Do you want an echo, or do you want a choice? Would you like to participate in an election that meant something other than an additional inconvenience as a part of your morning commute? These are rhetorical questions for my five or six constant readers. For those not already convinced this election offered a stark and compelling contrast, Mother Jones just hit the Easy Button for you with their incomplete but controversial videotape of Mitt Romney claiming that 47% of America was dependent upon government. This election just became a choice of existential gravity. A or ~A. America or Amerika.

On the side of choosing A, we have Mitt Romney. He may not have ever intended to have to strap on the armor of American Exceptionalism and defend free enterprise and free thought, but that is where he finds himself. If this is treason, he took to the editorial page of USA Today to make the most of it.

The dreamers and the entrepreneurs, not government, built this economy, and they can once again make it strong. My course for the American economy will encourage private investment and personal freedom. Instead of creating a web of dependency, I will pursue policies that grow our economy and lift Americans out of poverty.

On the side of ~A, we have our current President, Barack Obama. As early as 1998, he went forth to make the government a bigger part of everybody’s life and a major determinant of whether the individual succeeded or failed. At Loyola University, he spoke the following.

“I think the trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources, and hence facilitate some redistribution, because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level, to make sure that everybody has a shot,” Obama says.

One example of how President Obama has used his first four years in office to redistribute involved his suspension of Food Stamp eligibility requirements in his 2009 Stimulus Act. This resulted in the number of Americans on Food Stamps doubling in two years. Details from a CRS Report follow below.

…the 1996 welfare reform law included a separate rule encouraging able-bodied adults without dependents to work by limiting the amount of time they could receive food stamps. President Obama suspended that rule when he signed his economic stimulus legislation into law, and the number of these adults on food stamps doubled, from 1.9 million in 2008 to 3.9 million in 2010,…

This cannot be sustained. Double this by the end of 2012, and almost 8M are getting EBT Cards. Then it becomes 16M. We can argue with the morality all we want. Mr. Logic and Mr. Math tell us the road we pave leads to hell, regardless of how you evaluate the intentions of the construction crew. There is no way our society can sustain the redistributive vision without a systemic, moral and societal collapse. Brett Stevens of Amerika.org explains it in simple terms.

The point is that there are two competing worldviews here. The right wants the best to rise based on their knowledge and successful results in reality. The left wants a social club where no one rises and no one falls, but everyone is employed thanks to having the right opinions. There is no compromise. The two are incompatible.

As Redstate’s Ben Howe asked, which path do you choose? Choose wisely. Choose A. Choose free markets over redistribution. Mitt Romney 2012. That is all.