Welfare Plus Warfare Equals Unfair
Posted by Orrin Woodward on April 16, 2012
America’s leadership deficit may be the only thing bigger than Washington’s budget deficit. Since FDR took over the presidential helm back in 1932, every president has supported either the Welfare State or the Warfare State. In truth, most have supported both! Consequently, the GNP to national debt ratio has surged embarrassingly close to banana republic levels. It seems America is determined to follow the course of the Roman Empire; eschewing the need for external enemies, America is collapsing as Rome did from within, riding the waves of poorly planned and executed internal policies.
On one hand, the Welfare State feeds, clothes, and houses people, which seems like a noble gesture until one understands learned helplessness. Why should men and women marry when the government will provide for mother and child without the father’s involvement. Fathers are freed from the responsibilities of raising a family that are essential in transforming males into men. This isn’t hypothetical as the percentage of children being born to unwed mothers has skyrocketed since the government began providing “help.” Communities across America ought to plead with government to stop helping them into learned helplessness and allow them to help the real charity cases locally.
On the other hand, the Warfare State recruits, trains, and supplies a military, which seems like a proper role of government until one understands the empire building methods of our current governments. Governments should protect their citizens from foreign invasion, but our current military adventures – military bases in nearly 150 countries – no longer seem like protection, but rather empire building. I am thankful for America’s military, and my dad served as a Green Beret; however, we cannot afford to allow our government to volunteer America’s military as the world’s police force for free, especially when we are beyond broke!
Each country must provide for its own military protection, ending our “allies” learned helplessness served up by America’s government at the taxpayers’ expense. Is there any country that is threatening to invade America currently? In contrast, how many countries is America threatening to invade? Like the old saying goes, if the only tool you have is a hammer, then everyone looks like a nail. The Soviet Union – the bogeyman needed for a cold war – is no more, but America’s defense spending is alive and well. Despite trillions in deficits, our leaders feel the need to play empire at our country’s expense. Is there any sanity left in Washington, DC? Perhaps our current “leaders” ought to read George Washington’s thoughts on the principle of “entangling alliances.”
When one group provides for another that it is fully capable of providing for itself, both groups end up ruined – the first through increased spending and decreased productivity and the second through increased passivity and decreased productivity. This is the perfect lose/lose scenario, one in which our government specializes. 🙂 How long must we ignore common sense and the lessons of history? Simply put, the government’s welfare and warfare strategies are unfair and unsustainable. Wake up, America, before it’s too late!
Sincerely,
15 Responses to “Welfare Plus Warfare Equals Unfair”
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Lee Weishar said
Great article Orrin!
It’s so important to spread basic economic principles, as it is the only way we are going to get out of the mess we are in. Your ‘intro to economics’ CD with Chris Brady has helped me structure my latest post to do just that!
Thanks for sharing,
Lee Weishar
leeweishar.com
Petra Luebke said
This is so well spoken.
We never should fight other county’s War. They don’t apreciate it anyway.
Love reading your Post’s. Petra
The Parchment said
Orrin,
Thanks so much for your post.
For many years I have been pointing finger against capitalism because I have wrongly perceived it a being the cause of many tragedies in the world. In reality I was witnessing the destructive impact of imperialism which is only possible by the state interventionist policy on the free market economy. Lenin defines imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism when to my humble current level of understanding, imperialism is just the magnified result of the following behavior: Individuals not willing to work hard and get better in order to remain competitive while relying and using the state power to achieve their ends.
Thanks,
Olivier
Orrin Woodward said
Olivier,
Well done my friend! You are learning the difference between the propaganda we are told and the truth we must reason out. Very impressed. thanks, Orrin
Brenda said
Wow that needed to be said. Canada needs to wake up as well, as we follow the USA. We need to change the way we are living.
michaelcollinsleadership said
Well it seems the “emperor” is doing plenty of fiddling, I would expect no less since he learned from the best here in Chicago. Orrin, you are right, the decline in our country is an inside job at this point. Those who forget history…………….. Congrats on #6
James B said
Orrin, I would vote for you if you ran for President…but you can impact more people Leading the
LIFE revolution!!!!! Either way I will follow you. Thank you for everything you do for OUR country.
Nate Berens said
Orrin, I really enjoy your topics here on the blog as a new member with the LIFE team- Band of Brothers I am really excited for what is to come for my family. I am a teacher (with majors in Social Studies and also in History) so history is very valuable to me as well as relatable to our current economic situation. I truly admire the founding fathers and find it very interesting how relevant the words of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison are in the fight for a limited government- despite the diminutive number of people who realize that a map of how to return to prosperity is right in front of them.
Anyways back on track here, the graph truly exemplifies the growing imbalance in spending as well as the growing level of our artificially created dependence upon the government to survive. There are such vivid parallels to the overextensions and impropriety that doomed Romes amazing Republic into subjugation under the Empire as it rapidly declined. I wonder if our Republic will last 500 years, or if we will sell away freedoms as the Romans did for bread and Circuses promised by a charasmatic politician. Recent American inflation seems to be directly correlated to Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s printing spree you cannot simply print two trillion dollars without encountering consequences.
I was reading through your book “Leadership and Liberty” and was really taken-a-back by your claim that the Great Depression was prolonged by the new economic policies of John Maynard Keynes practiced by FDR and his Administration. American History praizes the bold action of FDR rewarding him as a savior with three presidential terms in row while vilifying the inaction of his conservative predacessor Herbert Hoover. I would love to learn more about this revisionist perspective of The Depression. The economic teachings at our universities hold Keynesian economic principles over the Classical Lassiez Faire (Adam Smith) economic theory. Not surprizing in the world of debt financing we are being taught (spend money to stimulate the economy to keep the faith until normality is restored) to shorten economic downturns.Thanks for the food for thought.
God Bless,
Nate Berens
Bill Eder said
Orrin: This one really nails it. I have lived thruogh all our presidents since FDR and his “New deal” which has led to the currant abuses of a broken system.
This blog should be on the front page of every newspaper. Thanks again for your leadership in a nation that so needs to have servant leaders. Granted some folks are indeed in need of welfare however to many people are looking for a handout not a hand up. We the people must take back this once great nation. God willing this will happen with a Freedom Shift soon.
Orrin Woodward said
Bill, Thank you. Yes, there are true charity cases, but a Federal government in Washington is hardly as capable as a local community and the local churches, synagogues, etc. to serve their true needs – help them get through the tough spot and get back on their feet as productive citizens not wards of the State. We are in an education war, but thankfully the fruit on the tree of bad ideas is exposed for everyone to see at this crucial time. thanks, Orrin
Rob Crichlow said
Local communities can meet people where there real needs are in a one on one basis. In Cleveland there is a food and shelter center where the director reaches out to local churches asking for them to come and help people bridge back into to their communities. He actually said ‘we need you more than money from the government’. Thanks for continuing to bring this kind of information to light, so that people can finally learn that we need to step up … not the government.
Sara Hutniak from Winnipeg said
If the Federal government and US Department of Defense had the same financial information that LIFE subscribers and families get, then there would be an “ah- ha” moment that you cannot live beyond your means, spending ever more and not spending on priorities. Defense budgets are kind of an oxymoron now, as there is really no budgeting at all, with all these extras hidden in for special projects and pork barrel spending. If DoD knew that it had to get more out of less, then perhaps those in policy and defense strategy would start working smarter to deal with the threats that do face America. The brainpower is there to think unconventionally, and like Telemachus, to fight from afar if need be; not putting the country way in the red in places that are not grateful for that military help.
I studied unconventional warfare in grad school and while I’m doing LIFE now (and gratefully so), I truly worry about the state of the union.
Wildtarg said
Boy, did you ever spell it out, Orrin. Thanks so much for your mini-expose on the faulty policies that are spending this country towards its doom.
This simple data-plus-argument begs the question: How do people keep voting for politicians and policies that are so wasteful and destructive? What are they thinking?
I think the very simple answer is that they’re not thinking – they’re feeling. We have ended up, as 1st-world citizens, dumbing down compassion from a conviction of the mind and will to a mere emotion. We have effectively divorced sentiment and intellect, and now no longer regard “the right thing” as a real concept for the mind to work with, but simply whatever our emotions tell us that it is. Is it any surprise that both patriots and humanitarians vote and advocate, quite sincerely for the most part, policies and actions along the lines you just described, and then are blankly belligerent when they are told that they are not long-term solutions? George Guzzardo put it very simply: “People think they’re thinking; they’re not thinking.”
I am not assigning blame to any person or group in saying this; that’s simply the situation. So what’s the answer? Leadership, of course. Not just clearer thinking or more words, but people who will consistently think clearly and feel clearly, marry intellectual or moral position to personal passion, and actively strive for change.
Keep going, we’re with you…
Dennis Squires said
Once again, you have succinctly explained what seems complex from the outside. To draw a comparison between two seemingly opposite agendas shows that there is only one agenda when it comes to Big government.
Thanks Orrin!
Ramon said
Orrin,
Great article. I don’t know many people who understand or point out the connections between the welfare or warfare state. And I know even fewer who point out that our current military policies point towards de facto empire building. It’s scary to think that so few understand those differences.