America: Land of Enablers

The term "enabler" has become a familiar one in our culture today. An "enabler" is one who, by not laying out firm boundaries in a relationship, makes it easy for another to continue in an addiction or some form of self-destructive behavior. The most recognizable form of enablement is spousal alcoholism. An alcoholic spouse is enabled to continue their drinking because their partner fails to draw a firm line and say, "no more." The behavior is permitted to continue unchallenged because confrontation appears more costly than the continuation of the bad behavior. Thus one spouse becomes an "enabler" of the other.

Sometimes parents "enable" their children, stifling their entry into adulthood. Think of Paris Hilton.

Both parties caught in the enablement web are called "codependents." HealthAtoZ defines codependency as follows:

"A set of maladaptive, compulsive behaviors learned by family members to survive in an emotionally painful and stressful environment. These behaviors are passed on from generation to generation whether alcoholism is present or not."

In codependency, the chief motivation is the need to be needed. Sometimes this behavior is referred to as a "Messiah complex," a situation where the codependent sees himself as the only one who knows, understands, and is capable of helping the other person through his/her addiction.

In the last forty years, we Americans have created millions of addicts simply by opening the public treasury and funding a myriad of programs to "help" people. The most egregious is the federal program known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) (1935-1997). This program actually encouraged out-of-wedlock births by increasing financial aid to mothers for every child born without a father in the home. During the years when this program was active, out-of-wedlock births skyrocketed. Women were actually being rewarded for getting pregnant and giving birth, resulting in the catastrophic destruction of the family unit in lower income communities.

Thus, our federal government became the classic enabler. By funding out-of-wedlock births, our wise leaders in Washington took away the incentive for the unwed mother to improve her lot in life. Generations became trapped in an endless cycle of helplessness and addiction to government largesse. Such a dependency binds the addict to their enabler. And the enabler feels good about themselves because without them, the addict would be without hope.

Government largesse leads to socialism. There are different kinds of socialists. Some are actually Marxists, lusting for power and control over the masses. They are kingdom builders, where they are king, and everyone else is a subject. These kinds of socialists are essentially evil. They mask their evil in nice sounding words and phrases like "universal health care." In this example, all the Marxist is really after is the complete control of the health industry. Substitute any industry you want. The result is the same.

Other socialists are genuine and sincere, actually believing that the best way for a country to be run is for the civil government to control the economy's means of production and distribution. These socialists naïvely believe that things are actually run better from the top down, rather than from the bottom up. One needs only look at the federal and state response to Hurricane Katrina to realize what an absolutely fallacious concept such thinking represents.

So we come to our current day. Millions of illegals have entered our country. And many of our leaders see them purely as opportunities, not as people. Allow me to explain.

The defeat of the immigration bill created some strange bedfellows. Conservatives (and libertarians) on the right, who thought the bill too wide open, were joined in opposition by liberals on the left (sincere socialists) who thought the bill not open enough. Meanwhile those in favor of the bill consisted of country club Republicans funded by the global business community in a quest for cheap labor, and Democrats (Marxists seeking to strengthen their political power) who saw the mass of illegals as future Democratic voters.

I believe that I can say with a good measure of confidence that the only healthy thinking people out of these four groups, are the conservatives (and libertarians), who want power and control returned to the people. We seek an environment and an economy where every person is both responsible and accountable for their own actions and behaviors. In other words, we treasure freedom above all other political virtues.

The other three groups are codependent enablers. They would sacrifice our freedom on their own respective altars.

• The sincere socialists would sacrifice our American freedom at the altar of their own "Messiah complex." Their self worth and reason for being is found through seeing themselves as the savior of the underprivileged and oppressed. They are codependent upon the oppressed for their existence. Think Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
• The country club Republicans and globalist business leaders would sacrifice our American freedom at the altar of the bottom line. All that matters to them is wealth. They are codependent upon cheap labor, much like Southern plantation owners and their Northern, business counterparts, depended upon slave labor for picking cotton and tobacco. Think of Microsoft and other American technology companies.
• The Marxists would sacrifice our American freedom at the altar of their own grab for selfish power and control. They are codependent upon the masses. Think of Venezuala's Hugo Chavez.

A final word on the "Messiah complex." Emma Lazarus is known for her powerful words, engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. The most well known phrases are as follows:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."

But earlier in her epic poem, Colossus, Lazarus employs the phrase, "Mother of Exiles." Throughout the generations, America has been a "Mother of Exiles." Consider the primary role of a "mother." Is it not to raise her children into adulthood, to train and prepare them to stand on their own, and make their own way in the world?

Since our gates first opened, America has generally been a good "mother" to her immigrant children. But not so anymore. In the last forty years, with the massive growth of our federal government and its commensurate programs, America has become a bloated, overbearing, controlling, b**** of a woman. She longs to keep us at her breast, and in the cradle, until we go to the grave. Many of us have already become selfish, spoiled little Paris Hiltons, living under a mindset of entitlement, never growing up.

Today, America suffers from its own form of the "Messiah complex." The flood of illegals into our country, and the various, selfish reasons for not shutting off the spigot noted above, speaks of a gross misinterpretation of our role in the world.

Puritan John Winthrop saw the first settlement of his followers in New England as a "city on a hill." Ronald Reagan and others through the years, have referred to Winthrop's words, actually originating with Christ, as an axiom defining America's part on the world scene.

No city can absorb all of the world's "wretched refuse." Nor can any nation. Our job as Americans is not to become enablers, not to open wide the gates to our city, but rather to shine the light of freedom as an inspiration to others.

There are six billion people in the world. We have no obligation to adopt them. Nor do we have an obligation to adopt the millions from just south of our border. Their governments are more dysfunctional than ours—much more. And they bring with them little understanding of the principles of freedom and self-government.

America is not the world's savior. That role belongs only to Jesus Christ.