Failing to Learn from Our Mistakes

Is it a case of ordained fate we cannot escape, or are We, the People, too dense to learn from our mistakes?

Paging through humanity’s history repeatedly, we find numerous costly mistakes where people ignore facts and reason by entrusting their lives to a “savior.” And time and again, we have ended up paying the price for our folly. If we not genetically doomed to make these ruinous mistakes—which I am sure we are not—then do we commit them out of wishful thinking, laziness, desperation, or some combination of the three?

A few examples would suffice to illustrate how mistake-prone we are. To address the economic disparity, a pivotal concern of humanity, Karl Marx trumpeted his battle cry: ” From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Marx announced that the proletariat produces wealth and capitalists are leeches who rob them of the fruits of their labor.

In effect, Karl Marx originated the concept of class warfare, which involved the poor against the rich. He urged the workers to rise, rid themselves of the rich, and fully possess self-produced goods. Humanity’s poor masses found their messiah in this ideologue, rallied behind him, and got to experience a Marxist paradise. While Marx’s summons were aimed at the laboring class of industrial Europe, the peasantry in both Russia and, later in, China enthusiastically answered his call. The results: many of the rich went to early graves, only to be replaced by a new class of overlord apparatchiks, and the poor continued to be inadequate. In the process, the disciples of Marx and Lenin, such as Stalin and Mao, subjected over 100 million to death, and untold millions suffered for many decades while the promised workers’ paradise never materialized.

Obamanomics and Incentive

Dis-incentive was the “Achilles Heel” of Marxism. Except for the ruling class, whether you worked hard or loafed, you got the same incentive under Marxism. Obamanomics is the same as Marxism: a failed economic philosophy in a poorly disguised form that Obama has been relentlessly pushing throughout his presidency. Obama’s redistribution of wealth does nothing but disincentivize an individual’s prime motive force, “self-exertion,” for “self-reward.” Obama feels the rich have too much and the poor should simply get a much more significant share of what the rich have. If that is not the exact Marxist failed philosophy, what is it?

While Marx’s workers’ paradise ideal continued to struggle and fail miserably to deliver its promises, its offshoots, such as European Socialism and American Redistributionism under Obama, still aim to create a society in which those who succeed in generating wealth give away the majority of their earnings to those who don’t.

Disincentivizing individual exertion through confiscatory taxes is the surest way to reduce a society’s wealth. The rich resort to strategies that shelter their wealth but become discouraged from investing their funds, and society’s overall wealth declines. Investment by those who have funds creates wealth and jobs. And jobs are the best way to help the have-nots, not government handouts.

To address economic issues effectively, government policies should facilitate the creation of more wealth by all individuals and companies, not penalize those who have developed and acquired wealth through overregulation and excessive taxation. The last thing any government should do is use the ineffective, deadly weapon of classism, pitting the poor against the rich.

Hitlerian ‘Salvation’

Not long after the launch of Marxism, another “savior,” by the name of Adolph Hitler, rose to power on the promise of fixing humanity’s economic and other problems at its very foundation based on nationalism. Specifically, he proposed ridding the world of its burden of undesirables and unfits, with Jews on top of his list. Marx’s trump “card” was class warfare. Hitler flashed the ethnic-race card. He claimed that the Aryan race was the cream of humanity’s crop that brought nothing but good to the table. At the same time, Semitic, black, and yellow people represented exploiters and aberrations to be eliminated. For good measure, he lumped in the mentally challenged, homosexuals, and the physically handicapped as humanity’s misfits as well to be rid of.

Picking a scapegoat has always worked magic over the millennia, and even Hitler’s syphilitic brain recognized its value for his campaign of mass genocide. The results: Millions died, among them some of mankind’s best-educated and productive Jews. Hitlerism and Communism either died or went on life support, providing ample opportunities for other saviors.

Islam to the Rescue

In no time at all, Islam, long fractured, lethargic, and dormant, found a new vitality under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, who raised the Black Standard and promised Allah’s paradise to the totality of mankind for the simple price of accepting his Shiite brand of Islam. A naïve dreamer of an American President, Jimmy Carter, hailed Khomeini as a saint savior, an answer to a prayer. Not to be left out, shortly after the Shiite Khomeini’s lightning success in Iran that deposed the Shah and established the Islamic Republic, a Sunni Muslim “Osama Bin Laden” launched his campaign of bringing about a worldwide Caliphate, as the sure cure for humanity’s ills.

In contrast to Marx’s class warfare and Hitler’s ethnic-race rallying cries, Khomeini and Bin Laden hoisted the ever-effective battle call of religion. The very concept of religion that stands for uniting people has been subverted, time and again, by clever and devious opportunists as a means of pitting people against each other.

America at a Critical Point

America is at a critical point. The great nation of all nations, America, is at a crucial moment and crossroads. The present administration’s performance under the direction of President Obama has been abysmal in all areas vital to our nation. Obama’s foreign policy, based on weakness, retreat, and apology, is a disaster. Islamist jihadists are on the march, and democracy is in retreat. The Islamic Republic of Iran is rapidly moving toward acquiring nuclear weapon capability, and Egypt, the beneficiary of billions of our tax dollars, is presided over by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Domestically, our house is in shambles, and the national debt is staggering. With Obama at the helm, the nation’s debt has exceeded the obligation under all previous administrations combined. Four more years of this economic disaster are nothing we should tolerate. Our children and grandchildren will have to service this debt at backbreaking rates. Even today, forty cents of the Federal tax dollar goes to servicing the loans—much of it to China and foreign entities.

It is imperative that we, as a nation, live within our means, just like families do. In the same way, families should cut back on everything they can to live within their means, and the federal government must do the same. It must reduce the size of government and eliminate hundreds of redundant or completely useless bureaucracies.

As the present administration has, governments at all levels must partner with people and companies rather than adversaries. The Department of Justice, for instance, should focus on fighting criminals rather than lodging lawsuits against state governments. The government should release and support the American public’s genius in creating wealth that maximizes society’s benefits without compromising its integrity.

Time for a Change

It is high time that Obamanomics—or, more accurately, “voodoo economics”—be abandoned and that we pursue an economic policy that offers incentives for people and companies to take risks. Without this incentive, the economy stagnates, which causes more suffering and causes societies to collapse. We need to change course.
Let us learn from our mistakes four years ago. The “change you can believe in,” trumpeted by another “savior,” has turned out to be the change we need to make. And we have the opportunity to do so on November 5th.

This column was first published in 2013.

©2024. Amil Imani. All rights reserved.