Russia is Ruled by Men Inured to Death Who Grew Up in the USSR

 Emeritus Professor R. J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii estimates that the Soviet Empire murdered about 62 million people between 1917 and 1987.  Putin and the Oligarchs of Russia grew up in the Soviet Union environment.  To them, the murder of people to support the power of those who rule the country is the ingrained method of ruling.  Murder is the primary tool of a strong ruler.  Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and now Putin have all utilized this tool with devotion.  The vast regions of the Russian Federation would not have such a low population density were those 62 million people to have survived and thrived and multiplied.

The West needs to understand this, though it seems very incomprehensible.  Ukrainians certainly have greatly suffered from this in the past and are doing so once again.  One day the Russians will surely fall victim to an expanding Red China eager to wrest the Asian lands of an underpopulated Russia from it as well.  Russia has lost an incredible sum of human talent and will lose its Empire as a result.  Time is heavily against Russia.

Government Size is Beyond Manageability

The size of government is far beyond a manageable size.  Government in the United States of America is too big and fails constantly.  Government at the local, state, and federal levels just keeps on growing and growing.  It does not have a going problem, it has a growing problem.

The present Obama and Pelosi socialist federal government is particularly eager to grow.  The House of Socialist Representatives just passed an awful bill designed to take over the medical services business in its entirety.  The scale of the new bureaucracies being set up, the extent of the new taxes, the cruel and unusual punishments set up for those who disobey its health insurance edicts, the willingness to risk losing a majority in the House, and the explicit acknowledgments that the bill has many, many problems even by its supporters, make it clear that this is the essential step in gaining complete government control of medicine and of each and every individual's body and health.

The U.S. GDP in 2008 was $14.26 trillion.  Tax Freedom Day in 2009 has been estimated to be 29 May, by the Tax Foundation.  This is 40.8% of the year, so the tax and deficit sum of all U.S. governments is about 5.83 trillion.  This includes about half of all medical spending now, so the complete takeover of the medical field by government will add about half of one-sixth of the economy to government.  So this addition to government will bring it to about $7.01 trillion.  So, we will have central planning management of about half of the U.S. economy.

The Soviet Union did the experiment of trying to manage all of the U.S.S.R. economy.  That central planning experiment broke down utterly and completely in 1990 when that economy was about $1.99 trillion.  Despite many years of practice in central management of the economy, they failed at a mere $2 trillion.  We Americans may be better than the Soviets, at least for now as we coast along on the remains of our Capitalist competence, but are we really three and one-half times better at central planning than the Soviets?

The fact that our governments have not collapsed is a function of two things.  One, they have been supported by a larger private sector, which after the medical takeover will no longer be larger.  In fact, the additional incursions into energy use and production planned by our Obama-led central planners will leave the private sector smaller than the government sector.  Two, as the government becomes larger, we more and more lose the mores and work ethic of the Capitalist private sector, which is critical not just for the revenues and expanding wealth it can produce, but for its encouragement of morality and virtues.

Overly large government not only sucks up our property and income, but it also sucks up our independent spirit, our competence, and our willingness to work.  When government devours the private sector, its days are numbered.  Government is the natural servant to the People, but the People have no substance without their separate and private identities.  We are losing that.  To lose the Capitalist, individualistic private sector is to lose everything that gives us Americans an advantage over the Soviets.  Soon, we will be the Soviets and we will not be able to maintain a government centrally planning $7 trillion or more of economic activities.