Think about this: most of the countries of Europe have had organized governments for more than 500 years, and have been “civilized” for a couple of thousand; China and Japan have been “civilized” and had governments for thousands of years. 500 years ago North America was occupied by widely scattered tribes whose civilizations were light years behind those of Europe and Asia. 230 years ago a small strip of colonies along the East coast of North America came into existence with a unique form of government and economics.

In the absurdly short span of 230 years, the USA has come to dominate the world like no civilization in the history of the planet. Gross Domestic Product (GDP, the value of all goods and services produced), of the US in 2007 was $13.8 trillion which is 25% of the WORLD GDP, according to World Bank figures. It is bigger than the COMBINED 15 countries of the “Eurozone”. The 2^nd largest country is Japan and it’s GDP is $4.3 trillion, less than 1/3 of the US’s. Have you heard the stories about how China and India are catching us? China is in 4^th place at $3.2 trillion, 23% of ours with a population of 4 times ours; India in 12^th place at $1.1 trillion, less than 8% of ours, also with a population triple ours.

We have 4.5% of the world’s population and have 6% of the land area of the world. But our economy is 25% of the world’s.

The “poor” people of the US are infinitely better off than the middle classes of the vast majority of the world. The average “poor” family in the US owns a home, 2 cars, a microwave, color TVs (and subscribes to cable or satellite) and a cell phone. The average “poor” family in the rest of the world is starving and lives in a mud hut with no electricity or indoor plumbing.

How did this happen? The basic reasons are individual liberty and capitalism. When an individual is empowered to keep the fruits of his own labor, he works hard, innovates, invents, discovers and develops. When he is required to give a large percentage of his earnings, from whatever source, to the government to redistribute to those who don’t do those things, he loses his incentive. 

Now, we are looking at the very real possibility that we will elect a very real socialist as President and give him a compliant Congress.

The true problem with Obama’s previous associations is their political outlook. In his youth in Hawaii, according to his own book, his “mentor” was “Frank”, now identified as Frank Marshall Davis, a card-carrying communist. Rev. Wright and Father Pfleger are unabashed socialists. The “unrepentant terrorist”, Bill Ayers, and his equally unrepentant terrorist wife, Bernadine Dohrn, want to remake the US as a socialist country and make no apologies for that. Michelle Obama has made no secret of the fact that she doesn’t like the US as it is, and even Barack, in an answer to a 7-year-old’s question about why he was running, said it was because he wanted to re-make the US into a country he could be proud of.

What scares me about Obama is the very real possibility that we will be unable to undo the socialism that he can inject into the country. It has been 65 years since WW II ended the Great Depression and we not only have not ended most of the socialist programs instituted by FDR, we have actually expanded many of them.

The great engine of US prosperity, which has translated into world prosperity, is the individual US citizen. That same US prosperity has enabled the US to be the greatest force for good in the history of the world. PLEASE don’t allow what should be a momentary problem to turn into a permanent age of darkness.