When you have normally rational, highly educated thinking people begin to speculate about the demise of our great nation, average Americans ought to start paying attention because it means something is terribly wrong.
Just this week conservative writer and scholar Thomas Sowell warned that the Obama regime has so regularly violated the letter and spirit of the Constitution that the likelihood of future administrations following suit – and expanding such violations – is dangerously great. He wrote of the American equivalents of the “useful idiots” referenced by Vladimir Lenin in the heady days when he was implementing authoritarian communism in the former Soviet Union.
After already commandeering the banking and automobile industries – in the name easing crises – Sowell worried that the recent White House shakedown of BP, in pressuring a private company to pony up $20 billion that some administration aide can distribute as he or she sees fit, was just a prelude to further abuses of power in the years ahead. Not that BP shouldn’t be held liable, Sowell argued, but he points out – correctly – that the Constitution grants no power to the federal government to confiscate a private company’s resources “without due process of law.” BP’s liabilities should be decided by a court, as well as how damages will be paid out – not some White House hack with an agenda.
A few months ago commentator, writer and former presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan openly hypothesized that, under current governmental abuses, America could not survive. And fellow scholar and economist Walter Williams posited that our differences had grown so sharp and the political chasm so wide that perhaps it was time for American to peacefully divorce – with the political right and left dividing simply agreeing to disagree and parting ways.
Whether you agree politically with these men or not, none of them are prone to excitable hyperbole. They are very obviously concerned about the direction our country is headed and, indeed, whether or not our republic will even survive.
Whether we are battling ourselves over the recent Gulf oil spill and whether or not we should continue to exploit our own resources versus depending on other volatile nations for our energy needs; over gays in the military; over what to do about illegal immigration; over who is most at fault for the recent financial meltdown; over the massive new healthcare entitlement; over the widening budget deficit; over what does and does not constitute marriage; over God in our schools and in public; over the right to keep and bear arms anywhere and everywhere; or over half-dozen other issues – it is painfully obvious that our nation hasn’t been this divided, this politically crippled, and this financially strapped perhaps in our history – the notable exception being the time of the Civil War.
Who is at fault is less important than what we are to do about our issues and problems. Can they really be solved? It’s doubtful at this point.
Some say the art of politics centers around the art of compromise but too many of us feel we have compromised too much already and, frankly, we are tired of compromising – because each time we do, we also compromise our principles, our Constitution and our republic.
Let’s look at just the last two presidents, since they have elicited the sharpest responses from both sides of the political fence.
Backers of George W. Bush would deny this, but Obama supporters believe he was the most constitutionally compromising president in U.S. history. Obama supporters would deny this, but Bush supporters believe Obama fits that bill. The fact is both of them have had their extra-constitutional moments, but when you look at motivation – if there needs to be any justification for ignoring constitutional mandates – clearly the pendulum swings against Obama and his socialistic thinking and policies.
For instance, Bush may have authorized widespread wiretapping and less-than-savory interrogation techniques of terrorist suspects in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, but a number of constitutional scholars have argued that as commander-in-chief and chief executive he had the power and right to do so during a time of war to protect the country from future threats. By any measure, Bush was successful in doing that.
Obama, by comparison, has overseen a government takeover of the automobile and financial industries; passage of the largest entitlement (healthcare) bill in U.S. history; the shakedown of a private industry; the appointment of dozens of unelected, unaccountable “czars” to oversee a variety of policy initiatives, outside of Congress’ – and the public’s – purview; and he is pushing new bills that will further erode private enterprise and industry in favor of more government control and oversight.
Obama’s vision is not that of a constitutional republic, clearly. So it’s with good reason that a number of our brightest thinkers increasingly view this administration as not only dangerous to the future of our freedom but the survival of the republic itself.
And yet it is possible Obama knows exactly what he is doing. For if the country remains in perpetual “crisis,” then he will portray himself as perpetually “doing what he must” in order to “maintain order” and “head off disaster,” even if – or especially if – it means trashing the Constitution.
Regardless of your political leanings, you can’t be supportive of any leader who wants to emulate the path Vladimir Lenin, Adolph Hitler and, more recently, Hugo Chavez, took to power.
If you are, you are one of the “useful idiots” contributing to the fine mess we currently find ourselves in.
But there is a way out and it starts with getting educated, getting involved, and getting to the polls this November. Peaceful resolution of this conflict is much better than the alternative. And there’s no time to waste.
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