They want you to be scared of economic freedom so they can take it away from you.

That is the thought that is going through my head when I think about what the Democrats are doing in response to the credit crisis. Instead of analyzing the real reasons for the crisis, they instead blame it on “greed,” lack of regulation, and a general abuse of economic freedom.

Actually, the crisis is a result of the exact opposite phenomenon: interference by the government in the market. There are three main causes of the current mess. One cause is laws passed to force banks to lend money to minorities who had previously been denied credit due to poor credit histories. Another is the bullying of groups like ACORN to force banks to do the same. And the third cause was the Federal Reserve’s imprudent lowering of interest rates and devaluation of the dollar.

The first two causes were examples of political correctness run amok. Because there was indeed a trend of minorities qualifying less frequently for credit, the powers that be decided that it was due to racism and through various means, began forcing banks to lend to risky minority clients, or else.

ACORN and other advocacy groups joined in the feeding frenzy and threatened banks with lawsuits, protests, and general obstructionism if they didn’t ramp up their minority lending.

What was forgotten is that the reason minorities qualified less often was due to real economic disadvantage. But instead of creating policies that would directly address that core issue by improving minorities’ economic health, our government did what it typically does and targeted the symptom instead of the cause.

This same dynamic can be seen when minorities are admitted into college with inferior credentials. Instead of improving their primary and secondary education so they can qualify on their own, government and universities leapfrog the core issue and institute feel-good policies that make them look like they really care for minorities.

I digress. The government exacerbated this problem though its quasi-private mortgage enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. FM/FM helped to remove, or give the appearance of removing, the risk of making sub-prime loans by buying the mortgages and essentially underwriting the risk. They then sold these risky mortgages as mortgage-backed securities to the markets, which bought them up, figuring FM/FM was backed by the government and therefore rock solid.

When Republicans began raising concerns about FM/FM’s shenanigans, guessed what the Democrats did? They accused the critics of racism and of trying to “lynch” the head of Fannie Mae.

In other words, when Republicans stepped in to try and regulate the risky and reckless behavior of the FM/FM, which is exactly what mindless critics like Obama are demanding should have been done, they were slapped down and threatened with the over-used, ever-present blunt instrument of the racist accusation.

So, FM/FM was allowed to go on its merry way, flaunting normal rules of financial responsibility in their quest to fulfill a political and racial agenda.

And let’s not forget that the biggest recipient of FM/FM political donations were the very politicians in charge of their oversight: Sen. Christopher Dodd, Rep. Barnie Frank, and, in third place in terms of donation amounts, Sen. Barack Obama.

And now the same people who refused to address the problem are telling us that the cause is economic freedom, and are advocating more government oversight and regulation of the economy as the solution.

Irony is not the word for this type of cynical manipulation. The fact that so many Americans are falling for it and thinking the Democrats are indeed the salvation saddens me profoundly. I sense that my country, our country, is being lead down the road of ruin by people who created a crisis in order to use it to take away our economic — and therefore basic — freedoms.

Democracy is only so good as the virtues and values of its citizenry. When those things have been degraded by decades of junk culture and a systematic indoctrination of entitlementarianism (my word for the culture of expected entitlements), this is what we get. Welcome to the brave new world.

Trey Hoffman

Peachtree City, Ga.