People's Money

In 1968, I saw the Broadway play, Promises, Promises. In a scene in this play, an old man is in a rickety old bed; sheets made of flower sacks, an old patchwork quilt, a young dapper insurance representative of the government stands nearby with a briefcase and the sick old man, in bed, states, “Promises, promises. All I ever get is promises.”

In my lifetime, I have seen “people's money” become the public's money. If you own a farm, home, vehicle, anything which is taxable, and you do not pay your taxes, you will learn just how quickly your hard work, your frugality, your risk-taking, becomes the government's property and the government's money. Really, when you get right down to the difference, (and I have been in every communist, collectivist, totalitarian country) the only difference in a communist system and this Democratic Republic form of government is that in Communism the government owns and controls everything. In this country, the government PRETENDS you own your home, farm, etc. They let you take care of everything at your expense but really, you own nothing. For instance, (I have been in Communist China three times) all citizens are housed in public housing, four families share one bathroom and one kitchen but the government provides your electricity, water, food, employment, health care. The government provides everything you need and you, with the pittance from your job, usually a few dollars a week, can buy what you want. I went to large stores in China and Russia; there was no color, nothing enticing, just necessities with the same ambiance of a cave. This is one commercial system where you never heard anyone wish you a good day, because the day is the same for everyone.

As was the case in the Old South with the cotton mill stores and the tenant farmers who were lucky to arrive in town once or twice a year, there was no need for competition or attractiveness. The entire mantra of the Communist system, as was the case with we poor southerners, was survival.

A situation that tainted my life forever, as a young poor college student, working my way through school, selling Bibles door-to-door through the summer, each time I went inside the city limits of a town where the cotton mill was the main employer {and this was the case with most southern towns, particularly in eastern NC (Bladenboro, Goldsboro, Smithfield, etc.)} I was told by the law officer, representing the cotton mills, in Bladenboro, NC, that if any of the people in that town needed a book, “they would buy it at the company store.”

So you see, we have been in and out of the Communist system for a very long time and with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, vehicle inspections, when socialized health care takes over and a crematorium is built with which to dispose of the dead (as in every commune in China and Russia) we will be there. These small green checks which you get from the government each month, just enough to keep you alive along with government food stamps, and other government programs, will be close to the totalitarianism dreamed by Roger Baldwin, Henry Wallace and Gus Hall.

I remember so very well, attending a meeting at Duke University in the '60s, just when hospitalization insurance (Blue Cross, etc.) was a very new thing with state employees and some corporations. A doctor from New York University was introducing the system of Medicare. Of course, all the doctors in the room, having experienced the trauma of collecting delinquent accounts, were thrilled with the possibility of cramming government checks into their pockets in payment for the care of sick people. I remember, very well at the time, I got $2 to examine a welfare patient. I was the only one in the room, brave enough to raise my hand and ask the question, “What will happen when the government reduces your charge for services? Surely you recognize that if the government is going to pay, everyone who has a day off will be in a doctor's office, needed or not.” The doctor did not give me an answer but those still in practice, now, know the answer.

Some of the people who have worked for me, driven my car for me, over the years, think I ask many questions simply because I'm blind. But every time I go to a doctor's office, I ask how many people are there, and about their ages. Without exception, they are always old people simply because most have nothing else to do and the government is going to pay for their visit. (Medicare or Medicaid) Can you even imagine what it will be like when the socialized system takes over? Go to a VA hospital and see the quality and quantity of care.

In traveling the world, there is so much natural beauty everywhere: mountains, foliage, streams, flowers. It is only in the totalitarian countries; the communist countries such as Russia, China, etc., the Muslim countries such as Iran, Pakistan, Tunisia, etc. that you find so much ugliness, colorlessness, undecorated, un-kept homes and public facilities. I'm sure it was not always that way because I owned art which came from the imaginations of it's creators. I spent a tremendous amount of money in China buying pre-revolution art while it was still available. The magnificent silk embroideries (unsurpassed handiwork in colors) was all sold immediately. The magnificent silk blend Persian carpets (beautiful colors and patterns) were superlative and sold immediately. No one can prove to me that the human mind is not capable of beauty even when the ugliness of the strangulation of imagination has taken over.

In one Chinese factory, where slave labor youngsters were turning out vases for the export market, I said to the guide, “Suppose one imaginative, talented youngster would produce a vase of unusual beauty such as was produced in past historic dynasties.” She said, “We would destroy it. Everything is manufactured according to a certain pattern. They do everything the prescribed way. There is no place for individuality in our system.” Now, you know what has happened to YOUR school system. Now, you know what has happened to your money once it becomes government money. The taxes you pay, your hard work, your total obedience has resulted in your enslavement. Don't think for one minute, that your government and the people who are in charge of your government, the people who are in charge of your children, love you.

On your knees, in total obedience, you have found the change. Deception is the greatest tool Satan has in his arsenal and your government has become your idol of deception. There was a time when a person did not want to be deceived by people, places or things. There was a time when we resented counterfeit. Recently I had a woman say to me, “I don't care anything about the Bible. I don't care anything about the Constitution. I don't believe in anything anymore. I just don't care.”

“One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”