CBS’s 60 Minutes aired an interview with President Obama Sunday night, but they edited out a most interesting portion. Near the end of the interview, he was asked how his presidency stacked up to previous presidents. His response? He concluded that only three other presidents in American history had done more for the country in both domestic and foreign policy than he had. First of all, that’s a lot of hubris—but I’m kind of used to that in this man.

The next question is who were the three he said had done more. One was Lincoln. I certainly agree with that. The other two were FDR and LBJ. Naming them as having done more for the country than any other presidents provides insight into the mind of the current chief executive. Just what did FDR and LBJ do that this president admires so much? Their main claim to fame [infamy?] is their direct assault on the Constitution. FDR used the Great Depression to alter the role of government dramatically in the mid-20th century; LBJ took FDR’s ideas and put them on steroids.

So what has Obama done to be classified as one of the greatest of all presidents in his own mind? He’s taken what FDR and LBJ have done and pushed their ideas over the edge into uncharted territory. His is the single biggest attempt to transform this nation into the nanny state that others have only dreamed about. Welcome to the United States of Europe, Obama’s perfect world.

What does he claim to have accomplished? Universal healthcare that will ensure low costs and quality treatment? Sure, for those the government deems worth saving. A trillion dollar stimulus that has put the country on the right track and invigorated the economy? Is that why we’ve had such wonderful employment and productivity numbers for the past three years?

Let’s allow the cartoonists to carry the message the rest of the way today as they illustrate the joys of living under the Obama regime:

But don’t worry, he’s slowing down the pace:

We’ve had forty-four presidents in our history. In my judgment, as a professional historian, I offer a different opinion on Obama’s ranking in that list. How does forty-fourth sound to you?

Labor Day 2011. Is this really something I want to celebrate? Let me begin Biblically with a passage that speaks to the concept of work and wealth creation. It’s from Deuteronomy 8:16-18:

In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end. Otherwise, you may say in your heart, “My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.” But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm the covenant which He swore to your fathers.

What does this passage say to me? First, God is our provider. Second, whenever we take credit ourselves for building up wealth, we are forgetting who gave us the abilities we possess. Third, God is not opposed to wealth creation, to working hard to provide for ourselves and our families; He just wants us to do so with the right attitude of gratitude for His blessings.

This is a good starting place. No matter how wealthy one becomes, it means nothing in the Lord’s eyes if that person does not acknowledge Him. No matter how diligent a worker one may be, again it means nothing if it isn’t intertwined with an appreciation of the gifts and abilities provided by Him.

This particular day, Labor Day, is supposed to honor the average worker. A couple things need to be understood first. There should be no dichotomy created between those who labor as entrepreneurs and executives, on the one hand, and those who perform what are called blue-collar jobs. Everyone works. There is no particular dignity attached to either management or “labor.” Anyone who carries out his job with gratitude, and who sees it as a calling from God, is honored by Him. There is no reason to assign greater honor to those in blue-collar positions.

Yet Labor Day seeks to do that. Why? Well, this won’t go over well with some, but I’ll venture here anyway. The roots of the holiday stem from a socialist agenda that pits management against workers. Throughout labor history, socialism and communism have played a significant role. And the reason they were able to make inroads into the movement is that some in management made such poor decisions that they, in effect, pushed people toward the socialist solution.

This history of labor unions is spotty at best. We could start with the Haymarket riots that erupted in Chicago in 1886. A strike led to violence in which policemen were killed. Then there was the Homestead Strike in 1892 against one of Andrew Carnegie’s steel plants. It turned into a pitched battle where strikebreakers were attacked and killed. Two years later, the Pullman Strike against the railroads also got out of control. The workers at the Pullman factory had legitimate grievances, but when federal troops arrived to protect the running of the trains for mail service, again riots ensued. Railcars were tipped over; buildings were set on fire; people were killed in the melee. It took great force to stem the violent tide.

During the Great Depression, FDR courted union favor and put the government on their side. FDR’s New Deal was very anti-business, and government encroached on areas where it had never been before. Result? The Great Depression never really went away until after WWII. Some analysts say that real prosperity didn’t return until the 1950s. Yet the unions had it good. Their power grew exponentially. Union leadership became part of the privileged class, not much different than highly paid executives.

Union membership has decreased dramatically in the past few decades. Union leaders fear their loss of power. The Obama administration has given them new life. Organizations such as the SEIU have figured prominently in administration circles. The latest battleground was Wisconsin where a new Republican governor and Republican-controlled legislature, facing imminent financial disaster, largely due to state expenses for union benefits, passed a law that cut back on union power in negotiating. Remember the scene? Protesters taking over the Capitol? Thugs menacing the families of legislators? Democrat politicians fleeing the state to try to stop the new law from being passed? The trashing of the Capitol building itself, which cost quite a bit to repair?

They lost anyway. Hopefully, this is an indication that their day has gone. By the way, that hated law has resulted in jobs being saved. Have you heard much about that from the mainstream media? I thought not.

Radicalism is alive and well in America. This past May Day, the SEIU coordinated a protest with other organizations of like mind. Which ones? Here are some pictures from that protest:

Posters honoring Vladimir Lenin and Che Guevara don’t inspire me.

On this Labor Day, let’s honor genuine, honest labor, whether it is classified as blue-collar, white-collar, or any other type of collar you prefer. Let’s remember that it is God who gives us the ability to make wealth, and let’s labor with gratitude for His provision. Above all, let’s do all that we do for His glory.

We create our own problems. Case in point: Social Security. The original intent was to ensure solvency for those who could no longer work because of age, disability, or loss of a husband. Worthy intention, to be sure. But I’m always reminded of a book I read once with the title Beyond Good Intentions. The thesis of the book was that good intentions do not necessarily lead to good policies. In fact, quite often the policies undermine the original intent. That’s what’s happening with Social Security.

FDR signed this into law back in 1935. It was one of a multitude of programs in the New Deal that had no basis in constitutional authority. That was mistake number one. It was built on the philosophy that the private sector could be milked to create a welfare state. Mistake number two. It didn’t take into account longer life spans in the future [knowing the future is usually rather difficult, don't you think?] and the mushrooming number of individuals who would one day be claiming the benefit. Mistake number three.

What began as a program where one recipient was funded by approximately thirty people paying into the system inexorably degenerated into a bankrupt debacle. For the first time, this past year, more funds were going out of the system than were coming in. Needless to say, this can’t go on forever. But few are the politicians who wish to touch this “third rail” of American politics—they risk losing their political lives.

President Bush tried to make a minor modification to Social Security by proposing that individuals should be able to designate a small amount of their “contribution” [how's that for a euphemism---forced to make a contribution---I thought contributions were voluntary] into some stock, if they chose to do so. The third rail struck again. Cries of “you’re taking away our Social Security” rent the air.

Let me be clear: since the government made the promise, no matter how unconstitutional it was, it has to fulfill the promise. We have poured our “contributions” into this monstrosity all our lives, so we should get some of it back. I learned, though, how the system worked when my dad died in 2004. While he was still alive, both he and my mom were receiving Social Security checks. After he died, she lost hers, since she was only allowed the larger of the two.

That would never happen if the money were truly yours. Don’t believe the lie that you have a trust fund set aside just for you.

Something has to change; we are at the breaking point. But instead of tackling the problem at its root, we settle for tinkering with the edges of it.

Now is the time for political courage. Who will show the way?

I don’t think there’s really any disagreement about how pessimistic the majority of Americans are about the future. Currently, all the polls reveal that pessimism.  As I survey the scene—the spiritual/moral, political, and cultural aspects [what does that leave?]—I have grave concerns as well. I plan to expound on those concerns in tomorrow’s post. But for now, I’d like to offer a historian’s perspective.

Since I teach American history, I have a more in-depth knowledge of what has transpired previously. I can imagine myself transported back into earlier eras and think about how I might have felt about current events at those times. Bad moral climates, disunity, and devastating government policies have cropped up throughout our history.

If my life had spanned the late colonial and revolutionary era, for instance, I would probably have been quite distressed over the state of affairs. The colonies had declared independence, and it was a thrilling prospect, but the progress of the war was anything but thrilling. George Washington was often near despair over the inability of the Congress to pay his troops or provide for their needs. Thousands deserted during events such as Valley Forge. There was talk of meekly bowing to the British because all hopes for the future now appeared to be delusional. Even after achieving independence, the new states didn’t seem to want to work together; the entire national governmental structure was on the verge of collapse.

If I had experienced the 1790s, I would have been shocked by the vitriol that spewed forth daily in the newspapers, particularly those who accused Washington of wanting to set himself up as king. The French Revolution, which took place at that time, was one of the bloodiest episodes in all of history, and many in America were hailing it as a magnificant development. I would begin to question the wisdom of the electorate and wonder if this fledgling country could survive its first decade after the Constitution.

Later, during the War of 1812, our military defenses were so disorganized that the British actually burned Washington, DC, including the president’s house and the Capitol. Their troops were ravaging the countryside, destroying everything in their path without any effective countermeasures. What a low point for a nation.

Then there’s the Civil War and the decade that led to it. Passions were so heated in Congress that representatives started bringing their weapons with them into the House and Senate for protection. Slavery, by this time, had become entrenched. The Founding Fathers had hoped to eliminate it, but now the South was proclaiming it to be a positive good from God. The nation split; more than 620,000 died in the war that followed, the highest tally for any American war. Bitterness remained for years afterward [you can still see its remnants today].

The Progressive Movement, after the turn of the twentieth century, introduced more government involvement in people’s lives and decided that the Constitution was an outdated document that had to be reinterpreted. Woodrow Wilson, a racist and a eugenicist, took the presidency. The eugenics movement sought to limit who could have children; only the “best” should reproduce. This movement formed the cornerstone of Nazi policies in Germany later.

Wilson moved the country down the path that led to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s—the fulfillment of progressive dreams as the government took charge of getting the nation out of the Great Depression. FDR’s policies were so dismally foolish that the Depression continued until WWII. If I had lived during those decades, I would have mourned the loss of Biblical principles and constitutional limitations. The reigning ideology tossed out the concept of the rule of law. Now, anything could happen.

I did live during the 1960s and 1970s. It was not pleasant. First was LBJ’s Great Society, which could be described as the New Deal on steroids, followed by the rancor of the Vietnam War, then Nixon’s Watergate fiasco, and finally, the debilitated presidencies of Ford and Carter. The economy was in the tank, the worst since the Great Depression. Along the way, we also concluded that innocent children in the womb could be murdered.

I say all of this to make this point: there have always been bad times. Quite often, those who believe in Biblical morality and constitutionalism have come to the edge of despair. Yet we are still here. There is still hope to turn things around. We survived the disunity of the Revolution and the Civil War. We overcame the disgrace of the burning of the nation’s capital. Calvin Coolidge reversed Woodrow Wilson’s policies and Jimmy Carter brought forth Ronald Reagan.

Will the disaster that is the Obama administration become a footnote in our history or have we turned a corner and lost our way forever? That page in our history has yet to be written. We are the ones who will write it. If we take our responsibility seriously, hope remains.

Last week, the president attempted to explain why the economy hasn’t recovered yet. First of all, that’s interesting, simply because the summer of 2010 was officially dubbed “Recovery Summer.” Hmm, what happened to that?

Obama said there are headwinds against that recovery, and then went on to blame gas prices and problems in other parts of the world—anything but his own policies.

That phrase—bumps on the road to recovery—gave the cartoonists a lot to work with:

I didn’t need to see how his policies were going to work; I already knew ahead of time that they wouldn’t because they violate sound economic principles. We are now three years into a recession that has the highest unemployment since the Great Depression, and there is no genuine recovery in sight. The reason? Obama’s policies are burying us deeper into it, in the same way FDR’s policies did in the 1930s. The New Deal never brought prosperity because it couldn’t; the Obama Raw Deal won’t do it either.

As a nation, we are about to go bankrupt, yet he wants to continue spending, both on the domestic side and on foreign aid:

We also want to bail out Egypt and send more billions. A rather fascinating poll of Egyptians, however, shows that the majority over there don’t want our money. Let’s grant them their wish.

All of this should sink any chance for Obama’s reelection. He’s going to need a lot of help in other ways:

This is the most wonderful opportunity the Republicans have had in a long time. Throwing Obama out of office in 2012 should be a slam dunk. Yet there is the possibility they could blow it anyway. How? By nominating the wrong person to challenge the Obama agenda.

Wake up, Republicans.

Back in the fall of 1981, Ronald Reagan had to deal with a public-sector strike threat. The union threatening the strike was PATCO, which represented the air traffic controllers. I’m sure they had some legitimate complaints, but they sought to risk the safety of all air travel passengers by their action. Reagan was firm with that government union, reminding the members that they had taken a pledge when they were hired not to strike. Reagan’s position was that no public-sector union had the right to play with people’s lives in that manner. Consequently, he warned them that anyone who did not report to work within 48 hours would be fired.

They didn’t believe him. They didn’t report for work. He fired 11,400 air traffic controllers. For President Reagan, it was a matter of the rule of law. It had to be upheld or we would plunge into chaos.

Yes, it took some scrambling to cover the missing controllers and to train new ones, but the skies remained safe regardless.

One interesting commentary on Reagan’s decision was that his firing of those workers was a powerful foreign policy move. Why foreign policy? The Soviets were watching, and they were learning just who this new president was and that he was a man of his word who would take action when necessary. They had to be careful in their dealings with him.

Reagan’s stand was the same as FDR’s, who had famously said there should be no public-sector unions with the right to strike. The liberal said this first, the conservative much later.

The Wisconsin public-sector unions have confused a right with a privilege. They were allowed certain privileges—wisely or not—and they have concluded they are now “rights.” They have recently been given a stiff dose of reality.

In fact, if anyone might have a better claim for going on strike, I submit it is a different group:

As Margaret Thatcher famously quipped [or at least a paraphrase of a comment she made], “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

The supply is not unlimited. Public-sector unions need to come to that stark realization.

The Wisconsin fiasco has brought the issue of unions to the forefront. Public sector unions are the focus of what’s taking place in Wisconsin at the moment, but traditional unions have shown up to swell the ranks of protesters.

From some of my remarks about this situation, some readers may think I grew up in a mansion and in a family that got rich through business. Hardly. Both of my parents were members of unions where they worked in their blue-collar jobs. They both voted Democrat because that party was the union party. I do remember, though, a conversation with my dad toward the end of his working days where he questioned the wisdom of his union’s leaders. He was particularly perturbed with what he perceived to be their hotheadedness and impulsiveness to want to strike.

Theoretically, I understand the desire for unions. Since sin/selfishness is not the peculiar possession of one segment of the population, and since as a historian I know that abuses did exist in some industries, I can see why the factory workers wanted to band together to ensure fair treatment. That rationale works fine in theory.

Reality, though, is rather different. Unions have become, in many cases, their own power centers, often with more clout than the management of a company. Their propensity for strikes can lead to considerable damage to a company’s success. The irony here of course is that if the company fails, the workers fail as well.

Instead of being primarily a voice for the workers, too often unions have become adversaries, practically seeking an argument with management. They developed an us-versus-them mentality that does no good for either side.

As their power grew, they demanded that no one be allowed to work at their plants without joining the union. They also used union dues to fund political activities—activities that might be at odds with what many of the members actually support. Yet they won’t allow that portion of the dues to be withheld if someone does disagree with how the money is being used. Add to that the fact that the leaders of the unions have become moguls in their own right, far removed at times from the rank and file in their lifestyle.

In short, the union utopia envisioned by many has become a maltopia [I may have just coined a term].

What I’ve talked about thus far is private-sector unions. For a long time, no one, not even the liberal saint Franklin Roosevelt, believed that public-sector employees should be unionized. Above all, they should not be allowed to enter into collective bargaining. Their jobs in the government, whether federal or state, were deemed too important to allow strikes. If policemen, firefighters, or those who held sensitive positions in public safety could strike, it could lead to massive breakdowns in public order and lead to tragedies.

Even today, federal government employees do not have any privilege of collective bargaining. Their unions are not allowed this for the reason cited above. No one has any such “right.” Any time it might be allowed, it is a privilege, not a right, and allowing it in the first place was a mistake that has led to what is happening right now as protesters occupy the Wisconsin capitol, and do their best imitation of 1960s college students–hardly the best example of maturity. Their attitudes are pretty easy to lampoon:

Some have tried to compare their “plight” with the protesters in the Middle East. That comparison doesn’t work for me:

The media naturally come to the aid of the unions and do their best to depict this as a David vs. Goliath episode. Well, that’s partially correct, only you have to reverse the images being presented to get at the truth:

It’s time for the foolishness in Wisconsin to come to an end before someone is seriously injured or killed by the mob infesting the capitol building. It’s time for law and order to be restored. Above all, it’s time for Democrat senators in the state to act like grownups, take their seats, and allow the machinery of government to operate as it was intended.