The American political scene has some serious problems, according to Cal Thomas, America’s most widely read syndicated columnist and a Fox News analyst. Thomas recently shared his concerns about American politics with a John Locke Foundation Headliner audience. He also discussed that topic with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio. (Go to http://www.carolinajournal.com/cjradio/ to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
We start with excerpts from Thomas’ speech, including his assessment of what he calls the most socialist government ever elected in the United States of America.
Thomas: I think this is going to be bad for America. It’s going to be bad for our economy. It’s going to be bad for the kind of individual freedom and liberty for which John Locke stood. And it is going to be bad for the rest of the world that has looked for and relied upon the United States as a beacon of freedom.
I think any time you have unchecked power — whether it be a united government under Republicans or one under Democrats, and especially the latter, though not exclusively the latter — you’re going to have some serious problems. …
When I was growing up, and as a young reporter, I knew a lot of wealthy people and interviewed them. I never envied them. You know what I did? I asked them, where did they go to school? What did they study? What were their life and business principles? How did they become successful?
Today the attitude is if I make $2 and you earn $1, I owe you 50 cents just to make it fair. Why would you envy somebody who is a success? When I was growing up, you penalized and discouraged the things you said you wanted less of and subsidized and encouraged the things you wanted more of. But today it’s become the reverse. We now penalize and discourage the things we say we want more of and subsidize and encourage the things we say we want less of and are shocked to find we’re getting more of what we want less of and less of what we want more of. Does this make sense? I don’t think so.
We know what works. There is not any undiscovered truth. There is only people who do not believe it. We know — because the sociologists and human experience teach us — that it is better to get married before you have children and live together, and that it is better to be a model father and mother rather than work all the time and dump your kids in day care and hope that they turn out OK. We know it’s better not to take illegal drugs. We know it’s better to live within your means. Now there is a Puritan ethic — as my grandparents used to refer to it, and previous generations — that has been totally lost. …
I’ve been fired, not hired, discriminated against because I was too young, discriminated against because I’m too old, too white, too male. Now on Fox, I’m not blonde. I said I’d dye my hair, but I drew the line at the surgery. Not going to do that. But you know something? I never filed a lawsuit. I guess because I’m not a member of an oppressed group, so I don’t have anybody to complain to.
I just never took no for an answer. I went to one newspaper — trying to persuade them to take my column four times — in my travels. They turned me down every time. The fifth time, they took it. No is never the final answer. Somebody said to me, “What are you going to do if you get into every paper in the country?” I said, “Start another one so I can be in that.”
But we don’t teach that anymore. We’re all victims. The first time somebody tells you no, you whine. You go on Oprah, and you complain. Speaking of Oprah, this really gets to the heart of the entitlement mentality. This says it all. Everything you need to know about the spirit of the age that has infected this country and that I’m entitled to the product of other people’s labor and income is wrapped up in this story. This is a very true story.
A couple of years ago, Oprah brought together a whole bunch of women who were in dire circumstances. The one common denominator: they all needed a car, in order to get to work or to get to day care, whatever. They just needed a car. They couldn’t afford a car. No husband in the picture, and all the rest. So she got together with G.M. — great publicity move for G.M. — and gave them all Pontiacs, brand new automobiles. Oh, they were thrilled. They were excited. They were crying, which is one of the prerequisites for being on Oprah. They were just ecstatic … except they were told that they had to pay the tax on the car. A lot of them complained. They wanted Oprah and G.M. to pay the tax, too.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the best story you’ll ever hear on what’s wrong with the entitlement mentality in this country. This is a land of opportunity, not guaranteed outcome. This is a land where we give you the freedom to be all that you can be, consistent with your abilities and willing[ness] to work. If you get up at 6 in the morning and don’t go to bed until 11 at night, and you work hard, and you don’t take drugs, and you don’t father or mother children out of wedlock, and you do all the right things, we ought to be supporting, encouraging, and modeling that before every other American.
But under our present condition — and certainly under the coming government, it appears — you are to be penalized for that.
Kokai: You tie much of your discussion about the American political scene to the problems associated with the American culture. What’s wrong with America?
Thomas: We’re asking too much of government and too little from ourselves. That’s why government has grown big, impersonal, insensitive, and omnivorous. Politicians always like to accrue more power for themselves, and the more we cede to them, the less freedom we have. Freedom and liberty [are] what this country is about — not the government doing for us, but us doing for ourselves.
We’ve moved a long way from John F. Kennedy’s wonderful line in his 1961 inaugural — “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” — to “Ask the government to do more for me.” I think that’s a prescription for economic and relational disaster and a putrid politics … and great cynicism, too, by the way, because the more faith we put in government the less it can deliver and the more angry we get about it.
Kokai: I’m guessing a lot of people out there hear you and say to themselves, “That sounds about right. So what do we do about it?”
Thomas: First, I think we have to start small. We have to start with ourselves, our own families, the next generation, make sure they’re educated in the proper environment — meaning private schools or home schooling, where the real values and traditions of the family in which we believe and from which we come are passed on to a new generation. You can’t expect your kids to be put in a state school and come out with your faith, your beliefs, your sense of history, and your values. That’s just a fact. You wouldn’t put them in the old Soviet Union schools and figure that they’d come out capitalists and freedom-loving. Why do you think you can put them in the state schools in America and come out with any other view than [the view] the state wants them to believe?
So we’ve got to start with ourselves. You don’t have to have kids. But if you do, remember they’re supposed to come first. They are the next generation. As a friend of mine says, “Our children are our letters to the future. We have to decide whether we’re going to send them first class or postage due.”
Kokai: If we know what needs to be done, are you optimistic that someone somewhere will stand up and say: “Let’s do it now”?
Thomas: I don’t know. I’m not a prophet. I know what needs to be done, and all I can do is share what I believe to be the truth and how to get it done. Nations rise and fall. If you’re a student of prophecy and scripture, there’s no mention of the United States of America. We’ve lasted longer than any other constitutional republic in history. The problem with a lot of free countries is that their freedom ends not from being invaded and occupied by others. They destroy themselves from within, and I fear that’s what we’re doing now — economically, financially, and politically.