, NY Times)
- Engorged Public Unions (SEIU, NEA, AFSCME)
- Global Socialist Elites (Robert McChesney, Andy Stern, George Soros)
- Liberal “Think” Tanks (Media Matters, Center for American Progress, ThinkProgress)
- America Hating Academics (Noam Chomsky, Paul Krugman )
- Professional Victims Groups (La Raza, CAIR, NAACP, NOW)
- Community Disorganizers & Activists (ACORN, Code Pink, ACLU)
- Environmental Redistributionists (Greenpeace, EDF)
- Social Justice Preachers (Jeremiah Wright, Reverend Jim Wallis)
- Progressive Hollywood Elites (Oliver Stone, Sean Penn)
- Bloated Federal Bureaucracy (DOE, DOA, TSA)
- Public/Private Colluders (AARP, Government Motors, Goldman Sachs)
It almost goes without saying (but here I’ll say it anyway)—there are many good people scattered among these institutions.
It is rather the leadership and the aims, desires, and policies of these institutions that warrant their inclusion. Most Americans will instinctively recognize that these are the bad guys. After all, they rob us blind with taxes to pay for every social experiment their bloated egos can conceive while calling us greedy, dim-witted, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, bible clinging, imperialists for not wanting to go along with their half-witted plans. It is often said by conservatives that while the left is hopelessly wrong, they are not evil. I beg to differ. A tipping point has been reached wherein their twisted values, economic illiteracy, arrogance, vile personal behavior, and ends-justify-the-means mentality in their quest to dominate the rest of us, does constitute evil.
All players among of the new axis of evil share certain fundamental values, including a hatred and gross misunderstanding of free enterprise, disdain for the Constitution, contempt for individual rights, and a belief in virtually unlimited government power in the name of their amorphous concept of the collective good. They also share a fundamental ignorance about human nature, including the corrupting influence of power, and the importance of both individual struggle and personal responsibility in achieving happy and satisfying lives. They mock Judeo Christian values (or in the case of Jim Wallis and the social justice crowd, pervert them) and turn upside down traditional western notions of virtue.
The new axis of evil are largely economic illiterates, believing the dual myths that wealth is a zero sum game and a country can spend its way into prosperity. They view America as an oppressor and look for every opportunity to vilify her while supporting dictators that they consider more worthy. The American people are viewed alternatively as their ATMs and their subjects to be prodded into their version of perfection. While they excoriate the greedy private sector, the new exist of evil maintain privileged lives by taking from the very people they condemn. Those who do earn their own way (entertainers, for example) gain access to the governing elite not by giving their own money away, but by convincing others to in the form of higher taxes.
Perhaps the most perverse characteristic of the new axis of evil is its disdain for the individual. Without exception, they seek to usurp power traditionally reserved for individuals in order to empower the state, which, of course, funds their mischief. This, I believe, gets us closer to why this band of misfits is not merely wrong, but evil. The Greek philosopher Plotinus described evil as the negation of the good. When individuals’ are allowed the freedom to make the crucial decisions that affect their own lives, and held responsible for these decisions, they have control over their own destiny, and this is the primary ingredient in living happy, satisfying, and meaningful lives. Since the Renaissance, individuals have gained more and more control over their own lives. Under America’s unique system of individual liberty, limited government, and free enterprise, the individual thrived and humanity leapt ahead in inconceivable ways. Life expectancy doubled in the US from 1850 to 2000, and a typical middle class American had within his control the opportunity (not the guarantee) to live a life that was previously available only to those lucky few born into privilege. This is why we consider America a great nation. Our love of country is not the blind nationalism that academics mock. Rather, it is a love of freedom and self-government. America is the world’s greatest good, not because we are rich and powerful, but because we are free, and through that freedom, have been able to achieve a remarkable degree of control over our own lives. That control has been steadily whittled away by the new axis of evil. If, as Plotinus said, evil is the negation of the good, then fundamentally transforming America—Obama’s paramount goal— from the world’s beacon of freedom to a European socialist state where leaders lord over their subjects whom they consider too feeble and inept to handle the burdens of life, is one of the greatest evils that can be perpetrated.
Beginning with Marx’s Communist Manifesto in 1848 and accelerating in the mid 20th century, with the rise of the collective good and its transformation into Stalinism, Nazism, and Maoism, the centuries-long trend towards individual freedom was reversed. It was not only themurder of tens of millions that was evil, but also the billion lives make stark by the corruption, economic destruction, and personal degradation of centralized control, always in the name of the collective good. America has always fought against the horrors of the totalitarian state in defense of the individual. But while we fought foreign enemies, the new axis of evil plotted to undermine America.
At its core, the new axis of evil is about the forced redistribution of wealth from those who earn it, to those who burn it. The justifications for legalized theft get more absurd by the day. From the eternal war on poverty, to global warming, climate change, social justice, racial justice, healthcare as a right, even to saving those poor companies like GM that cannot make it on their own. The only thing one finds in common with these policies is that each feeds the beast of the new axis of evil with money extracted from us. The left does not understand how its noble desire to spread the wealth is itself a vicious attack on individual freedom. Our wealth is the closest thing we have to stored toil. After all, whether one earns minimum wage or a million dollars a year, he must work to earn it, and taking that money to give it to someone else is akin to both legalized theft and servitude.
With the attack of the individual, necessarily comes an attack on Judeo-Christian values. The Ten Commandments is a code of personal behavior. Thou shalt not lie does not mean thou shalt not lie unless doing so allows us to get the votes to pass Obamacare. It’s no coincidence that in academic circles, the very notion of fixed, absolute standards of good and evil are rejected. But although Judeo-Christian values are disregarded, the only code of conduct that has replaced these ancient guideposts of individual behavior seems to be—whatever our self anointed leaders decree to be right. The loss of the left’s moral compass is nowhere more evident than in a commercial produced an environmental group that shows children being blown up because they do not actively support cutting CO2 emissions.
The new “good” is simply everyone and everything that supports the left’s un-definable collective good. The new “evil” is everything that stands in opposition, which places FOX News and the Tea Party at the epicenter of the left’s hatred. If our self annointed leaders declare that everyone has the right to free healthcare, it must be so. Even if Obamacare conflicts with our right to private property, undermines the free market system, impedes medical innovation, adds another trillion to our deficit, and is a prime driver of unemployment. History shows that when the collective good is the goal, individual moral standards evaporate. If ever anyone needed the grounding and restraint demanded in the Ten Commandments, it’s the new axis of evil.
This is the battle we are in. It is a battle of good versus evil. Of individual freedom—protected by a constitutionally limited government—versus collectivism—fed by the unquenchable appetite of the State. In America, a man still has control over his destiny. He can still pursue his own happiness, his God given right. But not without a fight.
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