Rep. Allen West: My Kind of Politician
West is a liberal’s worst nightmare. He’s an unapologetic non-liberal, and he’s black. This is not supposed to happen. If his career gets somewhere, get ready to see attacks and hatred like you’ve rarely seen.
by Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D.
Rep. Allen West of Florida is my kind of politician.
Recently, he ran into some hot water for suggesting that his Democratic colleagues in the House of Representatives are “Communists.”
The reason I say he’s my kind of politician is that he refused to back down.
ABC News online reported the following:
“No, I don’t regret [my comments] whatsoever,” West told reporters at a news conference. “I’m not going to back down. I’m not going to be afraid about the fact that I called a spade a spade.”
“At the turn of the century American communists renamed themselves progressives,” West explained. “There’s a very thin line between communism, progressivism, Marxism, socialism or even as Mark Levin has said statism.”
He cited Democrats’ support for the TARP bank bailout, the auto-industry bailout, Obama’s health care law and mandated contraception coverage under private insurance plans as evidence of trying [to] “expand the welfare state” in a Communist way.
I know it’s considered emotional and inflammatory to label someone a Communist. But people have to be held accountable, intellectually speaking, for their ideas. A liberal Democrat, by definition, is an advocate of an interventionist government. A liberal, in the original sense of the term, was someone who favored laissez-faire, limited government and a “hands off” approach to the economy. Those days are long gone.
Communism refers to a form of collectivism. Liberals and Democrats are, in the fundamentals of their thinking, collectivists.
Unlike most Republicans (who stand for little or nothing), Democrats actually stand for something. They stand for the idea that we are all our brothers’ keepers, and that the most important function of government is to make sure that this philosophy of ethics is enforced as the law of the land.
If a religious person wants to make you go to church, he cannot use the force of law to make you do so. A Christian cannot force you to practice Christian beliefs, and a Moslem cannot make you be a Moslem. This is how it should be. Yet when a secularist liberal wants you to practice his philosophy of being your brother’s keeper, he makes sure the IRS, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the President and your local legislators (not to mention the police) are all there to force you to practice that belief.
That’s why we have Social Security. That’s why we have Medicare. These programs may have been sold as “investment accounts” for old age, but they are not (and never were intended to be) any such thing. In a thriving, free market economy, there would be plenty of opportunity to save and invest for your old age. The premise of Social Security and Medicare is to ensure that everyone is responsible for everyone else’s old age. Unlike a private account, where you determine the amount of your investment and you reap the savings, with interest, at a later time, you’re required to pay into the collective pot and make sure that everyone else gets a share of what you “invested” if (for any reason) they have less than you.
This is the definition of collectivism.
Obama is taking us beyond Social Security and Medicare. He’s dramatically expanding Medicaid, initially a health insurance program for the marginally poor, into the medical coverage of first and last resort for everyone. That’s the whole point of ObamaCare. ObamaCare is a mandate. It’s not optional. It takes the position that we are all responsible for everyone else’s medical care and health insurance. It eagerly uses the full force of the federal government to enforce it.
Obama has transferred trillions of dollars into major American industries so that government can now call all or most of the shots in those industries. Everyone who pays income taxes (the upper 50 percent of income earners in the population) is forced to make sure that the products and services provided for by once private industries are now distributed to everyone.
This is also the definition of collectivism. Those who have more are forced to finance and support those who have less. We’re already doing that, and the imbeciles in Occupy Wall Street scream that it’s still not enough. It’s never enough.
“Communism” is an out-of-fashion, but still intensely accurate label applied to one manifestation of collectivism. “Obamaism” is another name. It’s all the same thing, and all comes from the same principle.
A spade is a spade, and the policies of Democrats in Congress and Obama in the White House are unblinkingly collectivist, even “communist.” Allen West has the courage and intellectual honesty to say so. For this, I applaud him. I realize that he’s wrong about some things, but I know he’s right about this. It’s so rare for anyone in politics these days to speak honestly and accurately about anything, that I wish I had the opportunity to cast a vote for him.
An associate of mine (with whom I’ll no longer be associating) recently suggested that I must be a racist to oppose Obama, our first (half) black President. He claimed that Obama’s policies are so right, that there could be no other reason to oppose him, outside of racism, homophobia and the like.
If I’m a racist for opposing Obama, what does that make me for being so fond, politically speaking, of Allen West?
West is a liberal’s worst nightmare. He’s an unapologetic non-liberal, and he’s black. This is not supposed to happen. If his career gets somewhere, get ready to see attacks and hatred like you’ve rarely seen.
Dr. Hurd has a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Psychology, Saybrook Institute, San Francisco, CA, November 1991. Degree awarded With Distinction. Master’s of Social Work (M.S.W.), Clinical, The University of Maryland at Baltimore, May 1988. Bachelor’s of Arts (B.A.), Psychology, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, May 1985. Distinguished Psychology Student Award, Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude. Dr. Hurd blogs at DrHurd.com
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