Few remember, or even care, what Clinton babbled about in his 1996 State of the Union address. Why bother to remember, since he says one thing one day and then the opposite the next? Many are bewildered by Clinton’s tactic of firmly having, at any given moment, his feet on both sides of an issue and by his engaging in nothing less than libel by shamelessly and deliberately lying about Republicans in Congress.

The Republican opposition has been driven into a state of disarray and is disarmed, intellectually, unable to figure out how to fight this constantly moving target. But if they would look at the fundamentals, and not be confused by his flip-flopping on the superficial matters or even his momentary switching on major issues, they would actually discover the target isn’t moving at all, except in the direction of more statism.

What they fail to understand is, in spite of Clinton’s forked tongue, there is a malignant consistency to what he says and does: his every word and deed is designed to gradually goose-step us toward a future tyranny—his position on every major, domestic issue (except, for the moment, one issue to be discussed later) requires more initiation of force by the state against the individual and a reduction in individual freedom.

About the only thing anyone remembers from Clinton’s State of the Union address is his statement that the "era of big government is over." And the only reason anyone remembers that statement is this deceitful declaration was given great play by the liberal media who also knew Clinton didn’t mean it. This was widely trumpeted by the liberal media precisely because they knew he didn’t mean it, that Clinton was still safely on the course of pushing us closer and closer to the inevitable end of statism, that he had not betrayed them at all: he was simply blowing smoke into the minds of the gullible amongst those who oppose the growth of government power.

While there may be a few truly gullible voters, most voters are not. In general, they may oppose the growth of government powers and loudly decry its spread, but not in their own particular instance if they are on the receiving end of some government largesse. The lies and propaganda spewed out by statists, as in the case of Clinton declaring the era of big government is over, provide these foolish voters with the rationalizations they need to vote for Clinton and other statists, just as statists provide individuals, as you will soon see in the next chapter, with the rationalizations they need to become criminals. And even if they oppose the spread of statism in all other areas, as long as these voters continue to greedily munch away at the subsidies and handouts for themselves, statism will continue its steady climb to its final, bloody dead-end. It is in this manner a nation of fools falls prey to the beguiling words of statists and, ultimately, to the rule of some iron-fisted dictator.

What everyone should remember and recall from his State of the Union address was Clinton’s statement that America must not return to the time when individuals "must fend for themselves." This was the most telling moment in the speech, the most pervasively corrupt idea in the address, one of the key ideas propelling this country toward tyranny, yet we heard nothing, not a word, from the Republican opposition about this statement.

Here we have an idea which is widely accepted by too many, an idea whose deadly weight is one of the central reasons why this country is traveling on a course in which its freedom will eventually implode into the black hole of despotism, and all we had from Republicans was silence, one which was deafening in its meaning: they are still largely clueless about the reasons why we have witnessed, in the last few decades, statism’s gradual rise out of the stinking swamps of the minds of statists, particularly the liberal statists. Most Republicans desperately want to change the course of the country and head it in the direction of more freedom, yet Clinton and his gang of statist con artists have been outwitting them. Until Republicans begin to understand the causes of statism, they will never be successful in stopping, and reversing, its progression across this land.

Now let’s consider the meaning of Clinton’s idea we must not return to a time when individuals "must fend for themselves" and the critical role this notion has played in statism’s forced march through America.

What does it mean for you to fend for yourself? It means you produce enough money to provide for your own needs: you stand on your own two feet. Is this what Clinton finds so undesirable? Yes—at least for some but, as you will soon see, not for all: some must fend for themselves. Now let’s take it a step further. What does it mean when you say you must fend for yourself? It means you have to fend for yourself, that reality simply gives you no choice, that reality does not permit you to live if you do not create and produce the physical means (food, clothing, shelter, etc.) for your survival—and this is true, except for the individual, in a statist society, who takes by means of a government gun the money of those who do fend for themselves or except for a criminal who does statism’s job for himself, by robbing you directly.

In a free society, you must provide for yourself and you do not have the option of robbing another person with a government gun to take money that will enable you to indulge in the luxury of living a life in which you do not provide for yourself. In a free society, if you are momentarily down on your luck you must rely on the voluntary assistance of friends, relatives or others. If you teach your child that he must grow up to work hard and stand on his own two feet, that he must fend for himself when he becomes an adult, this means this is what is right, the moral course of action he should take—and a child who grows up believing this and carries that belief with him into adulthood does not become a bum or a welfare mother or a criminal. He grows up to be a productive, hard-working individual.

What about a parent who teaches his child that he should not grow up to fend for himself, that he should not stand on his own two feet when he becomes an adult? A child who grows up believing this will become a bum, a criminal or a person who lives on handouts from the government. What is the moral status of someone who teaches a child an idea that will transform the child into a bum or a welfare recipient, even, perhaps, a criminal? There is no moral condemnation too strong for such viciousness, yet who do we have promoting the idea we must not return to the time when individuals fend for themselves? Clinton and his fellow statists.

The human wreckage that has been produced by the notion you must not fend for yourself has been appalling. This notion has created hordes of wretched creatures, dubbed "victims" by statists in order to elicit your sympathy, who clamor for assistance from the state. What is one of the results of this idea you must not fend for yourself? Poverty, the very thing liberal statists claim to abhor. It creates homelessness, another thing that supposedly upsets liberal statists so much. And what if a child takes this idea to the next logical step: if it isn’t important to fend for oneself, why go to school and get an education he will need to stand on his own two feet? This causes children to drop out of school, another thing liberal statists claim to deplore. Why should the child worry about needing an education that will enable him to get a job to support himself? After all, he has been told all of his life that he doesn’t have to fend for himself, he will always have that "safety net" of government to fall back on.

If liberal statists are so concerned about poverty, homelessness and children dropping out of school, then why are they promoting one of the very ideas that lead to poverty, homelessness and kids dropping out of school? Why do they promote an idea which is going to transform children into subhuman adults who engage in a kind of cannibalism, feasting off of money forcibly taken, via the government, from you? The disgraceful answer is: these statists create these "victims," because statists need them and the more the better, up to a point—statists need them so these "victims" can become their political allies and supporters, so statists can expand government programs to address the needs of these "victims" and force you to pay for them, so statists can use them in their rise to absolute power. Here, rather than having a statist politician in the pay of some lobbyist, we have these groups of voters, "victims," in the pay of the statist politicians—in other words, statists are buying their votes with your money. And if this horrendous process does not stop, we will someday reach a point where there will be so many voters on the take from statists, we will never be able to reverse the advance of statism.

And what about you? Are you on the take? Are you selling your vote in exchange for cash payments from the government or for special privileges? Are you a tobacco farmer who is receiving subsidies from the state? If so, you have sold your vote: you are part of the institutionalized cannibalism of statism, you are voting to forcibly take money from some distant neighbor to support a business that is, perhaps, in decline. Are you an employee of some restaurant and you support minimum wage laws? If so, you are on the take: you are supporting the idea that it is proper for the state to force your employer to pay you more than you are worth—you might as well take a gun yourself and openly force him to pay you more than you are worth on an open market. Are you a parent supporting a tax increase to pay for your child’s education at a public school? If so, you, too, are on the take. Are you a sports fan voting for your local government to help pay for the construction of a new football stadium? If so, you are on the take, too, and part of this grisly process which feeds upon itself, feeding the burgeoning growth of statism.

If an individual accepts the notion he doesn’t have to fend for himself, then where does the logic of this idea lead him? If you don’t have to provide for your own needs, that means, if you are to live, someone else is going to have to provide for your needs. Just who might that be? Any person who is a producer, any person who earns his own living. And since you have to have this productive person’s money, you conclude you have a "right" to it and statists tell you, you have this "right." This leads to the spectacle we have all seen, on television, of a crowd of these "victims" angrily shouting demands for their "right" to government assistance, demanding their "fair share" of your money—money which you have earned and they have not—and statist politicians happily oblige by forcing you to fork over your money to the very "victims" statists created in the first place by ideas pounded into the heads of children. What if these "victims" were standing outside the front of your home, demanding the "right" to your money, to their "fair share" of your money? Would you concede they had such a right? Would you give your money to this menacing crowd of angry "victims"? I don’t think so. However, when these groups stand in front of a government building and demand your money, many would concede we must "do" something to help these pitiful souls. It is in this manner your freedom is being destroyed.

Have you ever wondered about the shocking rise in personal bankruptcies and how quickly so many jump to this solution to their financial distress? If you have been told by statists you must not fend for yourself, this means you are not responsible for yourself. If you are not responsible for yourself, you are not responsible for the debts you have incurred—and if you believe this, it is very easy for an individual to rationalize his decision to file bankruptcy and flee from the responsibility of paying his debts. Fifty years ago, when most believed they were responsible for taking care of themselves, bankruptcy was an action only taken as a last resort, only when an individual literally had no other option. Not today, not in this day and age when children have been taught they are not responsible for themselves when they become adults.

Suppose your neighbor started going around to talk to others in his neighborhood and began persuading them that they do not have to fend for themselves, they do not have to provide for their own needs or at least they don’t have to provide for all of their needs and tells them he will give them the extra cash they need anytime they want it. Pretty soon, others begin to hear about this and jump onto this gravy wagon, too, bringing further demands on the cash of this neighbor, eventually bringing financial ruin to him. If this actually occurred, you would think the man insane. Well, what about the person who votes for a statist politician who goes around, on that voter’s behalf, and tells the entire nation the same thing, that they don’t need to fend for themselves, thus inviting an entire nation to pick his pocket? The insanity in this case is worse than that exhibited by the neighbor who foolishly offered his neighbors unlimited access to his bank account. At least this neighbor still retained the power to stop giving away his money, but when you have the state giving away your money, you are having that money taken from you by force and you have no choice—and after these cannibalistic recipients of statism consume your money, they smack their lips and yell: "More, more!"

Suppose everyone followed Clinton’s admonition that we must not return to the time when one fends for himself. If that happened, we would become a nation of non-producers, with a pathetic existence like those in such a country as Haiti or Somalia, and statists know this. Statists know if no one fended for themselves, there would be no money for their programs which take from those who do produce and give to those who don’t. Statists, like Clinton, must have producers who will provide the needed funds for his programs. We can’t all be on the dole. There wouldn’t be anyone around to pay for it.

So what is Clinton’s plan for America? It is for every person who earns a living, who stands on their own two feet, to keep on producing, to keep on working harder and harder, to keep on making money the government can take. It is also for the non-productive, those who do not fend for themselves, to keep on being non-productive, to keep on being the "victims" who will vote for statists in exchange for cash or special privileges, cash forcibly taken from you.

So here we have it. The producers must keep on producing. The non-producers must keep on non-producing. Both are needed by Clinton and his statist allies in order for them to carry out their dreams to become your absolute rulers. We are going to have keepers and brothers. If you are one of those in this country who earns his own living, stands on his own two feet, then you are going to be forced to be a keeper, a keeper of all of those brothers, those "victims" who do not fend for themselves.

The producers—which means you, if you earn your own living and support yourself—must continue to generate the funds needed to support the non-producers. Those who produce the money have no right to it. Those who don’t produce money, who do not and must not fend for themselves, have the right to take money they didn’t earn from those who have earned it. This is Clinton’s message to the country. In the Democratic scheme of things, the non-producers are the "victims" and must be helped. But the real victim is every person in this country who earns an honest living and stands on his own two feet. Their earnings are being plundered by Clinton and his statist buddies. That is what our government is doing in order to provide funds for the non-producers who are needed by statists to advance the growth of statism. This is the Clinton agenda for America.

What if we did return to the time when one fended for himself? What if the last three generations of our children had grown up believing it was important to grow up to be a person who fended for himself, one who provided for his own needs, one who stands, proud and tall, on his own two feet? If these children had grown up believing this, we would all be infinitely better off today and we certainly wouldn’t have this moaning mass of "victims" running around yanking cash out of your pocket by means of government force. Unfortunately, many of the children in the last three generations have learned statism’s message all too well and in each successive generation the number of "victims" has grown, as they will continue to grow in the next generation and in the next, unless we get rid of these statists and their ideas.

When Clinton declared we must not return to the time when individuals must fend for themselves, Republicans who want to turn this country in the direction of freedom should have jumped on this. They should have shouted to the tops of their lungs: we must return to being a country in which each individual fends for himself, not continue to be a country in which human parasites forcibly feed off of those who earn an honest living—that it is important to send children the message that to fend for yourself, to provide for your own needs, is right—and they should have pointed out the evils which result from children not believing they should grow up to stand on their own two feet. Until Republicans begin to do this, until they begin to teach the voting public the ugly meaning of statism, until they begin to point out we are heading in the direction of tyranny, until they show up Clinton and his statist cronies for what they are—an enemy of your right to life and liberty—they will never begin to turn this country in the direction of freedom.

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