Shut Up Already

As I read the WSJ every morning, listen to talk radio, and hear talk in town, I am struck by the deepening suspicion going around that our government has not been working in our best interests ever since Barack Hussein Obama has been in office. It reminds me of the incessant, gratuitous attacks on the previous administration by mainstream media types, academe, and the ‘comedy’ shows (I use the term ‘comedy’ advisedly). Whereas these focused on the mispronunciation of common words and awkward gestures - easily mocked, and designed to serve primarily as a vehicle to elicit laughs - Bush policy itself was mostly bruised by association with bumper sticker-size political slurs alone. Today, it is policy that is consistently questioned and immediately let slide, while invariably utmost care is taken to promote every silver lining, however fleeing, to improbable prominence.

Every criticism is couched in, “they all do it”, “we all did it”, or “Republicans and Democrats, alike…” We try to make sure that blame falls on no one in particular; that, collectively, we all are responsible (for the spread of nuclear weapons, Darfur, people starving in Africa, Wall Street’s excesses, ‘global warming’, and the like). …and when all are at fault, no one really is.

The polls tell a different story. They tell of a government that is has gone beyond deserving of mockery; a government that is recklessly out of control, feeding its voracious appetites at the expense of the people, even while it appears to distain them. Bill Clinton’s message to Americans was essentially to “shut up already”, accompanied by a threat based on a baseless comparison. Implicit in this was that the government would be forced to act if things were to get out of hand.

I am not one to resort to indiscriminate name-calling. When I say that Obama is a Marxist, it is not a slur. I say it because Obama’s own actions and words since he’s been in office (and even before) brand him as a Marxist (by the dictionary definition of the word). I have never compared Obama to ‘Hitler’ or ‘Stalin’, etc. because, clearly, no man is another. I may have pointed out suspiciously similar trends in the interest of drawing attention to what has happened before and what, by extension, could happen again. I risk doing so once more, mentioning a soon-to-be archaic, but pertinent comparison with regard to how the media today covers Hitler as opposed to how Obama is being portrayed.

It is still inappropriate to talk of Hitler as ‘good’, saying that he did ‘good’ things by having opposed communism, having loved dogs, painted nice pictures, and having invented the Volkswagen. We overlook all the ‘good’ things he might have done (and believed) knowing that Hitler was inherently a bad man. Nothing good that may be said about him can mitigate the evil he subjected the world to.

Yet, today, we focus on every shred of what can be construed as the positive attributes that got Obama elected POTUS. We say he has great pecs; he has a good-looking wife; two lovely children; he cares for the poor; the disadvantaged; he speaks well; etc. And yet, we know what he’s doing: He is destroying his Party; and the other party along with it. He is destroying our system of ‘checks and balances’. He is destroying our financial system; our influence in the world. He is destroying our future generations. He is destroying our history. He is destroying America before our very eyes. And yet we focus on his beautiful wife as she plants a vegetable garden on White House grounds.

Obama is a bad man. He should not be president of this once great nation. He must be removed from power.

According to today’s WSJ, the White House is still smarting over what happened in Honduras. It is doing everything in its power to re-assert its influence there. For the White House the Honduran matter is not yet settled. It intends to wield its big stick to get what it wants. It is not coincidence. There are no coincidences. It fits a pattern. It reflects Obama’s vision for America. Honduras mirrors the pressures we ourselves are under to yield to what is essentially alien to us. Whether we prevail or not depends on our willingness to confront the truth.