The Tribune

The belief that no one owes me anything is one of the greatest gifts my hardworking, blue-collar father gave me when I was young. His words carried me through some difficult times growing up, sustained me through widowhood, years back, and helped to shape me into the person I am today.

Once upon a time in America, and not so long ago, my dad’s can-do attitude toward life was common place, until liberals and their faithful following began to understand that immense and everlasting power could be bartered by peddling handouts in exchange for votes.

If liberal politicians know anything, it’s human nature. If you give people things they did not earn from sources from which they did not contribute, those same people will soon become dependent on whatever you give them. Add to that a bit of Machiavellian trickery to redefine those handouts into rights, and voila! You have just created a permanent voting base.

In truth, liberals simply rebranded the definition of what our founders meant when they scribed the words, “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.” Spinning and twisting the interpretation by suggesting “unalienable rights” are tangibles like health insurance, college educations, and food stamps rather than the intangibles our founders envisioned as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” liberals transformed the Declaration of Independence into a Declaration of Dependence. Before long, people bought into their lies, believing they had rights to certain “entitlements” simply because they breathed.

Sadly, these lies metastasized within today’s Democratic Party; chock full of liberals so extreme, Blue Dogs have all but disappeared. Now the entire Democratic Party platform revolves around the dangerous and devilishly un-American idea that individuals cannot achieve success without government intervention. They are dead wrong.

That the Democratic National Convention (DNC) would ask Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren to speak at its national convention in September tells us all we need to know about the DNC’s vision for America. Warren’s words spoken in 2011, and so echoed in recent days by President Obama, suggesting it is impossible for Americans to attain success devoid of the federal government is an indictment on how far from the American dream they have fallen.

Ms. Warren further suggests that successful job creators are obligated to an “underlying social contract” in order to “pay [it] forward for the next kid who comes along,” thereby ensuring future generations will never have the ability to stand on their own without the government.

The fact that unemployment rose to 8.3 percent last week is an indictment on President Obama, Elizabeth Warren and big government Democrats who believe rights are endowed by government. The ridiculous notion that business owners didn’t build their businesses speaks to their ineptitude and explains why unemployment numbers continue to move in the wrong direction. Obviously, Ivy League school attendance and acumen are not always mutually inclusive.

Had our founding fathers believed in entitlements over ingenuity, this “New World” would be just like the old one, which is a case study in what happens when liberals are left to themselves.

Susan Stamper Brown is an opinion page columnist, motivational speaker and military advocate. Email Susan at writestamper@gmail.com or her website at susanstamperbrown.com.