Time and again we are hearing Barrack Obama brag about the jobs he’s going to create

with the “stimulus plan”. He likes to tell us all how desperately jobs are needed in this

country. It’s easy to buy into, especially if you’re one of the millions without a job right

now or if you’re worried about losing your job. Preying on that fear and desperation is

the only reason liberals have any chance whatsoever of getting the ridiculous “stimulus”

bill passed in the next few days.

The truth is that Americans don’t need jobs. Yeah, I said it. Jobs are not that important

and will have little impact on creating any positive long term effect on the economy. It

shouldn’t require any deep thinking (although, unfortunately these days…) for Americans

to realize this. Jobs are a result of opportunity. You don’t just get to go out and create

jobs like Obama thinks he can do. Any jobs created out of thin air are going to be short-

term. Any impact they have on this recession is going to be minimal – until the jobs go

away and we see a truly devastating impact on the economy.

If we’re honest with ourselves, the only thing being created by this so-called “stimulus”

plan is government projects. What happens to the “jobs” when the projects are complete? 

Are we then forced to rely on additional government projects to keep people employed? 

We all know the government can do it. Let’s face it, no one spends like the government

can, but to what end? The government can only continue to spend at this pace if they are

creating an income big enough to keep it up. Who pays for that? Everyone with a job, of

course. So in the end, what is the point? How does a government created job help

anyone?

Opportunity, on the other hand, does serve a purpose. Remember in school when you

learned about all the immigrants pouring into America? Do you remember why they

came? I don’t recall anything about jobs being their primary motivation, do you? People

flocked to this country because of the opportunities that were here for them. America

was a country that you could go to and achieve your dreams. What America proved was

that if people are left alone to pursue those dreams, in less than 150 years you can create

the greatest nation the world has ever known. That is the audacity of hope.

The flip-side of that same coin is fear. If there is a fear that hopes may fail, as hopes

pursued by human beings are prone to do, then we must protect ourselves from our

inherent human flaws. Out of fear we must not allow people to be taken advantage of by

limiting their choices. Out of fear we must not allow people to be hurt by limiting

productivity. Out of fear we must mitigate risk by forcing compliance to often unrealistic

standards. Out of fear we must rely on someone to protect us from ourselves by asking

for regulation that grinds opportunity to a halt. We have allowed fear to kill opportunity

and have been doing so for almost 100 years in America. 

This President, along with this Congress, is not representing hope to the American

people. Everything about the “stimulus plan” represents fear. The actions being taken by

this government are all based on reactionary fears when in reality; the only thing we have

to fear is the continued eradication of opportunity. 

If you want something to fear, consider this…

Never in the history of the world has government ever been successful at creating

sustainable opportunity via regulations or by spending. History shows that repeatedly,

governments have tried and failed. The extreme examples are of course the U.S.S.R and

Cuba. However, when you look at the countries today that have continued down a fear-

based path of relying on government (U.K., France, Germany, Spain, and Canada) you

can’t help but notice how amazingly unproductive and inconsequential these countries

have become. Where is their hope? Where are their opportunities? While the

governments of these countries do have programs in place to “take care of the people”,

the cost of this “security” is unbearable to the people, and the consequence for these

countries as a whole has been a loss of respect, power, and influence around the world. 

In no way, shape, or form, does this outcome represent the principles or objectives the

United States of America was founded on.

Opportunity is the only solution to our woes today. If there is hope that government will

“fix” our economy, it won’t be done by spending our way out of it. It can only be done

through massive deregulation coupled with massive cut-backs in government spending. 

Americans take a lot of pride in our form of government, and rightfully so. But it needs

to be remembered that it is the form of government, and not the government itself, that

made America the greatest nation the world has ever known. It is the hope, and

opportunity created by such hope, of the people of this country that made America great. 

Even in times of great fear, we can never allow ourselves to lose sight of this undeniable

fact. Now, more than ever, the American people, not the American government must rise

to the occasion. We must demand that the government does less, so the real strength of

this nation (the people) can do more. That is the hope that will save America.