Now I want you to think about this scenario for more than a second or two:

I’m not going to go through the whole dog and pony show here about how hard you studied in school .. about how you made the right choices and stayed off drugs.  You didn’t get pregnant .. nor did you get anyone pregnant .. and after school you would work rather than hang out.  You did it right .. and now your education is finished and you’ve been out there working for a number of years, and it’s starting to pay off.  You didn’t run out there and buy a home you couldn’t afford.  You were satisfied with a clean used car that didn’t saddle you down with payments and taxes.  You lived frugally, and invested.  Sound investments.  No get-rich quick schemes.  Slow and steady wealth building.  So … after years of playing it right … after years of driving home in the dark while your co-workers stick closely to the 40-hours is enough mantra … you “suddenly” find that you’re doing pretty well!  Pretty nice scenario, isn’t it?  You’re on the road to financial security.  If things keep going well you might actually be on your way to becoming a (gasp) one-percenter!  How disgustingly evil of you!   

So .. you’ve worked hard to set up the good life for you and your family.  Now you’re starting to hear some disturbing things from politicians.  Not just any politician .. but from the man actually occupying the White House.  First, the president suggests that perhaps you’re making too much money.  He’s not all that impressed with your ambition.  He wants you to consider the possibility that at some point you’ve just made enough money.  Perhaps you should stop earning so much.

Now … now that we’re in an election … the president is cranking up the rhetoric.  In addition to talking about how much money you should make, now he’s talking about how much money you “need.”  Not only the president, but his surrogates and other Democrat leaders as well.  They’re pushing, you see, for a tax increase … and you’re the target.  You’ve made enough money; perhaps more than you should have; and now you have more money than you need.  That’s right … need. 

Wow!  All this time you’ve been operating under this idea that you --- or you and your family --- would decide when enough is enough, and you would decide when you can sit back and enjoy the money you’ve earned.  Never did it occur to you that someone else would decide how much money you need.  You know your wants and desires, so that decision should really be up to you!  Certainly you’ve never considered the idea that the government would make that decision for you .. yet here we are!  The President of the United States wants to take even more money from you … and he’s saying that this is just fine because, after all, you have more money than you need!  And how would he know that?  Well, the only possible way that he could know you have more money than you need would be if he, not you, set just what that need might be!

Really?  Is this really the type of country you want to live in?  Do you really want an economic system where the government not only decides how much money you should make, but how much of that money you actually need!  The rest, of course, being fair game for the taxman.

Obama loves this stuff.  For years now he’s been talking about rising taxes on the rich because, of course, that’s where the money is --- and besides, the rich don’t need that money while other people do! 

There’s something vaguely familiar about this rhetoric, isn’t there?   Let me tell you where you’ve heard it before.  No … it’s not from The Communist Manifesto, as many believe.  But it was written Karl Marx in his “Critique of the Gotha Program” in 1875.  Just in case you want to play scholar today, here’s the entire quote:

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

The phrase actually surfaced with French socialists as far back as 1839.

Look … this is important.  We have a president who promised to “fundamentally transform” the United States.  Nobody seemed to be curious as to just how this was going to happen? 

You know --- this is all probably an exercise in futility.  The people who are going to vote for Obama are going to vote for him regardless of whether or not he leans more to Marxism than to Capitalism.  They want their checks .. and that’s it.  Obama has convinced them that these evil rich bastards have money that is rightfully theirs, and since they don’t really need that money – by his measure anyway – he will By-God take if from them and spread it around a bit.