Reading the tea leaves offers both danger and hope:
Danger: An increasingly transparent globalization and control over commercial markets aided by the tumor-like growth of American socialism seems to spell the doom for the traditional free market system. But…optimism appears as the leaves in the tea cup read this:
Hope: While a handful of decision makers in Washington DC will cause enormous damage to America’s financial lifeblood—investment in the private sector, job creation, and productivity—the American entrepreneurial spirit will eventually triumph over efforts by Obama ruling elites to “…fundamentally transform America.”
How will free enterprise and markets triumph?
AMERICAN GRASS ROOTS: This sense of losing something so quintessentially American is visceral with the Tea Party movement, and as good Americans do, they are rising to the defense of everything red, white, and blue through education and peaceful ballot-box rebellion.
Made in America: Creating quality products and success are deeply rooted in the American psyche. From a boy’s first paper route to a girl’s first baby sitting job, Americans sense the exhilaration found in entrepreneurial endeavors. It’s hard to argue with success, both personal and historic, though liberal politicians and media have engaged in a decades-old war to discredit the promise of free enterprise.
But before quality products were “Made in America” quality people were. As Paul Harvey would say, “Here’s the rest of the story.”
A Miracle: Rebel tea partiers understand author W. Cleon Skousen’s masterful demonstration of America’s birth and subsequent meteoric growth as found in his bestseller, The Five Thousand Year Leap. Skousen shows how and why progress from the five millennia history of life at the rate of ox cart and destitution to that of space age qualities and abundance began almost immediately upon the ratifying of the Constitution of the United States of America. (1789)
This miracle, unlike the world had ever seen in such a short span of time, occurred because of a formula for success first described in the Declaration of Independence.
FOUNDING FATHERS FORMULA: In the Founder’s America the antiquated forms of big government custody over chronic economic failure was to be dealt with by forming a unique governance in all recorded history; one presided over by consent and voice of the people while guaranteeing fundamental individual rights. Breaking from the tyranny of autocratic “ruler’s law,” the Founders wrote:
“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
“Self evident” truth implies that a simple observation of facts offer contrasts between what is right or wrong, and truth is always evidenced by a natural law of cause and effect. Truths exists independent of opinion and slick political manipulation.
That all men are “created equal” made America uniquely powerful. The best the world had to offer would flee to her shores from lands dominated by aristocracy and class systems imposing laws from the top down. America was to not be “ruled” but governed by consent of the people where laws were generated from the bottom up. This new system of “people’s law” would guarantee rights for equal opportunities and protection under the law, but not rights to “equal things” by law.
Endowed by their Creator was a humble acknowledgement by our founders that a supreme and benevolent power offered us a unique gift; unalienable rights—Government does not grant rights. Government’s role is to guarantee rights will not be infringed; or in other words, what the government may not do to us.*
Among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness: Rights so defined were a revolutionary thought in times when Kings and Parliaments regulated them. Americans today will resist with fervor the new virulent form of discredited big government and ruler’s law; American Socialism.
AMERICAN SOCIALISM: Seeking to “endow as creators” these usurpers of the American traditions offer the counterfeit of “equal things” as rights, to obtain votes in trade for false promises of security. Of course “things” take money and that has to come from somewhere. As Margaret Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is, eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
The choice between free enterprise and socialism is “self evident.”
Tea leaves read this: With ample proof that the Founder’s formula for “…Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” really works, Americans will offer alternatives in 2010 and 2012 through Tea Party driven selections of elected representatives and a Presidency of conservative values.
They will mandate obedience to the US Constitution for all future leaders while traditional values overcome the wreckage left by the dinosaur-like economic theories of wealth redistribution and ruler’s law.
*NEXT WEEK: Reading Tea Leaves – Why “No” in the Constitution Means “Yes” to Freedom
James Michael Pratt is a New York Times bestselling novelist and non-fiction author of nine works ,CEO of PowerThink Publishing, public speaker, and Founder of Reagan Revolution 2. Email: james@powerthink.com.