Another Time For Choosing

     It's election day, and I am reminded of something that Ronald Regan said in his now famous speech for Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential campaign entitled, "A Time For Choosing." Towards the end of the speech he said, "We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness."  Those words, uttered almost 50 years ago, couldn't be more apropos to the next 24 hours. For those who think that I am being overly dramatic or exaggerating for political effect, consider how far down that road to a thousand years of darkness we have traveled in the last four years.
     Four years ago, or fifty years ago, we as Americans would have never thought it possible that our government would have a 32% ownership in General Motors, or any other company for that matter. And furthermore, that the Executive branch of our government would void legitimate ownership of that company's debt, i.e. the bondholders, and give that equity to the President's political supporters in the unions. We would have never thought that our President would close GM car dealerships, not because they weren't profitable, but because they were owned by Republicans.
     Four years ago or fifty years ago, we as Americans would have never thought our government would destroy the financial industry with a law that had written into it special provisions for a dozen of the biggest financial institutions. This law, known as Dodd/Frank, has decimated small community banks and credit unions because they can't afford the millions of dollars required to be compliant. Hundreds of these smaller institutions have been closed in the last four years, simply because they can't afford the price of government intrusion into their business .
     Four years ago or fifty years ago, we as Americans would have never thought our President, the first black man to be voted into that office, would divide us even more along racial lines. By attacking as racists those who disagree with him on the right policies for this country, he slashed open this nation's wound of racial disharmony that was well on its way to healing forever. But he didn't stop at race, he divided us along lines of wealth and poverty, male and female, gay and straight, young and old, religious and non-religious and in hundred more ways to voluminous to list here. We never would have thought that our President would actively pursue a policy of divisiveness to further his own political agenda.
     Four years ago or fifty years ago, we as Americans would have never thought our government would, using bribes and threats to Congress and with members from only one party behind closed doors, craft and pass a law that allows the Federal government to confiscate one sixth of the U.S. economy that is comprised of the health care industry. Furthermore, we would have never thought that under that same law, and upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States, that the Federal government would be given such authority over the lives of the governed as to allow it to compel individuals to purchase a product in the form of health care insurance.

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     Four years ago or fifty years ago, we as Americans would have never thought our government, under control of a radical President, would deliberately implement policies that would slow growth for the purpose of increasing dependence on government programs. That these policies would decrease middle-class wealth by 40% and middle-class incomes by $4500 a year. And furthermore, that our government would engage in such fiscally irresponsible behavior as to add more national debt than any other administration in the history of our great country. This debt threatens to crush us and make us weaker at home and around the world.
     Four years ago or fifty years ago, we as Americans would have never thought that our President,  in a candid moment he didn't know was being recorded, would speak words of appeasement to the Russian President, saying he would have more flexibility to reduce U.S. nuclear strength after he was re-elected. We would have never thought that any President, Republican or Democrat, would show such weakness abroad as to not defend U.S. sovereignty or American lives, and would actually sit and watch while an ambassador and three other Americans were brutally murdered.
     Yes, I think we have indeed made great strides down that road to a thousand years of darkness. And the further down that road we travel, the more the entire world will be plunged into that darkness. America is the last best hope of man on earth. Today we can give rise to that hope by changing the course we are on and by replacing our President with one who believes in the American hope and will lead us back to the road of light and prosperity.