Ever notice how many groups there are out there supporting Obama? Obama constantly harps on how the GOP is launching a “War on Something”. It doesn’t matter what the argument is, Obama is here to protect the groups from those who wish them harm. This plays well with his themes of unity, getting through tough times together, everyone paying their Fair Share and any other group-think phrase he can think of to throw out there.
The odd part is that none of the members of these groups ever ask themselves if they are being helped by the pushing of the group-think. Obviously if you don’t support the bailout of GM, then you are against American made cars and American autoworkers. By sticking the blame for their financial problems on countries like China and Japan, the autoworkers unions continue with their head-in-the-sand belief that they can continue to provide inferior products at higher prices and the rest of the country will accept that as a price of keeping GM and the others in business. The Obama plan merely forestalls the day of reckoning for Detroit’s irresponsible behavior. The autoworkers may enjoy their benefits in the meanwhile, but when reality does set in, the entire nation will feel the price.
How about the Black Community? If there is one group more dedicated to the re-election of Barack Obama it is the Black Community. But how has his election helped them in any form? During the last four years, the Black Community has lost a significant part of the gains it had made as a whole. More black families are falling out of the middle-class, and more black workers are without work or educations. Black leaders, however, continue to push for the re-election of Obama. The idea that a black man being president is good for the group outweighs the fact that it has been a disaster for the individuals of the group.
College age voters also align themselves overwhelmingly with Barack Obama, despite the rise in college tuition costs and the increasingly difficulty in getting a job once they graduate. Obama’s attempts to help people get a college education have been costly for the government and those trying to go to college. His poor handling of the economy means that people who have been in the workforce longer but are out of work are given precedence over new workers who lack experience. That doesn’t matter to those who are suffering, though, as long as Obama’s intentions are good, he must be doing the right thing.
Obama’s team has been pushing the GOP’s “War on Woman” the hardest, implying that if they don’t support abortion and contraceptives wholeheartedly, they must hate women. This ploy merely distracts women from the more important issues such as the economy and jobs. They may disagree with the GOP on these issues, but are these problems more important that having a job? At the same time the Left paints the GOP as wishing to control a woman’s reproductive system, the Left shows itself as caring only about a woman’s reproductive system. While screaming their hate against the GOP on these issues, women have seen their unemployment rates rise. Which is worse for women in general, a party they disagree with on small issues, or a party that only cares about small issues?
It’s this type of agenda that is truly hurting our nation as we put the wants of individual groups ahead of the common welfare of the nation. It wasn’t long ago that politicians took a big interest in ensuring that largely minority poor families could get loans for houses that they wouldn’t normally be approved for. This might have helped those poor families out for a period of time, but in the long run it has ended up with those families being thrown out on the street and the entire economy being dragged down due to the dead weight that the government imposed upon it.
Not only does this manner of group-think end up hurting us all, it is patently unAmerican. The United States was built on the idea of the individual, not groups. From the earliest settlers to our recent past, we have been focused on personal achievement instead of group goals. This stems from the fact that the men and woman who originally journeyed to this country were individualists, seeking their own future. Our ancestors were the exception to the Old European rule of group mentality. Europe has always been a land of group thinking, their ancestors belonged to Tribes, Clans, Kingdoms and Families. They have placed far more emphasis on the achievements of the group over that of the person. This helps explain the way of their thinking, and why so many small countries so close together can share such disdain for each other. One group’s gain must come at the other’s loss, so they have been at each other’s throats for two thousand years. Our forefathers bucked that tradition when they began living in the New World, and our nation’s founders enshrined the idea into our governing documents.
This is why it is frightening to hear the Democratic Party speak in such groupish tones, something our founders fought so aggressively against. Group identity builds up resentment against other groups, especially any group that appears to be doing better than the one to which you belong.
Group thinking is bad for our country when the mindset is that as one group succeeds, the others feel that they are entitled to share that success. When one group is failing, they believe that others must feel the pain equally. This is why we hear so many complaints about the wealthy, oil companies, China, corporations and other bogeymen of the Left. The world does not work in such simple terms as that. As segments of the country prosper, they will spread that through out the country without any direct action required to force it to happen. The inverse happens when segments begins to suffer. By only thinking in groups we ensure that the suffering will spread faster and prosperity will be harder to find.
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