I haven't read Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, but I have read just enough about it that I'm guessing you could substitute the word entitlements for moochers and the word accomplishments for producers in part of Chris Christie's speech he gave at the Ronald Reagan Library this week.
CHRISTIE: I realize that what I'm calling for requires a lot of our elected officials, and a lot of our people. I plead guilty, but I also plead guilty to optimism. Like Ronald Reagan I believe in what this country and its citizens can accomplish if they understand what is being asked of them and how we all benefit if they meet the challenge. There's no doubt in my mind that we as a country, and as a people are up for the challenge.
Our democracy is strong. Our economy is still the world's largest. Innovation and risk taking is a part of our collective DNA. There is no better place in the world for investment. And above all, we have a demonstrative record as a people and nation of rising up to meet any challenge.
But today, the biggest challenge we must meet is the one we present to ourselves. To not become a nation that places entitlements ahead of accomplishment. To not become a country, that places comfortable lives, ahead of difficult truths. To not become a people, that thinks so little of ourselves that we demand no sacrifice from each other.
We are a better people than that. And we must demand a better nation than that.
Gee, I wonder just what part of our population Christie thinks ought to be bucking up and sacrificing so that those who are doing the "accomplishing" can prosper? Heaven forbid it might any of his buddies over on Wall Street or the Koch brothers and their friends that are out there pushing for him to jump into the presidential race.
And I hate to break it to Christie, but if you no longer have a middle class and only rich and poor in a country, your democracy is not strong. In fact, it's just the opposite because without a thriving middle class, democracy doesn't exist at all, and sadly that's where we're heading these days.
After some glowing praise for their patron saint, Ronnie Ray-gun who couldn't get elected in a Republican primary today if they reanimated his corpse, which it seems a lot of them would be happy to if you buy their rhetoric, and praising his great leadership that every modern day Republican has rewritten to suit their needs, Christie went on to attack President Obama for his claims during his previous presidential campaign that Republicans would like to divide us and that “there is not a liberal America, and a conservative America, there is the United States of America” and so forth and that the President now is wanting to divide America for the purpose of winning reelection.
That is of course a terrible sin in conservative's world because no one with a "D" behind their name or who represents anyone on the left side of the aisle is ever allowed to point out that heaven forbid conservatives have used divide and conquer tactics when giving political speeches or with how they've governed this country and the tactics they've constantly used to keep Americans voting against their own interests. And doing so is just terribly unfair for those who have been using those tactics since the days of Richard Nixon and beyond.
Christie went on to play the victim card for those poor downtrodden wealth creators in America who the president so unfairly demonized.
CHRISTIE: This is a reelection strategy. Telling those who are scared and struggling that the only way that their lives can get better is to diminish the success of others, trying to cynically convince those who are suffering that the American economic pie is no longer a growing one that can provide more prosperity for all who work hard, insisting that we must tax and take and demonize those who have already achieved the American dream. That may turn out to be a good reelection strategy Mr. President, but it is a demoralizing message for America.
Yeah, because god knows those who are actually struggling with no chance of any upward mobility in the United States shouldn't dare to “demoralize” those “job creators” who have “already achieved the American dream” and ask them to pay a few more percentage points in taxes.
Heaven forbid we might make those poor downtrodden Wall Street traders who are just wanting to make sure they can feed their families have a reason to feel badly about themselves. I'm sure that would be downright un-American in Chris Christie's world.
