Capitalism: A Great Weapon against the Wuhan Virus

As the Wuhan virus wreaks havoc across the world and here in the U.S., Americans would do well to remember one of the biggest reasons why we will most likely weather this storm better than any other nation. After our faith in the One who made us and in His great wisdom, mercy and love, perhaps the greatest weapon in the world against the Wuhan virus is American capitalism.

Whether or not you agree that the concern—or panic—over the Wuhan virus is real or manufactured, there is little doubt that we are in unprecedented times. In my 50 years of life, I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve seen our nation scared over health concerns, national security concerns, and the like, but never to the point of shutting down churches, schools, entertainment, businesses, and so on, on the scale that we are now witnessing.

There’s no doubt that such a shut-down will drastically impact our lives and our economy. In fact, as dire as the health consequences from the Wuhan virus might be, the economic consequences of this pandemic could be even worse. However, we will make it through this—even the vast majority who contract the virus will recover—and hopefully most of us will be no worse for the wear. If this is indeed the case, Americans will owe a great deal to American capitalism and the businesses and corporations that our economic system created.

Last week, while announcing a national emergency over the Wuhan virus, President Trump surrounded himself with the leaders of several U.S. corporations including Walmart, Target, and CVS. Part of the Trump administration’s goal in enlisting pharmacies and retailers is to provide Wuhan virus testing in “critical locations,” as determined by healthcare professionals.

Also, prior to announcing the national emergency, as reported by CNBC,

Trump hosted executives from Gilead Sciences, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Moderna, GlaxcoSmithKline, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi to discuss efforts to create a vaccine and therapeutics.

“Today, we are meeting with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies — the biggest in the world, most prestigious, the ones that get down to the bottom line very quickly,” Trump declared at the meeting’s onset.

In addition, prior to announcing the national emergency, in order to “help beat back falsehoods and use artificial intelligence to glean new insights into the fast-spreading virus,” the Trump administration met with technology giants Amazon, Apple, Cisco, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Twitter, and the like. Fox Business reported that after meeting with “big tech,” the same day the Trump administration also met with big banks in order to “discuss not only combating coronavirus but likely also the extreme market swings that have dominated the past few weeks.”

Deborah Birx, Trump’s Wuhan virus coordinator, recently declared:

Seeing the spread of the virus around the globe, the president realized that our current approach to testing was inadequate to meet the needs of the American public. He asked for an entire overhaul of the testing approach. He immediately called the private sector laboratories to the White House, as noted, and charged them with developing a high-throughput quality platform that can meet the needs of the American public.

As vast numbers of Americans are now having to spend most of their time at home, online shopping and home deliveries of various products have skyrocketed. So much so that Amazon recently announced significant pay raises for hourly workers along with plans to hire 100,000 new workers. Thanks to the efforts of companies like Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, Instacart, DoorDash, Netflix, Hulu, Home Depot, Best Buy, Macy’s, and so on, Americans can get everything from groceries to medicine, clothing, furniture, electronics, entertainment, ready-to-eat meals, and the like, delivered right to their front doors.

All of this is possible because of the vast internet network created and run by thousands of U.S. internet providers. America has more internet providers—about 7,000—than the rest of the world combined (approximately 5,000). What’s more, this network—along with large numbers of Americans owning or having access to a computer—has made it much easier to do home school.

Whether at the K-12 or college/university level, the numbers of Americans doing school from home continues to grow. Of course, with most traditional American schools now temporarily shut down, millions more American students are now getting to experience home school. This is only possible because of what U.S. technology companies have built and the services they provide.

As I note in The Miracle and Magnificence of America, technology companies are now the world’s most valuable corporations. The world’s top five most valuable technology companies—Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), and Facebook—are all American companies. Additionally, eight of the world’s top ten most valuable brands are American. Many of these have been and will continue to be very valuable in our fight against the Wuhan virus.

Many companies are smartly and quickly adjusting their products and services in order to better serve homebound Americans. Along with the technology that allows millions of Americans to work, shop, or do school from home, the food industry is stepping up as well. Restaurants are offering expanded, as well as better, take-out opportunities along with home meal deliveries. In order to help independently owned restaurants, Uber Eats is waiving delivery fees for such businesses. Moe’s, KFC, Chipotle, and others are offering some version of free delivery during this crisis.

Since our founding, millions of Americans have done foolish and awful things with their God-given freedoms. However, the liberty enjoyed in America has also produced the most prosperous and generous nation in the history of humanity. Millions of Americans have been lifted out of poverty and now enjoy a standard of living that is the envy of the world. This is because, the founders of America knew well that, since the creation of the world, the “natural” state of mankind has been “clearly seen.” As Scripture reveals at the Garden of Eden, Natural Law begat liberty. In other words, our natural state is to be free. We were created that way. With God’s laws as the foundation for our government, with God’s law written on the hearts of so many Americans, and with a thirst for liberty, a free-market capitalistic society was simply the logical and right direction for the United States of America.

It was wise for President Trump to enlist the resources, knowledge, and might of American corporations and businesses in our battle against the Wuhan virus. I hope he continues to rely on America’s free markets in this fight. In times like these, we should be especially thankful for all that American capitalism has made possible. 

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2020, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Welcome to Homeschooling, America!

Here in Georgia, the mass hysteria about the coronavirus has caused the governor to declare a “public health state of emergency.” He has advised public schools and daycare centers to close for two weeks in order to curb the opportunities for the virus to spread. It’s unclear which is causing more panic in the hearts of Georgia citizens—the coronavirus, the toilet paper shortage, or the fact that parents will have to be home with their children nonstop for two weeks straight. Many other states are also closing schools, so millions of our nation’s families are suddenly experiencing a little of what it’s like to homeschool.

My husband and I have been homeschooling since our first child was born. That child is now a senior in high school and will graduate in May. Thanks to Georgia’s “dual enrollment” program (which, unfortunately, has just been drastically slashed by the legislature), he will graduate with an associate’s degree in computer networking, along with completing his k-12 homeschool program. Our second child will follow suit next May, graduating with an associate’s degree also. Our younger two kids will start high school and middle school in the fall, so we trust that they will have similar success in their high school years.

One of the great benefits of living debt free–as we detail in our book, Debt-Free Living in a Debt-Filled World—has been the opportunity to homeschool our children. My last day of full-time, outside-the-home employment was the day before our first baby was born. I worked part time from home off and on for several years after we started having kids, but I’ve brought in almost no income for nearly a decade now.

The only reason we can live on a teacher’s salary and still afford to have me home full time to educate our three teenagers and one pre-teen at this point is because, before we even had children, we started living on only my husband’s salary. We made sacrifices to build our home debt free and we live beneath our means, buying only used cars, couponing, shopping for sales, saving up for large purchases, and so on.

And for anyone who thinks that babies and toddlers are expensive, please brace yourselves and begin saving as early as possible, because it has been a shock to the system to experience how expensive it is to raise teenagers! When our youngest turns 13 next year, we will have four teenagers in our home. As homeschoolers, we must foot the bill for curriculum, extracurricular activities, music lessons, instruments, all meals (and teenagers eat a lot), transportation, computers, and so on. There’s no such thing as “free” anything in the homeschooling world, with the exception of taxpayer-funded dual enrollment college classes here in Georgia.

The blessings of homeschooling, however, far outweigh the sacrifices and financial costs involved. One of the biggest blessings of being a homeschooling family is that our children are growing up to be close friends. Unlike siblings who spend most waking hours away from each other in public school classrooms filled with their peers, there are immeasurable benefits to spending concentrated time truly learning to live with people of different ages and with varying personalities and abilities. This presents a myriad of opportunities to learn how to work out conflicts, celebrate victories with each other, and grow in their faith together.

Another blessing of homeschooling is being able to help guide the kids’ character development because a parent is with them at all hours of the day and night and can see everything that needs to be addressed. It might be possible to mask certain issues such as dishonesty or pride or greed or slothfulness or lack of self-control when kids are away from home most of their waking hours each weekday. Being together for concentrated times allows parents to see more and address problems as they inevitably arise.

A third benefit of homeschooling is the wonderful flexibility that it affords. We can go to music lessons in the mornings, karate at noon, or orthodontist appointments right after lunch, and get our academic work done around our activities. Our oldest son started working at his first real job a few weeks ago, so he works three full days each week and does his school work during the remaining days. The possibilities are literally endless.

So while many people might be dreading the next few weeks, I want to encourage parents to look for the blessings that are available in this opportunity. Enjoy slowing down and spending quality time with your families. So many of us are on the go constantly with various activities and events. It is likely to be a relief not to have to rush around so much for a while. Let’s savor these days of being together. Let’s play board games, watch movies together, cook fun foods, and read good books to our kids. This forced respite from the busyness of life just might turn out to include some of the best memories your children will recall later in life.

I hope that many families who are thrown into the atmosphere of homeschooling during the next few weeks will recognize the myriad of blessings that come with this territory. Our children are in our homes and in our care for such a brief time, in the grand scheme of things. Let’s savor every moment and give them the very best of us, pouring love and attention and wisdom and encouragement into their lives. This coronavirus scare could very well be a sweet blessing in disguise for many American families.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Michelle Thomas is a Christ follower, wife to Trevor Thomas, and homeschooling mom of four. Her books include Lord, I Need You, Through Deep Waters, and Debt-Free Living in a Debt-Filled World. Her website is KingdomCrossing.com, and her email is michelle@kingdomcrossing.com.

Don’t Look for “Moderates” in a Mob

With the recent and sudden surge of Joe Biden in the democrat’s presidential primary, the liberal mob that runs the modern Democrat Party want Americans to believe that they have shunned extremism, and now have a palatable “moderate” on the verge of leading their party into the November elections. Don’t be fooled. With his recent “nasty” display in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, Senator Chuck Schumer—the democrat’s Senate Minority Leader—again reminded us that there are few, if any, “moderates” left in today’s Democrat Party.

Senator Schumer’s direct threat to Supreme Court Justices aside, the fact that the democrats are almost completely bereft of moderates should have been clear long ago. Recall, almost exactly a year ago, 44 Senate democrats—including Schumer and all six Senate democrats who were vying to become President of the United States—voted against the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. In other words, these so-called “moderates” voted to protect what could only be described as infanticide.

Again, no one should’ve been surprised by this. For decades the “party of death” has dehumanized the unborn and argued against protecting the most innocent and helpless among us, even when they escaped death in their mother’s womb. In order to further their wicked sexual agenda, democrats at the highest levels have taken some of the most radically gruesome views of life in the womb. Thus, it should also come as little surprise that those who would take such views have resorted to mob tactics in order to further their evil objectives.

As I have noted on multiple occasions, nearly two decades ago, no less than Barack Obama, himself, took a position on children who survived abortion that can only be described as infanticide. Obama, while a member of the Illinois state Senate, opposed multiple versions of an Illinois bill that mirrored the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA).

In 2001, the Illinois legislature took up a bill that was patterned after the federal BAIPA. Obama voted against this bill in committee. On the floor of the Illinois Senate, he later gave the only speech against the bill, saying, “I mean, it—it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an antiabortion statute.” Because, of course, we need the “equal protection clause” to tell us that we shouldn’t kill our children.

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton twice vetoed a bill banning the gruesome—and unnecessary—practice known as partial-birth abortion. It took the election of George W. Bush to turn such a bill into law. After the ban on partial-birth abortion was narrowly upheld (5-4) by the U.S. Supreme Court, then Senator Obama denounced this SCOTUS decision. In 2008, Presidential candidate Obama promised to sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA).

As Rich Lowry pointed out in 2012,

[FOCA] would enshrine in federal law a right to abortion more far-reaching than in Roe v. Wade and eliminate basically all federal and state-level restrictions on abortion. This isn’t a point its supporters contest; it’s one they brag about. The National Organization for Women says it would “sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies.”

With such wicked thinking long dominating today’s Democrat Party, why is anyone surprised that a politician devoted to protecting the “right” to kill the most innocent and helpless among us—the unborn—would go so far as to threaten Justices who are seen as a threat to this so-called “right?” When Schumer threatened Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, he knew his audience. He was simply employing the oft-used language of angry pro-abortionists.

Likewise, it should also come as no surprise that Senator Schumer would use the language frequently employed by truth-hating liberals on college and university campuses throughout the U.S. Encouraged and led on by the “educated” liberal elites—who are nothing if not cheerleaders and propagandists for today’s Democrat Party—for years now, all across American campuses, millions of young self-worshipping ignorant fools have been perfecting their mob tactics.

Today, campus conservative speakers—especially Christian conservatives—often face harassment, threats—like those Schumer hurled at Gorsuch and Kavanaugh—and sometimes actual violence. Schumer’s recent actions almost certainly guarantee that such mob tactics will continue.

Whether these campus cronies, Black Lives Matters, angry vegans, Antifa fascists, pro-abortion radicals, intolerant LGBT bullies (who are now so nasty that they’re driving out their own), greedy socialists, and the like, such thugs are rampant within today’s Democrat Party. Thus—whether Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Maxine Waters, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and so on—the leaders of these thugs are often prone to using thuggish and mob-like language and tactics.

Joe Biden as the democrat’s presidential nominee is not going to change this. In other words, Joe Biden is no “moderate.” As Chris Stigall at Townhall recently noted,

Biden wants huge tax hikes, open borders, limitless abortion, and trillions in spending on a man-made climate change hoax that proudly destroys good-paying energy jobs.

Oh, and he wants to put Beto O’Rourke in charge of gun control. Yes, the same Beto O’Rourke who said the government simply “wouldn’t allow” certain legal firearms any longer. “Yes, we’re going to take your guns,” he said proudly in a 2019 debate.

Jonathon Mosely, who once helped run a campaign against Biden, has spent hundreds of hours chronicling Biden’s radical liberalism. Last year, Mr. Mosely published a list revealing Biden’s liberal credentials. Some of his lowlights:

• Biden was then the third most liberal U.S. senator, according to The National Journal, based on Biden’s 2006 voting record. Biden's U.S. Senate votes were rated more liberal than Ted Kennedy's.
• Biden earned an “F” (11%) from the National Taxpayers Union for his Senate votes in 2006, as a “Big Spender.”
• Biden voted to provide social benefits to illegal aliens in May 2006.
• Biden supported a path to citizenship for illegal aliens.
• Biden received an “F” from the National Rifle Association.
• Biden received a rating of 16% by the Christian Coalition for his anti-family voting record.
• Biden voted to allow gun-manufacturers to be sued by trial lawyers.
• Biden was given a 32% approval rating from the United States Chamber of Commerce, indicating an anti-business voting record.
• Biden voted against parental notification before underage girls have abortions (which could be covering up statutory rape by older men).
• Biden was the most pro-abortion senator in the U.S. Senate, not only for his beliefs, but because of his relentless manipulation of the confirmation process for judges, to frustrate the will of the American people, and his distortion of the legal system to promote abortion.
• Biden led the left-wing political lynching of Robert Bork in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
• Biden received a 0% rating from the National Right to Life Committee for his votes during the 107th Congress.

What’s more, like Bernie Sanders, Biden has embraced the socialist fantasy that is the “Green New Deal.” He’s recently said that he would be willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of American jobs in the fossil fuel industry in order to “transition to a green economy.” However, as Kevin Williamson recently put it, Biden’s no socialist, just “a scoundrel,”—or, if you prefer, “a vicious partisan, a coward, and a habitual liar.” Put another way, Biden is right at home in the mob that is the modern Democrat Party.

None of these fools deserve to be in political power, especially not as the President of the United States. 

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2020, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Why Doug Collins Needs to Win the Georgia Senate Race

As is well known, Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson resigned in December due to health issues. He never should have run for reelection in 2016, but that's another matter. He had three years left in his term, and Governor Brian Kemp solicited applications from Georgians to fill his seat for 2020. Kemp received over 500 applications, one of which was from Representative Doug Collins, of my congressional district—the Georgia 9th. Collins was President Trump’s choice to replace Isakson. The president reportedly asked Governor Kemp on several occasions to appoint Collins to the senate, but Kemp bucked the president and chose political outsider and multimillionaire businesswoman, Kelly Loeffler, co-owner of the WNBA team, the Atlanta Dream.

Loeffler will serve as senator during 2020, and then there will be a special election this November in which the voters will choose who will serve the last two years of Isakson’s term. Georgia has a strange way of electing replacements to Congress when there’s an opening mid-term. All of the qualifying candidates will be on the ballot in November—democrats, republicans, and independents—a “jungle” election. If no one receives a majority of the votes, the top two will face a runoff in December to decide the winner. Some of our state legislators attempted to pass legislation to enact a spring primary and avoid the “jungle” vote so that the parties could unite behind their one candidate, but Governor Kemp threatened to veto the measure. The change would likely have favored Collins instead of Kemp’s pick, Loeffler. As of today, there are five declared republicans in the race (Collins and Loeffler are the most notable) five democrats, and one independent.

I don’t always agree with Doug Collins’s voting record, and in fact, I helped to manage my uncle’s congressional campaign when he ran against Doug in the GOP primary in 2012 and 2016. However, one thing that I love about Doug is that he has been an absolute bulldog when it comes to supporting and defending President Trump during the impeachment nonsense. He seems to have Trump’s back wholeheartedly, and that goes a very long way in my book. Doug has an established record of protecting the unborn, defending our 2nd Amendment rights, and exposing the corruption that plagues those who are opposed to the truth. He is a proven commodity, he is honorable, and I believe we can trust him to stand on conservative principles as long as he serves in Congress.

From a peek into her past, it appears that Loeffler is no reliable conservative. She uses the correct talking points now, but what I’ve been reading lately from some trusted friends who know the politics of Georgia quite well is that she’s a “globalist,” along the lines of the George Bushes and Mitt Romney, or worse.

Reportedly, Governor Kemp’s motivation in appointing Loeffler was two-fold: 1. She can pour millions of her own dollars into her re-election campaign, and 2. He hopes she will attract women voters who have supposedly left the party and ensure that republicans keep the seat in November. Those seem like pretty shallow reasons to me. As a woman, I don’t trust Kelly Loeffler to be the true conservative that she needs to be, once the pressure is off and she is sitting comfortably in her senate seat.

I couldn’t care less whether my senator is male or female, so her gender holds no sway for me. What matters is whether he or she is principled, trustworthy, and has a proven history of supporting conservative values. I simply don’t see that in Loeffler, who cozies up to the likes of Democrat Stacey Abrams, donates thousands of dollars to democrats like Senators Chris Dodd, Debbie Stabenow, Tom Harkin, and so forth, organizes her team against Georgia’s religious freedom legislation, and supports Planned Parenthood with revenue from her team’s ticket sales. The WNBA is a terribly liberal organization, so it begs the question why and how someone with strong morals and conservative principles would co-own one of the teams. Loeffler simply doesn’t pass the smell test, in my humble view.

According to a statement from Concerned Women for America in late November, shortly before Governor Kemp announced that Loeffler would assume Isakson’s senate seat:

Governor Kemp needs to know Kelly Loeffler would be the wrong choice for conservatives in Georgia and supporters of President Trump on several fronts. She sits on the board of a hospital in Atlanta that employs five abortionists and actually runs the largest training program for abortionists in Georgia. She is also part owner of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream franchise. The WNBA has been an outspoken supporter of Planned Parenthood, even partnering with the pro-abortion organization in opposing President Trump’s pro-life policies. Likewise the WNBA has remained disturbingly silent about China’s persecution of the citizens of Hong Kong, even after an NBA general manager courageously spoke out about it. Ms. Loeffler also sits on the board of a psychiatric treatment facility that provides transgender affirming counsel to minors. Likewise she has given thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to liberal and pro-abortion candidates. There are better choices for Gov. Kemp when it comes to the next U.S. Senator from Georgia. Gov. Kemp has a list of fantastic pro-life candidates. We hope he doesn’t pick the one the pro-life community will have to oppose.

We can’t take chances with something as important as a U.S. Senate seat, and we certainly don’t need any more Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski-types there. This position is too important to the future of our nation. We need someone to represent Georgia who has proven that he or she will stand for life, biblical marriage, the family, the 2nd Amendment, border security, national sovereignty, religious liberty, and so on. Governor Brian Kemp disappointed much of his conservative base when he went against President Trump’s wishes and chose Kelly Loeffler for U.S. Senate, and we voters need to send a strong message in November that we won’t stand for playing patty cake with our senate seats.

What we absolutely need to avoid in November is splitting the republican base and ending up with a democrat senator from Georgia. Since this is a jungle vote and there is no primary to allow us to choose one candidate, conservatives need to unite behind the only reliable candidate in the race. Not only does Doug Collins need to win, but he needs a landslide of republican support. There needs to be a clear mandate from the conservative base that we want a proven, principled conservative. Doug Collins needs to defeat Kelly Loeffler so we can keep Georgia solidly, reliably red and maintain the republican majority in the U.S. Senate.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Michelle Thomas is a Christ follower, wife to Trevor Thomas, and homeschooling mom of four. Her books include Lord, I Need You, Through Deep Waters, and Debt-Free Living in a Debt-Filled World. Her website is KingdomCrossing.com, and her email is michelle@kingdomcrossing.com.

The Democrats Deserve Bernie

If nothing else is learned during the 2020 election season, this one lesson must be taught, shared, and passed down through the ages: the Democrat Party of 2020 absolutely deserves Bernie Sanders. Of course, many Democrats will deny this, because they well know that Crazy Bernie is a presidential electoral disaster just waiting to happen. Every caucus and primary he wins or finishes strongly in puts the democrats closer to that well-deserved reality.

Despite their recent efforts—Mike Bloomberg entering the race, Hillary declaring Sanders a “career politician” that “nobody likes,” James Carville complaining that Sanders wants criminals and terrorists to vote from jail cells, Chris Matthews lecturing the American left on the perils of socialism—Bernie keeps polling well and winning races. Much to the chagrin of Democrats, whether he wins or loses a particular primary, Bernie is going nowhere soon.

Frank Bruni of The New York Times agrees. He recently warned his fellow liberals, “Sanders will be a major force in the Democratic race until the end. He’s perhaps the only candidate about whom that can definitively be said.” Nevertheless, Bruni and his ilk keep hoping that somewhere “there’s a moderate around whom [Democrat] voters can coalesce.”

Of course, as has long been clear to anyone with a proper worldview, there are no more “moderate” Democrats running for president. In fact, there are few “moderates” to be found anywhere in today’s Democrat Party. This should surprise no one. Having a bunch of leftist radicals duke it out for your party’s presidential nomination is what happens when, among many other lies, you spend decades telling the electorate that they have a “right” to virtually everything under the sun, and the government’s main job is to provide you with such things.

In spite of the warnings of men like C.S. Lewis, tens of millions of Americans are now, or are longing to be, Willing Slaves of the Welfare State. The platform of today’s Democrat Party rests upon two duplicitous notions: 1.) the godless pagan principle of “Do What Thou Wilt,” and 2.) the presence of an “omnicompetent” Big Government that is ready and willing to mother us.

Despite the claims of modern Democrats, such a modern State exists, as Lewis put it, “not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good—anyway, to do something to us or to make us something.” Something indeed. Lewis concludes that under such a regime, “There is nothing left of which we can say to them, ‘Mind your own business.’ Our whole lives are their business.”

Even without a socialist in the White House, Democrats—and other like-minded politicians (remember: Bernie’s not a Democrat)—have been practicing their trade long enough to build a massive Big Government beast. Under the guise of “vote for me and I’ll make sure you get [insert campaign promise],” generations of Americans have been seduced into surrendering their “business” to this Big Government.

In the United States, by far the largest employer is government. Local, state, and federal government (including uniformed military personnel) employs well over 23 million Americans. This is more than twice the number of employees of the top 25 private employers in the U.S. combined.

The largest educator in the U.S. is government. About 90% of all U.S. children attend a k-12 godless government school. Over 70% of American students who attend college do so at a state school. Education accounts for nearly half (about 11 million) of the total federal, state, and local government workforce.

The largest “charity” in the U.S. is government (which, of course, brags about it!). Americans gave a total of approximately $427 billion (about $292 billion from individuals) to private charities in 2018. In 2016, Americans received over $800 billion from means-tested (recipients required to be below a certain income level) government programs (housing, food stamps, WIC, Medicaid, and the like). When non means-tested programs (Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, and so on) are included, the total is a shocking and staggering $2.3 trillion dollars.

And of course, Americans now have made health care the business of Big Government. Thus, instead of liberating, liberalism has simply made tens of millions of Americans comfortable in, or at least comfortably accustomed to, their government-made chains.

A man cannot be free unless he has economic independence. As C.S. Lewis put it,

For economic independence allows an education not controlled by Government; and in adult life it is the man who needs, and asks, nothing of Government who can criticise its acts and snap his fingers at its ideology. Read Montaigne; that’s the voice of a man with his legs under his own table, eating the mutton and turnips raised on his own land. Who will talk like that when the State is everyone’s schoolmaster and employer?

Bernie Sanders’ policies would do nothing to promote economic independence, and would massively grow Big Government. Among other grossly expensive ideas, Bernie wants to enact the Green New Deal (GND), make college “free” for all, while also canceling all student loan debt—all $1.6 trillion of it, and of course, his signature campaign promise, provide “free” healthcare for all.

None of this is new. Bernie has been promising “free” stuff his whole political career—which, as Hillary pointed out, is the only career he’s ever had! For example, as the far-left climate website Grist points out, Bernie isn’t just another “Green New Deal bandwagoner,” he’s “the Godfather of the Green New Deal.”

As John Zmirak correctly noted last year, the GND—a $16 trillion dollar behemoth—is not public policy, but rather “a delusional wish list, a ransom note pasted together with clipped out words from storybooks and glued in place with bubblegum.” Yet, almost exactly a year ago, the “anti-socialist” Chris Matthews spent a large portion of his MSNBC show Hardball defending the GND.

As NewsBusters pointed out,

Matthews spun the Green New Deal as something no one could possibly object to, ignoring things such as every building in the U.S. needed to be modified or replaced if it’s not up to snuff, while cars and meat would be banned.

MSNBC hosted a town hall in order to make “the case for the Green New Deal.” If the GND isn’t socialism, then Elizabeth Warren is a Cherokee Indian.

Along with Sanders and Warren “moderates” Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg have “embraced” the GND. Virtually every Democrat who is running or was running for president supported the GND. What’s more, this socialist absurdity has 12 cosponsors in the Senate and 90 cosponsors in the House. But suddenly, Democrat pundits are worried that the “Godfather” of this foolish monstrosity is on the verge of leading their party!

Likewise, Bernie has long touted single-payer healthcare—essentially “Medicare for all”—and, until it looked like he might actually become the Democrat nominee, almost no one in the left-wing media stood up to him. On the contrary, many media leftists—such as Rachel Maddow—agree with Bernie on Medicare for all. When Warren finally joined Bernie in the “Medicare for all” parade, Maddow and Matthews’ network, MSNBC, sang her praises.

According to Vox the reason Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez upset 10-term House Democrat Joe Crowley in New York’s 14th District was because she “championed Medicare-for-all (in addition to free college tuition and a jobs guarantee, among other progressive policies).” To no one’s surprise, AOC was one of Bernie’s earliest endorsers and is one of Bernie’s strongest supporters. To a large extent, Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie, and other radical leftists are now the face of the Democrat Party.

Media leftists, along with like-minded elites in the Democrat Party, have no one to blame but themselves for this. Their decades-long march to the political left—almost always in opposition to the truth—along with preaching a mountain of so-called “rights” in order to bribe Americans into voting for democrats, has also forced us to debate what is marriage, infanticide, how many genders exist, and who is a male and who is a female. Thus, such leftists should not be surprised that the electorate they’ve so “educated” prefers a legitimate socialist as their presidential nominee. 

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2020, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com