Our Constitution and our country -- in the gravest danger ever?

By Joseph Pecar

In articles appearing on the same page in the July 23, 2010 Washington Times, Tom Tancredo[1] (a five term member of Congress) and Jeffrey T. Kuhner[2] (president of the Edmund Burke Institute), both call attention to the fact that the President and all members of Congress take an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against enemies — foreign and domestic."

Until now, the greatest threats to the United States, and our Constitution under which it functions, have been foreign. Tancredo declares that today, however, the greatest threat to our Constitution, our safety and our liberties, is internal, asserting that "For the first time in American history, we have a man in the White House who consciously and brazenly disregards his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution."

Tancredo muses, "I've always thought it significant that the Founders included domestic enemies in that oath of office. They thought liberty was as much at risk from threats within our borders as from outside, and French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville agreed with that warning." He adds, "Yes, Mr. Obama is a more serious threat to America than al Qaeda."

Now either Tancredo's charges against Obama are true and justified, or they are not. If true, then our Country has never in its history been in greater peril. Why?

Unlike external threats — such as those we faced in World Wars I and II and the Cold Wars with Communist Russia and China — when domestic enemies happen to be in charge of the Government we cannot use or deploy the resources of this most powerful nation in the world to defeat them. Instead we find that domestic enemies can unleash those immense powers against the American citizens they are sworn to protect. Alas, with Obama as Chief Executive; Pelosi, Reed, and the radical Democrat majority firmly controlling the Legislature whilst aided and abetted by a sycophantic liberal press: if Tancredo and Kuhner are correct, the enemy we now face frighteningly is "ourselves."

Additionally, there is a growing chorus of conservative pundit warnings sounding a clarion call. Rush Limbaugh (cf. "Our First Anti-American President"), Newt Gingrich, Glen Beck, Alan Caruba (see: "Obama is America's new Jim Jones"), and a multitude of other Conservatives voicing similar assertions prompted Dennis Prager to state in his article,[3] " . . . nearly all conservatives believe that the left is leading America to ruin."

The new book, The post-American President: The Obama Administration's war on America,[4] and Steve Wynn's[5] talk about the "Fall of America" on CNBC add even more credibility to the growing conclusion that Obama is an enemy of "the America that most citizens and much of the world hold in such high esteem."

If claims that our Country is in greater peril than it was in World Wars I and II are even remotely possible, should it not be our highest National Security priority to take steps to "officially" prove or disprove such claims?

Those in Government who swear to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against enemies — foreign and domestic" — are most responsible for being keenly vigilant of dire threats against us. Those ultimately responsible for warning us and protecting our Country against such threats are our U.S. Senators and Congressmen. This is their solemn duty.

With so many making seemingly credible allegations that the most serious threat to the American way of life is now underway, is not every Senator and Congressman (Democrat, Republican and Independent) obligated to fully investigate and "go on record" about their findings on this most momentous of issues. If the allegations prove to be true, the consequences of not acting are simply unthinkable.

If need be, would not the citizenry be correct to rise up and demand that their elected representatives answer the following question?:

"In your judgment, is President Obama engaged in, working at or otherwise committed to fundamentally transforming our free-enterprise, free-market capitalistic democratic republic into either a totalitarian socialistic state (at best), or a Marxist communist or an Islamic dictatorship form of government (at worst)?"

Many who lived most of their lives in the last century know that our freedom, our commonweal and the American way of life are at stake. In the last century, despite fighting two major wars to preserve freedom worldwide, the United States did prosper. It became the wealthiest, freest and most powerful nation in history.

In stark contrast, there is irrefutable evidence that toward the end of the century most socialist states had become dismal financial failures with many scrambling to privatize the most basic of services like telephone telecommunications systems.

Worse yet, besides miserably failing economically, Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, Pol Pot and others slaughtered over 100 MILLION people in an attempt to remain in power. Do we really want to turn over to the government absolute power so that "the consent of the governed" is no longer a reality and the rule becomes that we are dictated to by the consent of the few who have shrewdly consolidated power to themselves? George Santayana gave a prescient warning, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Have we forgotten?

Our Country — operating under The Constitution and the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness promised in the Declaration of Independence — may not be perfect. But the experience of the last century proves that pursuing socialism or Marxist communism as alternatives is not just economic suicide, but leaves countries powerless to resist the deadly wiles of despotic dictators. Unfortunately, many of President Obama's actions thus far signal that he is anxious to be omnipotent.

In 2006 William Bennett published his book "America: The Last best Hope". Bennett quotes Patrick Moynihan as saying; "Am I embarrassed to speak for less than a perfect democracy? Not one bit. Have we done terrible things yes we have." Bennett then cites Lino Graglia's declaration that, "In the long story of inhumanity and misery that is history, the American achievement is high, and unique." Recently, a Rasmussen pole indicated that 51% of Americans still believe America to be the Last, Best, Hope for the World. And just a few weeks ago on Independence Day, many event officials reminded us of President Reagan's vision of America as, "a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere."

While Fourth of July holidays are occasions when people worldwide celebrate America's exceptionalism — inexplicably Obama has acquired a reputation of apologizing for what he delusively perceives to be America's misdeeds. While our indisputable success has come under our democratic republic form of government and its emphasis on free markets and capitalism — the President appears to believe these characteristics are inherently unfair as compared to countries dominated by socialism and totalitarianism.

Obama, instead of striving to improve the lot of less fortunate countries by encouraging them to emulate our democratic republic (our individual freedom and free market capitalism), seems to be pursuing a strategy to destroy the Constitutional and other bases for our and other flourishing democracy's successes to the point that all nations suffer poverty and tyranny to the same miserable extent. Perhaps this explains Obama's self-fulfilling prophecies that the world not expect America to remain a "superpower."

Importantly, the "playbook" of the President and the liberal Congressional majority seems to be one espoused last Century to undermine and destroy America's democratic republic. In 1936 Norman Thomas, a presidential candidate on the Socialist ticket, predicted that "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."

In 1966, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven — two radical socialist Columbia University professors inspired by radical organizer and Hillary Clinton mentor Saul Alinsky — recommended a "Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis." This strategy involves overloading government bureaucracies with a flood of impossible demands and pushing society into crisis and economic collapse as the principal means of forcing political change and hastening the fall of capitalism.

Does any of this sound familiar? Since Obama's election has anyone noticed a "flood of impossible demands pushing our society into crisis, economic collapse and chaos"? Does it not seem the President has learned well from his Chief of Staff Czar Rahm Emanuel to "Never waste a crisis"?

Over the years have we not observed the steady "drip, drip, drip" of our Country adopting one socialistic and wealth-REdistributing legislative program after another "under the name of liberalism" as Norman Thomas predicted? And with the Obama presidency, a Pelosi-Reid led liberal Congress and a dominantly leftist media, has not a "Perfect Storm" arisen in which the Cloward-Piven strategy to hasten the fall of capitalism can expeditiously take place?

Although quite detailed, the Cloward-Piven strategy can be summarized in just four steps:

1. Identify problems like "eliminating poverty," "providing the best health care possible to everyone," "ensuring pollution-free clean air," etc., about which the desirability of a solution, if one is possible at all, no one can dispute.
   
   
2. Assert and convince all comers that the Government is the "only" solution approach able to produce the desired result.
   
   
3. If existing Government programs are failing to achieve the desired objectives, blame that on your predecessors and reassert the claim that "only" a bigger, better government program and more government control is the solution.
   
   
4. Massive failures and ensuing crises — whether economic, environmental, or natural — are to be welcomed and even pursued. In fact the worse the disaster the better since in desperate situations, the urgency to do something makes the claim that "not enough was done and even more and larger government programs and control" appear more palatable.
   
   

For example, observing that his massive stimulus program has not only failed to revive the economy but has made it worse, Obama can publicly feign compassion and claim to feel the pain ordinary citizens are suffering (while he and his family spend enormous amounts of money for luxuries normally associated only with the likes of Saudi Arabian potentates). Should his primary objective be to destroy capitalism and our democratic republic form of government, privately he can rub his hands with glee since he sees any and all manner of National crises and hardships as fodder supporting the notion that our present form of government is failing and must be changed.

So, fellow loyal Americans — you who love our generous and free Country — we must wake-up and take action to stop the quickening march toward socialism/communism in its' tracks. We must completely discredit the notion that "a big and powerful government is the only solution." We must strive to convince all Americans that as President Reagan warned, "The Government is not the solution, it is the problem."

What can be done? How can we escape the dire straights' in which we find ourselves? We can hope that our Senators and Congressmen who now see the folly in what is transpiring (or those who in the past have seen it but remained silent) will recognize that is their highest duty to find the courage to speak up and undertake an all-out effort to stop this regime. This includes calling to task those in the sycophantic liberal media who to a large extent are responsible for supporting Obama's policies to the peril of our Country.

Understanding that there is no other news item that even compares with Obama and the left's attempt to destroy what has made this Country great, it is a tragic spectacle when both the liberal and conservative media waste the lion's share of "on-air" time on high visibility but far less important issues like Jeremiah Wright, Shirley Sherrod, the Kagen and Sotomayor Supreme Court controversies, tax cheats like Geitner and Rangle and other similar concerns.

It's not that such issues aren't often criminal and must be dealt with. But, compared to the irreparable harm that Obama and his compatriots are reportedly traitorously conspiring to inflict against our country — they serve mainly to provide them cover for and a distraction to conceal their dastardly intention to destroy the freest, most productive and wealth-generating, most powerful, most generous country in the history of the world.

Just as Al Gore shouted "Bush is a liar" we need conservative politicians to similarly stand up and repeatedly proclaim to the media, "Obama is trying to destroy our Country."

Beyond that, what can an ordinary citizen do? At a minimum, each of us can personally contact our own Senator or Congressman and demand that they make public their assessment of the validity of the charge that Obama is engaged in, and is committed to, fundamentally transforming our free-enterprise, free-market capitalistic democratic republic into either a totalitarian socialistic, or even a Marxist communist or a Islamic dictatorship form of government?"

Please, everyone, do that and do it now! As Sir Edmund Burke once said, "Evil triumphs when good men do nothing." More than ever, the typing exercise "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country" applies.

May God never allow our Country to be destroyed! He has blessed us with a Nation that so manifestly embraces the truth that each man is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights! As a free and peace loving Country let us honor the multitude of Patriots who gave their lives to preserve the ideal we seek to live and pass down to future generations.

Jay Leno proffered a foundational truth when he quipped: "With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?" May it never be! We need God now more than ever.

Remember the Biblical lesson found in Deuteronomy [32:21]?

"Since they have provoked me with their 'no-God'
and angered me with their vain idols,
I will provoke them with a 'no-people';
With a foolish nation I will anger them."

Perhaps prayer is the best and most essential thing we can do to avert what appears to be a looming disaster of galactic proportions!

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© Joseph Pecar