A.J. DiCintio
Dictatorial impulse on the rise
By A.J. DiCintio
One of history's most important lessons teaches that when cries of "hard times" resound through a nation, politicians afflicted by the dictatorial impulse inevitably seize the opportunity to satisfy their unquenchable appetite for power.
In fact, they become so deliriously immersed in their perverse endeavors that with every stratagem unleashed, they imitate Shakespeare's Iago by whispering from the dark recesses of their minds, "Work on/My medicine, work!"
That is an ugly reality but not the ugliest, for history also teaches that the "medicine" beloved by such politicians is always poisonous to the individual's liberty and pursuit of happiness and therefore to the life of the entire nation.
Those truths are crucially important today because irresponsible spending and debt accompanied by wildly growing government have sent the middle class in the U.S. and Europe reeling in a downward spiral of slow to no economic growth; high unemployment, especially among the young; and stagnant wages steadily eroded by cheap money inflation.
And sure enough, power-loving politicians have begun to put their medicine to work.
In Europe, their efforts are working so well that Mario Monti, Italy's appointed "technocratic" leader, recently said this:
"If [Europe's] governments are tied by their parliaments' decisions, the lack of freedom of action will result in Europe's breakdown. . . "
It's impossible to read that ironic utterance without perceiving it contradicts the Jeffersonian notion of the people as the only legitimate authors of government and comports perfectly with the garbage spewed by Karl Marx and every other dictatorial freak.
But it's disgusting quality gets worse; for Monti made the statement in an interview with Der Spiegel, thereby heaping more insult on the German people, who, he knows all too well, have been vilified not just by leftist Greeks bearing images of Hitler and Nazism but their counterparts across the continent, including the Italian newspaper Il Libero, which last week posted a picture of Angela Merkel next to text speaking of her "Fourth Reich."
The main purpose here, however, is not to mention all the dictatorially inspired madness that afflicts Europe, including the "work" of the pernicious, blood-sucking leftist aristocrats of the European Parliament.
It is to speak about our country and our current president, whose ideology, based deeply in the tenets of Liberation Theology, holds that the best of all possible social and economic worlds is one in which the principle of collectivism guides elites who wield supreme, centralized power far from the Constitution's "We the People" or, in his own words, far from the "bitter" masses who "cling to guns or religion" or anything else he and his fellow liberals mock as ignorantly small-minded.
This fundamental disdain for the Jeffersonian vision of government explains why from his inauguration, Barack Obama has pursued the politics of class division, including paying off favored groups, as evidenced by how he doled out huge amounts of pure, political pork from his "stimulus" bill.
It also explains why he then turned his attention to a federal takeover of healthcare.
Why he and his allies used every rotten trick in the political handbook to pass "Obamacare" over the consistent objections of the American people.
Why "Obamacare" doesn't truly reform healthcare but expands the size, cost, and power of the federal government, especially, in true dictatorial spirit, at the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Justice.
And why, in harmony with the foul, destructive cronyism characteristic of every centralized governmental system, he summarily announced he was sucking $700 billion from Medicare to pay for his scheme even as he exempted the Democratic Party's dearest friends of the $200 billion a year trial lawyer industry from contributing a single cent.
True to the insatiable nature of his affliction, Obama's power grab hasn't been limited to healthcare.
Behaving in concert with the dictatorial "I," he has claimed the right to decide what industries deserve special bailouts, for instance, GM, whose jobs he saved at a cost to taxpayers of $780,000 each, whose common stock "payment" to the government he never admits has dropped 45% in value, and whose phony "sales" he is propping up with increased federal purchases of GM vehicles, up 79% this past June. (data from the Washington Times)
He has, despite that debacle and those associated with bank bailouts and corrupt Solyndra-style government "investments," boasted, "Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry."
He has claimed the right to decide which laws to enforce or overlook regarding immigration and border control.
He has claimed the right to tell religious groups whom they can hire and fire (which, happily, resulted in a 9-0 Supreme Court smack down reminding him he is subservient to, not master of, the Constitution).
He has claimed the right to severely weaken or eliminate bi-partisan approved work rules for welfare, passed into law during the Clinton administration.
And to make sure every American, including every student from K to 12, is exposed to his statist beliefs that mock Henry David Thoreau to say, "That government is best which governs most," he has used the power of his office to proclaim that individuals do not "build" their successes, government does.
Finally, there are these facts that call to mind European leftists and their revolting name-calling that threatens more than the existence of the euro.
From the moment citizens began criticizing "Obamacare" and continuing through criticisms of Obama's policies on other issues, from deficits and debt to taxes, immigration, borders, and foreign affairs, important Democrats have venomously attacked the president's critics as racists, critics who in the aggregate represent more than a landslide majority of the American people.
Actually, this filthy, culture-rending race-baiting, which the contemporary Democratic Party has institutionalized as a fundamental political tactic, is spewed by Very Important Democrats.
Consider, for instance, Vice-President Joe Biden, the substance and style of whose "They're going to put y'all back in chains" is destined to take its proper place among the most vile and odious venom ever issued from the fangs of a leading American politician.
And all this poison with the tacit or, as in Biden's case, the explicit approval of President Barack Obama, an ideologue blind to the reality that the dictatorial spirit inevitably gives rise to legions of catastrophic outcomes, among them a devastated economy and other disasters infinitely more deadly.
© A.J. DiCintio
August 20, 2012
One of history's most important lessons teaches that when cries of "hard times" resound through a nation, politicians afflicted by the dictatorial impulse inevitably seize the opportunity to satisfy their unquenchable appetite for power.
In fact, they become so deliriously immersed in their perverse endeavors that with every stratagem unleashed, they imitate Shakespeare's Iago by whispering from the dark recesses of their minds, "Work on/My medicine, work!"
That is an ugly reality but not the ugliest, for history also teaches that the "medicine" beloved by such politicians is always poisonous to the individual's liberty and pursuit of happiness and therefore to the life of the entire nation.
Those truths are crucially important today because irresponsible spending and debt accompanied by wildly growing government have sent the middle class in the U.S. and Europe reeling in a downward spiral of slow to no economic growth; high unemployment, especially among the young; and stagnant wages steadily eroded by cheap money inflation.
And sure enough, power-loving politicians have begun to put their medicine to work.
In Europe, their efforts are working so well that Mario Monti, Italy's appointed "technocratic" leader, recently said this:
"If [Europe's] governments are tied by their parliaments' decisions, the lack of freedom of action will result in Europe's breakdown. . . "
It's impossible to read that ironic utterance without perceiving it contradicts the Jeffersonian notion of the people as the only legitimate authors of government and comports perfectly with the garbage spewed by Karl Marx and every other dictatorial freak.
But it's disgusting quality gets worse; for Monti made the statement in an interview with Der Spiegel, thereby heaping more insult on the German people, who, he knows all too well, have been vilified not just by leftist Greeks bearing images of Hitler and Nazism but their counterparts across the continent, including the Italian newspaper Il Libero, which last week posted a picture of Angela Merkel next to text speaking of her "Fourth Reich."
The main purpose here, however, is not to mention all the dictatorially inspired madness that afflicts Europe, including the "work" of the pernicious, blood-sucking leftist aristocrats of the European Parliament.
It is to speak about our country and our current president, whose ideology, based deeply in the tenets of Liberation Theology, holds that the best of all possible social and economic worlds is one in which the principle of collectivism guides elites who wield supreme, centralized power far from the Constitution's "We the People" or, in his own words, far from the "bitter" masses who "cling to guns or religion" or anything else he and his fellow liberals mock as ignorantly small-minded.
This fundamental disdain for the Jeffersonian vision of government explains why from his inauguration, Barack Obama has pursued the politics of class division, including paying off favored groups, as evidenced by how he doled out huge amounts of pure, political pork from his "stimulus" bill.
It also explains why he then turned his attention to a federal takeover of healthcare.
Why he and his allies used every rotten trick in the political handbook to pass "Obamacare" over the consistent objections of the American people.
Why "Obamacare" doesn't truly reform healthcare but expands the size, cost, and power of the federal government, especially, in true dictatorial spirit, at the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Justice.
And why, in harmony with the foul, destructive cronyism characteristic of every centralized governmental system, he summarily announced he was sucking $700 billion from Medicare to pay for his scheme even as he exempted the Democratic Party's dearest friends of the $200 billion a year trial lawyer industry from contributing a single cent.
True to the insatiable nature of his affliction, Obama's power grab hasn't been limited to healthcare.
Behaving in concert with the dictatorial "I," he has claimed the right to decide what industries deserve special bailouts, for instance, GM, whose jobs he saved at a cost to taxpayers of $780,000 each, whose common stock "payment" to the government he never admits has dropped 45% in value, and whose phony "sales" he is propping up with increased federal purchases of GM vehicles, up 79% this past June. (data from the Washington Times)
He has, despite that debacle and those associated with bank bailouts and corrupt Solyndra-style government "investments," boasted, "Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry."
He has claimed the right to decide which laws to enforce or overlook regarding immigration and border control.
He has claimed the right to tell religious groups whom they can hire and fire (which, happily, resulted in a 9-0 Supreme Court smack down reminding him he is subservient to, not master of, the Constitution).
He has claimed the right to severely weaken or eliminate bi-partisan approved work rules for welfare, passed into law during the Clinton administration.
And to make sure every American, including every student from K to 12, is exposed to his statist beliefs that mock Henry David Thoreau to say, "That government is best which governs most," he has used the power of his office to proclaim that individuals do not "build" their successes, government does.
Finally, there are these facts that call to mind European leftists and their revolting name-calling that threatens more than the existence of the euro.
From the moment citizens began criticizing "Obamacare" and continuing through criticisms of Obama's policies on other issues, from deficits and debt to taxes, immigration, borders, and foreign affairs, important Democrats have venomously attacked the president's critics as racists, critics who in the aggregate represent more than a landslide majority of the American people.
Actually, this filthy, culture-rending race-baiting, which the contemporary Democratic Party has institutionalized as a fundamental political tactic, is spewed by Very Important Democrats.
Consider, for instance, Vice-President Joe Biden, the substance and style of whose "They're going to put y'all back in chains" is destined to take its proper place among the most vile and odious venom ever issued from the fangs of a leading American politician.
And all this poison with the tacit or, as in Biden's case, the explicit approval of President Barack Obama, an ideologue blind to the reality that the dictatorial spirit inevitably gives rise to legions of catastrophic outcomes, among them a devastated economy and other disasters infinitely more deadly.
© A.J. DiCintio
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