The 20th century was certainly America’s greatest age - the first half, at least. The bitter and divisive Reconstruction Era of the 1870s and 1880s transitioned into a more or less cohesive national perspective on America’s place in the world by 1900. The Spanish American war, concluded successfully just two years earlier, gave American military leaders confidence in their abilities to wage war on a global scale. And so, when World War I erupted, president Woodrow Wilson wasn’t intimidated by Germany’s U-boat attacks and quickly mobilized a huge army that effectively won the war in Europe and elsewhere. World War II was a repeat performance on a larger scale. America emerged from WWII as a superpower. The armed forces executed their missions superbly. But it was the home front that made overwhelming victory possible - the manufacturing might of America’s relatively new steel and automotive industries, as well as shipbuilders and munition makers, was the key strategic factor. It wasn’t the Roosevelt administration or government bureucrats who were responsible for developing this overwhelming advantage. It was America’s entrepreneurs and business leaders. For example, under direct Army supervision, aircraft makers were turning out one B-17 bomber every four days. Under direct Ford Motor Company’s supervision, the output was increased to one B-17 bomber every four hours. America didn’t become a superpower on just the courage and dedication of its military personnel. Our military entered combat with more armor, more firepower, more munitions, more fuel, more food and more technology than any other armed forces on land, sea or in the air. It’s a position of strength we’ve never relinquished.

After WWII, the former Russian Empire, run by Josef Stalin and his thugs, emerged as an unintentional and adversarial superpower. They were a brutish, unsophisticated and xenophobic bunch. Soviet Russia was a superpower only in a military sense, and even that was questionable. Much of the government’s resources were consumed in keeping their own citizens under control. Russia’s non-military economy was a tiny fraction of even a war-ravaged Europe, much less that of the United States. In the end, Soviet Russia collapsed not because it couldn’t maintain an iron grip on its subjects and not because it couldn’t compete technologically with US weapons systems. It collapsed because America could out-manufacture and out-spend the Russians 10 to 1 and they couldn’t keep up.

Ronald Reagan realized this when he was developing his political platform in the late 1960s. America’s manufacturing muscle was our de facto arsenal of democracy. Not only did we have the latest and best weapons systems, we had more of everything than anyone else. Once he was elected President, Reagan put his strategy into action. Without firing a shot, Ronald Reagan was able to destroy Russian rule over its conquered neighbors by simply outspending the Soviets on every level. They couldn’t keep up. And once their economy  started to crumble, the political machinery unraveled as well. Soviet Russia was unable to keep an iron grip on its conquests. Millions of Belorus, Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Kazakhs, Georgians, Armenians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Finns, Prussians, Ossetians, Turkmen, Azerbaijani, Tartars, Uzbecks and a dozen more ethnic groups now had a chance at freedom and self-determination.

Our manufacturing sector was responsible for ending the Cold War. Unfortunately, that manufacturing sector has been under attack for the last two decades. Poorly considered free trade policies, unscrupulous trading partners like Japan, India and China, the raping of corporate assets by trial lawyers, unrelenting pressure from environmental groups and a massive expansion of government have combined to deal a mortal blow to domestic manufacturing. Our own government has carried on a relentless assault, literally driving manufacturers out of business, some of whom were critical to national security. For example, our government drove the last domestic manufacturer of hand grenade detonators out of business by allowing non-US companies to bid on US military contracts. The only company in the world that can supply those detonators is located in Switzerland. When the US invaded Iraq, the owners of that private company refused to supply grenade detonators to the US and any other country that entered the war as part of the coalition. This is only the tip of the iceberg. No one knows how many mission-critical parts and pieces are manufactured in countries that aren’t particularly concerned with our national security. And no one within the government is talking.

From a military and national security perspective, it’s absolutely stupid to put American companies out of business and outsource critical technical components to China, Japan, India or just about anywhere but here. The US military relies heavily on foreign sources of microchips, memory and logic controllers. It is unbelievably easy to compromise weapons and communications systems with a little bit of re-engineering that’s almost impossible to detect. This is not paranoia. The China government sanctions and funds daily cyber attacks on Department of Defense servers from so-called ‘military academies’ and institutes within China. And, China has already leapfrogged American Internet technology by embracing TCP/IP and mobile protocols at least two generations ahead of our current versions.

From an economic stability perspective, it’s absolutely stupid to beggar our skilled and unskilled manufacturing workers by pitting them against workers in other countries who live and work in unbearable conditions. Unemployed Americans in the hundreds of thousands create economic instability and political problems. In their desperation, they fall prey to demagogues and panderers who promise them hope and handouts in exchange for their votes. If the government is going to ‘invest’ in America, the first place to make that investment is in revitalizing the manufacturing sector, and specifically, the repatriation of defense manufacturing. Every nut, bolt and screw should be made in America, not because it’s a trade protectionist urge, but because it truly protects the country to do so. Given the astounding level of waste, greed, corruption and inefficiency in government, rebuilding our domestic manufacturing capability is a low-cost, high-return investment.

There is a group of people out there that all Americans should get to know a lot better. They’re an adventurous bunch, putting up their own hard-earned money to fund the dream of some starry-eyed entrepreneur. They’re the ones who stack their nickels one on top the other as they work 12-14 hours a day running a construction company, a bakery, a car dealership. Yes, these men and women may be small business owners, but they’re much, much more than that — they’re capitalists. Not every small business owner is a capitalist, or even an investor. Most are too busy and too frazzled just trying to make ends meet. No, these capitalists come from a very small, elite group. They are the successful small business owners. The ones who have managed to become financially independent, and have the time and money to help others achieve success.

Help? Since when do capitalists help anyone except themselves? But that’s exactly what this rare breed does. They know what it’s like to start a business and bootstrap yourself to prosperity with hard work and sheer determination. And so, they offer start-up capital, advice and business connections to bring an idea to life. The risks are enormous and the rewards a long way off. And yet, they plunge ahead. This is how real capitalism works. Individual investors, groups of investors or a network put up the seed money for a new business we’ll be reading about five years from now. Are they expecting a return on that investment? Of course, they are. Would they be better off putting that money in a safer place, like a government bond? Yes, but they wouldn’t be happy. You see, they’re risk junkies. After a lifetime of taking risks in their own business and with their own livelihood, they’ve made a little bit of money. And, they can’t help but put that money to work in the most creative, dynamic way they know - by helping start another business.

Some of these new business concepts are incredibly ambitious - early detection of Alzheimer’s, or maybe a low-cost phone system for developing countries; ground-breaking clean energy technology or incredible new personal security devices. Many of these ideas start out small, in the hands of one or two visionaries and the risk junkies who back them. And, many of them fail for reasons too numerous to list, much less analyze. Suffice it to say that the road to mega-success is strewn with roadkill, much of it small investors who bet the farm on a big idea. Curiously, when the risk junkies win, they’re even more generous than they were before. And when they lose, they don’t complain, they don’t whine. They roll up their sleeves and work even harder to rebuild their investment capital.

What does our government do for the people behind the entrepreneur, the people without whom the entrepreneur would be nothing but big talk? Well, actually nothing. Our government makes it ever more difficult to save money. Our government’s progressive tax scheme effectively targets successful small business owners and Congress has made sure to eliminate just about every perk and advantage to owning and operating a small business. The Democrats in particular have made wealth accumulation nearly impossible. And what these socialists don’t understand is that many successful small business owners plow that hard-earned, heavily-taxed capital right back into another business. They invest. They mentor. They get involved. These are people driven to succeed. And what’s appalling is that the parasites hitch their wagons to these incredibly energetic people and go for a free ride.

The risk junkies aren’t stupid. They understand that they’re being unfairly exploited because they have this insatiable desire to succeed. They also know America is the only place on the planet were anyone with drive and ambition can succeed regardless of family connections, political or religious affiliation, tribal or caste distinctions or miles of bureaucratic red tape. And so, this group soldiers on. But at some point, when the odds are overwhelmingly against them, when they are brutalized for just trying to get ahead, this special group of investors - the risk junkies, will disappear. And so will our way of life.