Thursday, August 12, 2010

Rescue and Restore America
  Progressivism piece by J. D. Longstreet

William John Henry Boetcker said the following: “You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. ...

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage by destroying men’s initiative and independence.
And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.”

The question begging to be asked is:  Why the hell are we doing all these things as a nation today?

And, No!  Abraham Lincoln is not the author of “The Ten Cannots.”  The real author was “William John Henry Boetcker (1873 – 1962).  He was an American religious leader and influential public speaker.

According to Wikipedia he was born in Hamburg, Germany, he was ordained a Presbyterian minister soon after his arrival in the United States as a young adult. Rev. Boetcker was raised in Erie, Pennsylvania and ordained in Brooklyn, New York.

He quickly gained attention as an eloquent motivational speaker, and is often regarded today as the forerunner of such contemporary “success coaches” as Anthony Robbins.
An outspoken political conservative, Rev. Boetcker is perhaps best remembered for his authorship of a pamphlet entitled The Ten Cannots. Originally published in 1916, it is often misattributed to Abraham Lincoln. The error apparently stems from a leaflet printed in 1942 by a conservative political organization called the Committee for Constitutional Government. The leaflet bore the title “Lincoln on Limitations” and contained some genuine Lincoln quotations on one side and the “Ten Cannots” on the other, with the attributions switched. The mistake of crediting Lincoln for having been the source of “The Ten Cannots” has been repeated many times since; most notably by Ronald Reagan in a speech he gave at the 1992 Republican convention in Houston.

There are several minor variants of the pamphlet in circulation, but the most commonly accepted version appears” above. (SOURCE)

Everything Rev. Boetcker says in his “Ten Cannots” is true.  And yet—we have a US government not only breaking all these common sense rules, but shattering them.  And their malfeasance is taking a tremendous toll on our nation.

If the democrats are successful in punishing the rich with more and higher taxes, do you really think it is they only who will suffer?  Do you actually believe they will suffer at all?  Of course they won’t.  It is you and I, the ordinary Americans of what used to be called the Middle Class, who will bear the weight of those taxes on the rich.  The rich simply pass them along, or avoid them completely with their batteries of hi-powered tax lawyers who specialize in protecting their clients from such government levies.

Businesses do the same.  They pass those taxes along in the prices of the products they sell to the public. And, when the tax burden becomes too heavy to pass along, they either close up shop, or move off shore where they can continue a profitable business.

Today America’s economy is operating on borrowed money. The country continues to spend money we do not have thus placing a tremendous burden on the generations of American not yet born.  It is THAT bad.

As the aphorisms above say:

“You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.”

“You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.”

Buy, hey, the United States government, under the guidance of Obama and the democrats, is doing it every day. We are in a never-ending cycle of “borrow and spend.”  We continue to dig the hole we are in deeper.  They are going to bring about the total collapse of the US economic system and the political system if they are not soon removed from office.

Above Rev. Boetcker says:  “You cannot build character and courage by destroying men’s initiative and independence.”  But that is exactly what Obama’s socialist agenda is doing to America.
America is on thin ice.  In my nearly seventy years on this earth I have never seen my country in such dire straits.  Arguably, the US is in more danger today than she was during the Second World War or the Cold War.

That is why the Mid-Term Election, this coming November, is so important.  If America is to survive, we must rid ourselves of the menace to our existence.  We cannot do that with democrats running the US Senate and the US House of Representatives.  They must be relieved of the reins of power in the US.  Unfortunately, we are stuck with Obama until 2012.  But – we can stop most of his agenda dead in its tracks if we control both houses of Congress.

Look, there is a fight coming.  So much depends on whether we can rescue our country at the ballot box.  If we cannot, then all bets are off.

I do not want to see my country turn into a “Banana Republic” with a new “revolution” every couple of weeks and small armies, with tin pot generals in charge, roaming the countryside.  But, I must tell you; it is most certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

America has been badly wounded by the socialist agenda of Obama and the Democrats.  We can begin to bind up her wounds and restore her to health November 2nd, 2010.

America was once a “can do” country.  We can be again.  But first—we must “Rescue and Restore America.”  We begin when the polls open on November 2nd.

J. D. Longstreet
http://csadispatch.blogspot.com/

Posted by J. D. Longstreet on 8/12/10

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