This Fourth, Time to Reflect on Obama's "Transformation" of America

For many, this fourth of July, marking the 234th year of American independence from Britain, sees a sharp rise in anxiety and despair. Not because we are in a prolonged recession. The revolution, civil war, great depression and WWII show that we've faced, and weathered, tougher times.


The despair arises from the fact that we've seem to have collectively lost our way. In October, then-presidential candidate Obama said "we are . . . days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America."


No lie there. But even the most strident of Obama's critics would have been surprised at the breathtaking scope of this "transformation."


Using the economic crisis as a pretext, Congress passed and Obama signed a "stimulus" package that is stimulative in name only. It was really little more than a liberal wish list of pork projects and transfer payments and projects that were anything but "shovel ready." Without stimulus, we were told, unemployment might go as high as 9 per cent, but with stimulus, would go no higher than 8. Unemployment is now at almost 10 per cent.


The Obama administration also quadrupled an already alarmingly high national debt in a mere 6 months, engineered the takeover the auto industry, foisted new onerous regulations on the financial service industries, and now seeks a ruinous carbon tax aimed at Americans' standard of living (oh, to be a poor person in Phoenix in the summer without air conditioning).

Add to that the attempted takeover of the health care industry, which is 20 percent of the economy. With the ultimate benefit of insuring only a marginally higher number of Americans and destroying an otherwise excellent health care system whose only real fault is access. If the Administration was really serious about insuring the uninsured, they would simply give the uninsured vouchers to buy insurance. (Clearly that could not cost any more money than they are already proposing to spend). But this, apparantly, would be insufficiently transformative. It seems we are on a one-way road to socialism that has already been discredited in Europe. Do we really want to follow Britain down this path?


Abroad, Obama has openly dimissed American exceptionalism (all countries are exceptional in their own way), went on a world-wide "American apology tour," sought to "engage" a sociopathic theocracy bent on obtaining nuclear weapons, and has beat a unilateral retreat in dealing with Russian agression against its neighbors by having his Secretary of State say he was going to "reset" its relationship with Russia. And his thanks, North Korea has launched two missles today, clearly to defy an American President Kim Jong Il regards as pusillanimous.


This I think is caused by naivete born out of arrogance. Obama apparantly believes that he has such a magnetic personality, (Newsweek said he was "sort of God") that if he were just put in a room with the Mullahs, Kim Jong Il, or the kleptocrats in the Kremlin, he would solve nuclear proliferation, and territorial issues with Russia.


The President also openly cavorts with dictators like Hugo Chavez, bows to the King of Saudi Arabia, and only reluctantly calls the Mullahs on the carpet (sort of) for stealing an election and then supressing protests with violence and murder (which White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs disgracefully called "robust debate.")


But the President does not hesitate to call the Honduran miliatary out on its ouster (pursuant to Supreme Court order) of a left-wing, would-be president-for-life who was seeking to extend his rule indefinitely. Or to "meddle" in Israeli affairs by criticizing settlements in the West Bank.


I'm sure I left something out, but the point here is that we appear to have a President who at his core is unamerican, or at least stands against everything that I believe is uniquely, and irretrievably, American. Like public policy based on common sense, protection of private property, the preservation of a capitalist system, the protection of individual rights against government encroachment, the rule of law, and freedom from excessive taxation. Abroad, Obama apparantly believes that America is not a "shining city on a hill," and is no more important to the world than either Greece or Britain, and coddles left-wing dictators and abandons those who shed thier blood for only the slightest incremental increase in freedom.


Yes, time to despair, but still cling to hope that America has the resources and resillience to correct itself before we are forever transformed in ways we and the world will forever ultimately regret.