Sunday, September 27, 2009

My Community Organizer

Below is a fictional scenario. This scenario may be starting now all over our country and may be the outcome of the strategies being put into effect by President Obama. It is happening under the guise of creating a better world, but it requires the acceptance of the idea of collectivism which has historically been a very destructive idea. The beginning stages today involve the government’s takeover of financing of all college loans and the government's creation of massive government-funded volunteer programs. It represents a future that must not become reality.

I received a visit today from a disheveled young man who asked me if I would support President Obama’s plans for healthcare. I asked him which organization he represented and he said that he had just graduated from college with a political science degree and was being considered for the post of community organizer of the local “Citizens” group.

I told him that I disagreed with the government being responsible for health care. He told me that was a lie; that the health care program would only provide more choice for Americans.

I shut the door in his face.

Fast Forward:

I received a visit today from the same young man who had come before. He was now wearing a suit and had cut his hair to look more “business-like.” He told me that he was now the local community organizer and he wanted to sign people up to come to an event supporting the President’s Cap and Trade Bill. He asked me if I wanted a cleaner planet. I told him “No”; that I disagreed with the President’s policies on climate change and didn’t think it was necessary for the government to interfere in our energy choices.

He told me that was a lie; that the President was only trying to be a good global citizen of the planet.

I shut the door in his face.

Fast Forward:

I received a visit today from a man who asked me to volunteer for the local Citizens group. They were gathering over the weekend to clean up the local homeless shelter. He stated that we should all volunteer to help the homeless. I told him this was a free country and I did not have to volunteer for anything. He asked me if I cared for the homeless. I told him I had more important things to do. He told me that the homeless should be more important than anything. They are homeless, he said, because of the greed of big corporations.

I began to shut the door in his face and he stuck his foot in the door. He told me that I was being talked about by other volunteers, it was being said I was not a good citizen and there were certain reports being made about me.

I planted my hand firmly on his chest and pushed him away from my door and closed it.

Fast Forward:

I received a visit today from our community organizer. He told me he was collecting information about every home in order to determine what the community group could do to improve the neighborhood. He asked me if it was ok if he took a walk around my home to take some notes. I told him “No”. He said that he had an order from the mayor to conduct the survey. I shut the door in his face and watched him as he took a walk around my property and made notes on a clipboard.

Fast Forward:

I received a visit from my community organizer and was told that he was collecting information about the inside of every home to assess whether there were any possible conditions that might contribute to disease in the neighborhood. He showed me an order from the mayor that authorized him to conduct the survey. I tried to shut the door in his face but he wedged his body in the door and stopped it from closing. He told me the survey was mandatory and was for the good of the community. He pushed me back and I fell onto the floor. He came into my home and began taking notes. After he finished, he told me he would be back.

Fast Forward:

I received a visit from my community organizer and was told that the local women’s shelter needed a television set. He reminded me that during his last visit he had noticed I had a nice television set. He wanted to know if I’d like to donate it to the shelter and I said “No.” He told me that I was being very anti-social and that the entire neighborhood hated me for being so negative about having a better community. I told him that this was a free country and he told me that I was being old fashioned.

Fast Forward:

I came home from work to find 10 people in front of my house carrying signs. They began yelling at me that I was anti-social. One of the signs said that “Anti-social behavior is strictly punished.” Another said, “We are watching you.” Another said, “Obama wants you.” I looked at the community organizer and he said, “It may be mean but it is very clever.”

When I got into my house I noticed that my television set was gone.

Fast Forward:

I received a visit from my community organizer and he told me that his previous visit had discovered some violations in my home and that he had gotten a court order to evict me and confiscate my possessions for the sale of the neighborhood. He was going to move a family into my home that had a more “socially acceptable” attitude. He told me that he had talked to my boss and they had fired me from my job and I had 30 minutes to get out of the neighborhood. I protested that I had rights and he said that no one had rights who was unwilling to help others.

I asked, “Who’s going to help me now that I’m homeless?” He told me I should have thought about that the first time I was asked to volunteer. He pointed to the local highway and said there were some places under the overpass.

You may think the above could not happen here. I’d like to point out that similar things have taken place in other countries when the government was empowered to impose “collective” solutions for individual problems. Collectivism empowers a government to destroy any individual who is not willing to sacrifice his time, energy and property to the collective.

Collectivism invalidates individual rights, contract rights and property rights. It creates a government with no limits. Under the guise of making better communities, collectivism demands sacrifice and, through this demand, destroys society and the basis of civil cooperation. In a collectivist society, all citizens are required to do what the government demands or suffer the ostracism that goes with “anti-social” behavior. Beware of community organizers.

Certainly, many people think that the above scenario betrays a tinge of paranoia and fear about what are often considered valuable programs that make for a better community. But I remember a time when the idea of the government doing anything other than defending the rights enumerated in the Constitution was a matter for grave concern. Today, many of us have been indoctrinated to accept the idea that the government is our caretaker rather than our protector. We've taken the idea of "the common good" and used it to empower government to do, at first, benign things, while we set the precedent that opens the door for the use of coercive force to expropriate our time, energy and property. Do we really want to lose our freedoms? When we get beyond benign things like cleaning homeless shelters, we may not like what we are required to do.

You may not agree, but I think it is true that Barack Obama is the leader of a totalitarian movement. Anyone who pushes a large number of collectivist programs, like those pushed by the President, who demands that we impose those programs without question, without debate, without even reading the bills, as a matter of historical timeliness ("Now's the time..."), is trying to deceive us; is trying to bring totalitarian control without giving us the time or the right to stop it. Anyone who denigrates and belittles principled opposition, who claims that such opposition is nothing more than political obstruction, cannot have our best interests at heart. In her famous book, Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, she writes:

“Totalitarian movements are mass organizations of atomized, isolated individuals. Compared with all other parties and movements, their most conspicuous external characteristic is their demand for total, unrestricted, unconditional, and unalterable loyalty of the individual members. This demand is made by the leaders of totalitarian movements even before they seize power. It usually precedes the total organization of the country under their actual rule and it follows from the claim of their ideologies that their organization will encompass, in due course, the entire human race.”(1)

There is hope. We can stop the future that Obama wants for us, the organized community-based collectivism that will make slaves or homeless people of us all. If we do not stop it we will be plunged into decades of resistance and drudgery that will destroy many lives. As Arendt says:

“Nothing is more characteristic of the totalitarian movements in general and of the quality of fame of their leaders in particular than the starling swiftness with which they are forgotten and the startling ease with which they can be replaced.”(2)

(1) Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich
(2) Ibid

3 comments:

  1. I am suggesting that all Tea Party people read Rules for Radicals.... we are way behind the liberals in what they have done... but we are fighting for freedom... so we will make up time... but we must fight and fight now.

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  2. I agree that we should understand our enemy. But the battle for freedom is over 300 years old and we've got a lot of history on our side too. Read how the Founders did it and you'll see, we are the original radicals that they are copying. We are the original "community organizers." We just need to go back and learn those methods from our Founders. Here are some guidelines:
    1. Recognize that their basic premise is re-distribution. The idea that it is proper for government to confiscate property (through taxation or inflation) from the producer to the non-producer is the basic premise and the basic flaw of the enemy. When our founders established the principle that we had a right to the pursuit of happiness, it is this principle that they disenfranchised and removed from our politics. Attack re-distribution and you are defending the essence of the Constitution.
    2. Re-distribution is another word for every form of dictatorship. Every coercive government does re-distribution. Everything it does is re-distribution. You can call it communism, socialism, fascism, welfare-statism, democracy...they all do it.
    3. The basic Alinsky rule is "Do what you can with what you have and wrap it in moral garments." This principle is their flim flam. It is how they disarm you. All you have to do is call a person selfish and you can disarm him if he/she accepts the premise that it is moral to sacrifice for others. This is the tactic of Obama when he advances his goals of a volunteer army funded by the government, health care, Cap and Trade...it is all wrapped in the moral garment of "sacrifice is good." If you don't strike at the heart of your enemy, you let him live to fight again. In order to defeat them, you have to disagree that sacrifice imposed by government is good.
    4. Incrementalism is also one of their tactics. They will take small victories if it helps them establish the principle of re-distribution and keep it in tact. They will keep pushing the protections in the Constitution until they are gone. If they get push back from you, they'll push in another direction, but they are always trying to undermine the Constitution incrementally. Whenever they lose a battle, they back off, take advantage of whatever gain they have made and then keep fighting on another issue to further undermine the Constition. The only way to stop incrementalism is to roll back all the progressive schemes and totally reject progressives in government...vote them out and don't vote any new progressives back in. If anyone accepts the idea that government should interfere in peoples' lives, they are progressives and the best way to deal with them is to divest them of power.
    5. The principle of sacrifice, "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" must never be accepted. The incrementalism practiced by progressives is intended to get you to agree with the premise though you may disagree on a certain issue. "Don't you agree that it is good to help others?" is their question. Once you agree with this, you have no argument against them.
    6. I've written some excellent articles on fighting the radicals that you can get free of charge by sending me an email from my blog. I've even provided a link so you can email me for it. I do not use your email address for any other reason than to send you the free document.

    Thanks for your comment.

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  3. Here's a couple more points:
    7. The Second Amendment does more than protect gun rights; it countenances a militia made up of every able-bodied man who is able to defend this country against foreign and domestic enemies. The Tea Parties are a form of militia...a militia that defends the constitution against domestic enemies of freedom by standing vigilant against those who would undermine our freedoms. The Tea Party groups are a militia of ideas. Needless to say, they also include women and young people.
    8. At base, the Tea Party struggle has to be a struggle of ideas. We need better ideas in order to win. This means we are open to the best ideas that will defend freedom. We have to read, study, understand and project what the right society should be...this is how we won our freedoms. This is how we will keep them.

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