Adolf Hitler: "In the Jewish people the will to self-sacrifice does not go beyond the individual's naked instinct of self-preservation...His [the Jew's] sense of sacrifice is only apparent...Here again the Jew is led by nothing but the naked egoism of the individual..."

Barack Obama: "I don't know when...they decided...to make a virtue out of selfishness."

Adolf Hitler hated Jews because he hated individualism. In his view, Jews were evil because they were individualists, and individualism is the greatest evil of all. To any control freak, the concept of individualism -- self-esteem, self-respect, self-responsibility -- is "selfishness."

Barack Obama is smarter than Hitler -- and potentially more dangerous, for that reason. He understands that individualism isn't a matter of race, religion or heritage. He understands that individualism resides within the consciousness -- the soul, if you will -- of the person. To somebody like Obama, or Adolf Hitler, it's the "selfish individual" who must be stopped, through moral condemnation and by the force of government. The purpose of government, to such rulers, is to crush the independent and productive individual. The individual threatens them. They fear and loathe the free man, and do all they can to stop him.

Hitler was more impatient than Obama. But he had precisely the same "ideal" in mind.

We're all taught that the entrepreneurs and inventors who lift everyone under capitalism and freedom are "robber barons." The implication is: They stole something. What did they steal? No answer is given. Instead, we're told to rely upon the least capable and honest among the population: Professional politicians. THEY are the ones to trust, we are told, when it comes to economic wealth production, security and growth. We're told to rely on those who are crafty and skillful at manipulating and redistributing while minimizing, denigrating or even destroying those who create that which is to be manipulated and redistributed. How smart is this?!

Earth to America: This makes no sense! Let me suggest a psychological explanation for the mindset of those who claim that great innovators in business and technology are "stealing." It's called psychological projection. Psychological projection refers to accusing another of what you, yourself, know you're guilty of -- but don't want to admit. I submit that many of those who denigrate or otherwise marginalize those who produce the wealth which makes the capitalist engine hum know, on some level, that the trillions of dollars taken out of the productive economy to flush down the toilet of the welfare-regulatory state is, in fact, unjust stealing. Instead of owning up to what they know they are doing, or advocating, they place the label on someone else. Projection is irrational but it's part of how many human beings operate, particularly those who are wrong about most things as today's liberal socialists are.

Theft is properly defined as taking, through force or deception, that which rightfully belongs to another. Socialists and liberals take from those who produce and give to those who cannot and will never produce what was taken -- and who insist that they are entitled to it, to boot. If American civilization as we have known it collapses, this will be what did it. If it rises again to newer and greater heights, it will only be because the people being stolen from finally said: Enough!