Alan Caruba
America commits suicide
By Alan Caruba
I had hoped that the majority of voters would elect Mitt Romney, but instead of a man of character they chose charisma.
They ignored four years of failure and deception. In advertising, they say "Sell the sizzle, not the steak." Romney, sadly, lacked sizzle.
Obama's victory was one of a long line of Progressives from Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Jimmy Carter. It was not new, but it will likely do more damage on top of what his predecessors have done.
It turned out that there were not enough voters from the faith-based communities. You know — the kind of people Obama said "cling to their religion and guns." There were not enough from a range of population subsets to make a difference.
Like New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg who thought a marathon run through boroughs devastated by Hurricane Sandy was a really good idea, Obama has never had any real sense of how people feel about things that are important to them. Why should he? He was raised in a communist cocoon in which family, friends, fellow students, teachers, and mentors ensured he would never be exposed to the fundamentals of free market capitalism that has been the bedrock of the nation's prosperity.
I have written repeatedly that he just does not like America and that this explains his view that our nation is not an exceptional place in which to live.
His mother was attracted first an African and, after being divorced, to an Indonesian, both Muslims. And then she abandoned Obama to the care of his leftist grandparents. His academic life led him from Occidental College to Columbia University, and then onto Harvard Law School, all leftist strongholds and, yet oddly few of his fellow students even remembered him.
On the radio of the 1940s there was a show called "The Shadow" about a man with the "power to cloud men's minds" who used it to fight crime, but Obama developed the power to so utterly charm people that, like any successful confidence man, he left people impressed with all the exterior aspects of him without few clues about what he stood for, what he believed, and what his true goals are.
Despite four years of his campaign and his first term not enough Americans understood that Barack Obama is as alien to America as if he had come from some very different, very foreign place.
What is most baffling is why a majority of voters looked at the estimated 23 million of their fellow citizens who were out of work or had stopped looking for work, and whose lives along with their own were even further encumbered by the massive debt Obama had run up; currently $16 trillion and climbing, and thought that was okay?
In a nation whose citizens pride themselves on their ability to work to meet the needs of their families, it was and is profoundly disturbing that 47 million must use food stamps or that millions have fallen below the poverty level.
Why did the majority of voters not understand the fearful implications of the erosion of the nation's military power, not knowing that peace can only be maintained by a navy that keeps the sea lanes open, the marines who are skilled at making a quick entry into a battle zone, the army that can subdue an enemy, and an air force that has no comparison? The active military and veterans understood what their Commander-in-Chief was doing to them, but the lies about the Benghazi attack that killed a U.S. ambassador and three others were ignored.
Those who voted for Obama were content to believe the cascade of lies Obama told. They ignored the President's record of failure — the failed "stimulus" that was nothing more than a political slush fund, Obamacare that was forced on the nation by a straight party vote by Democrats in Congress, the bankruptcy of the "clean energy" companies that could not compete even with public funding, and the eruption of Islamic frenzy that saw him abandon friend and foe alike in the Middle East.
It was Obamacare that gave birth to the Tea Party movement. The President, his advisors, the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate never understood what the Tea Party was about. Why would they? The U.S. Constitution was what they wanted to believe it said, not what it really says.
Now Obama has the opportunity to fill seats on the Supreme Court with more progressive judges, thus affecting not just the next four years, but generations of Americans to come.
The abandonment of Israel troubled many, but just as troubling was the Democratic Party convention in which the inclusion of God and Jerusalem in the party platform evoked jeers and derision. It was the same Democratic Party that had, since the end of the Civil War, fought against the calls for equality from America's black community. Even so, the African-American community continued to support them.
In 2008 Americans voted for Obama in the belief that they could demonstrate to the world that it was post-racial, post-partisan. Instead they got a cold, indifferent, arrogant man who listened only to a small circle of leftist advisors and shadowy, unknown and unseen "czars" in the White House.
Obama was as disinterested in Main Street as he was antagonistic to Wall Street. His constant talk of "millionaires and billionaires" and the need to redistribute wealth may have worried some people, but not enough of those who believe they too can achieve the American dream of wealth and success based on hard work and a measure of risk.
The majority of voters ignored the realities of the nation's economy. They failed to realize that Obama's opposition to the vast wealth of America's energy reserves of coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear will only delay the nation's way out of debt and dependency.
In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
John Adams, Founding Father and the nation's second President warned "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
Today, conservatives in America are wondering if the 2012 election was a vote to commit national suicide.
© Alan Caruba
November 7, 2012
I had hoped that the majority of voters would elect Mitt Romney, but instead of a man of character they chose charisma.
They ignored four years of failure and deception. In advertising, they say "Sell the sizzle, not the steak." Romney, sadly, lacked sizzle.
Obama's victory was one of a long line of Progressives from Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Jimmy Carter. It was not new, but it will likely do more damage on top of what his predecessors have done.It turned out that there were not enough voters from the faith-based communities. You know — the kind of people Obama said "cling to their religion and guns." There were not enough from a range of population subsets to make a difference.
Like New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg who thought a marathon run through boroughs devastated by Hurricane Sandy was a really good idea, Obama has never had any real sense of how people feel about things that are important to them. Why should he? He was raised in a communist cocoon in which family, friends, fellow students, teachers, and mentors ensured he would never be exposed to the fundamentals of free market capitalism that has been the bedrock of the nation's prosperity.
I have written repeatedly that he just does not like America and that this explains his view that our nation is not an exceptional place in which to live.
His mother was attracted first an African and, after being divorced, to an Indonesian, both Muslims. And then she abandoned Obama to the care of his leftist grandparents. His academic life led him from Occidental College to Columbia University, and then onto Harvard Law School, all leftist strongholds and, yet oddly few of his fellow students even remembered him.
On the radio of the 1940s there was a show called "The Shadow" about a man with the "power to cloud men's minds" who used it to fight crime, but Obama developed the power to so utterly charm people that, like any successful confidence man, he left people impressed with all the exterior aspects of him without few clues about what he stood for, what he believed, and what his true goals are.
Despite four years of his campaign and his first term not enough Americans understood that Barack Obama is as alien to America as if he had come from some very different, very foreign place.
What is most baffling is why a majority of voters looked at the estimated 23 million of their fellow citizens who were out of work or had stopped looking for work, and whose lives along with their own were even further encumbered by the massive debt Obama had run up; currently $16 trillion and climbing, and thought that was okay?
In a nation whose citizens pride themselves on their ability to work to meet the needs of their families, it was and is profoundly disturbing that 47 million must use food stamps or that millions have fallen below the poverty level.
Why did the majority of voters not understand the fearful implications of the erosion of the nation's military power, not knowing that peace can only be maintained by a navy that keeps the sea lanes open, the marines who are skilled at making a quick entry into a battle zone, the army that can subdue an enemy, and an air force that has no comparison? The active military and veterans understood what their Commander-in-Chief was doing to them, but the lies about the Benghazi attack that killed a U.S. ambassador and three others were ignored.
Those who voted for Obama were content to believe the cascade of lies Obama told. They ignored the President's record of failure — the failed "stimulus" that was nothing more than a political slush fund, Obamacare that was forced on the nation by a straight party vote by Democrats in Congress, the bankruptcy of the "clean energy" companies that could not compete even with public funding, and the eruption of Islamic frenzy that saw him abandon friend and foe alike in the Middle East.
It was Obamacare that gave birth to the Tea Party movement. The President, his advisors, the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate never understood what the Tea Party was about. Why would they? The U.S. Constitution was what they wanted to believe it said, not what it really says.
Now Obama has the opportunity to fill seats on the Supreme Court with more progressive judges, thus affecting not just the next four years, but generations of Americans to come.
The abandonment of Israel troubled many, but just as troubling was the Democratic Party convention in which the inclusion of God and Jerusalem in the party platform evoked jeers and derision. It was the same Democratic Party that had, since the end of the Civil War, fought against the calls for equality from America's black community. Even so, the African-American community continued to support them.
In 2008 Americans voted for Obama in the belief that they could demonstrate to the world that it was post-racial, post-partisan. Instead they got a cold, indifferent, arrogant man who listened only to a small circle of leftist advisors and shadowy, unknown and unseen "czars" in the White House.
Obama was as disinterested in Main Street as he was antagonistic to Wall Street. His constant talk of "millionaires and billionaires" and the need to redistribute wealth may have worried some people, but not enough of those who believe they too can achieve the American dream of wealth and success based on hard work and a measure of risk.
The majority of voters ignored the realities of the nation's economy. They failed to realize that Obama's opposition to the vast wealth of America's energy reserves of coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear will only delay the nation's way out of debt and dependency.
In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
John Adams, Founding Father and the nation's second President warned "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
Today, conservatives in America are wondering if the 2012 election was a vote to commit national suicide.
© Alan Caruba
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