My friend, Arnold, is a millionaire. Our families took a trip together several years ago, traveling in his motor home. I marveled that something with a diesel engine could be more posh than most hotel rooms I’d stayed in.

This friend of mine made his money in business — he started a small company. After a few years, he sold it for 10 times his original investment. Not bad, making 10 times more than he had originally spent.

Hillary is a socialist who sells platitudes to the masses and national security to international Muslim leaders.

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To hire and fire employees, shuffle investments around like game pieces on a board, and to walk away on your own terms with an exponentially high return on your money — to some this sounds like the kind of game any greedy, ego-driven, adrenaline junkie would enjoy. But that’s business, though, right? Somebody succeeds, because they used and exploited somebody else, correct?

To hear Hillary Clinton’s views on how the economy works, you’d probably come away with that conclusion. Listening to the presidential debate this past Monday night, I cringed as she threw out one reductionist fallacy after another on any number of issues — especially regarding her gross mischaracterizations of business, the lot of American workers, and how the economy supposedly works.

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Within the first five minutes of the debate, Hillary piously intoned, “We need an economy that works for everyone, not just for those at the top.”

Think about that jab at “those at the top” — from someone whose husband is paid more per speech than most people make in a year. It was faux solidarity with the “little guy” from a woman whose corrupt Clinton Foundation amassed a quarter of a billion dollars in cash while she was serving as secretary of state.

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Talk about conflicts of interest, duplicity in words and actions, and the making of money off the backs of the American people.

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Our language barely has the adjectives strong enough to express everything negative that “the lady in red” represented Monday night. As I listened to Hillary denigrate capitalism in general — and the accomplishments of Donald Trump in particular — I was saddened.

I thought about my friend, Arnold, and how he made his millions. Arnold’s story is like that of hundreds of other people I have met in my 20-year journey in traveling this nation. By the way — you know that at least 60 percent of all jobs are created by small businesses, right? These small-business owners are the financial catalyst for much of our economy.

These providers of jobs for millions of people are oppressively taxed and regulated by the federal government. And yet Hillary is promising that if elected, she will tax and control them even more.

Hillary quickly brought out the leftist promise to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour (the net effect of which would further tether prime-of-life adults to entry-level jobs, not really creating sustainable “careers”). But did you catch this? Clinton also promised that companies would be required to engage in profit-sharing with employees. Even Barack Obama, on his most socialistic, anti-free-market economy day, never hinted at that.

Two speakers on the stage — which one is the workers’ friend?

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Now, such talk plays well with frustrated people at the lower end of the earning spectrum who are convinced that the “system” has limited their options. Democrats get a lot of mileage in making blanket promises of greater income, topped with a mentality that implies that “together, we can stick it to the man.” And for those who have never owned a business of any size, never had to make sure employees get paid every two weeks, and who are confused about where wealth comes from, Hillary’s criticisms of profit and American business sound appropriate.

But Hillary Clinton is a socialist who sells platitudes to the masses and national security to international Muslim leaders.

While I am convinced that Hillary Clinton knows that her script amounts to a diabolical lie, she is deeply wedded to this philosophy. After all, everyone’s soul is ultimately loyal to something. But heaven forbid that the “land of the free” irrevocably sell its soul to the doctrine of Hillary’s cult. Spiritually, socially, economically, politically — hers is a Kool-Aid from which we would not recover.

Here’s how jobs and wealth are created: through ingenuity, hard work, and risk. This brings us back to my friend, Arnold.

Contrary to Hillary’s sales pitch to the masses, a 10-fold gain like his didn’t involve the exploitation of anyone. Arnold took his retirement nest-egg of $200,000 and built a business around an idea he had for harvesting sod grass. Putting his own capital at risk, he and his wife began working some of the longest days of their lives at a time in which most of their peers would have been taking things easy.

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Putting everything into this new venture, they even lived out of a warehouse for over a year, working late, believing in their idea and themselves. And when they eventually sold the enterprise they had carefully nurtured, the valuation of the sod business was over $2 million. As they retired a second time, their hard work and risk not only provided them with a sizable return, but 14 people now had jobs. A new owner had a sustainable company to run and grow.

But for every story like this (and there are hundreds) — the success stories of countless other Americans will never be told because they will never happen. That’s because any shred of faith in themselves or belief in America was crushed by a suffocating message like the one intoned by Hillary on Monday night. The creativity and personal actualization of millions is squelched by the toxic philosophy of the Left — and that’s exactly how leaders like Hillary want it. Their voter base dare not be told that there is a way of escape.

We must choose on Nov. 8. And what a monumental choice this is.

Donald Trump’s performance Monday night had its strong moments, yet left many feeling that “the lawyer in red” got her message out more forcefully. Trump’s sincerity shined through, and while that was a positive, her sophistry often overshadowed his simplicity.

But understand — the conservative message (like America, and life itself, really) is simple. Say your prayers, work hard, do the right thing, and play by the rules. At the end of the day, God (not government) will “have your back,” and you’ll know that your own character and sweat kept the lights on and put food on the table. There’s no fall into an emotional black hole of blaming some elusive boogeyman for life’s struggles.

Trump, for all of his inelegant bluster, understands the liberating joy of self-reliance. Hillary, who repeats carefully scripted fiction with machine-like precision, needs the masses to need her. Such pathology is not how great nations of liberty and creativity are built. Abusive relationships and cults, maybe — but not thriving nations of prosperous people.

And so, we must choose. And what a monumental choice this is.

Dr. Alex McFarland is a religion and culture expert, national talk show host, speaker and author of 17 books, including “Stand Strong America.” He also serves as director for Christian Worldview and Apologetics at the Christian Worldview Center of North Greenville University in Greenville, South Carolina.