J. Matt Barber
Liberals and conservatives, unite!
By J. Matt Barber
More often than not, when someone says, "I hate to say I told you so," they love to say they told you so. Prepare to have a bucket of gloat dumped on your head.
Still, there are those rare occasions when people both say it and mean it. A few possible examples come to mind: Aboard the Titanic. At the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Standing before the pearly gates (after your stupid bomb squad partner goes ahead and cuts the blue wire). And right now.
Liberals, we conservatives hate to say we told you so.
But we told you so.
In the wake of CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden's earthshaking revelation that the Obama NSA has been spying on tens of millions of Americans – conservatives, liberals and moderates alike – by illegally searching and seizing telephone calls and other private data, I tweeted the following: "So can liberals and conservatives all come together now and agree that Obama is a Marxist tyrant?"
Ian Murphy, a liberal freelance writer with Salon.com, AlterNet.org and similar such "progressive" publications, tweeted back: "He's not a Marxist."
"We'll split the difference," I replied.
The implication behind Murphy's brief comment is both clear and profound. While he, a proud leftist, inexplicably remains in denial of Obama's patently evident Neo-Marxist socio-political worldview, he has, nonetheless – and along with a fast-growing number of his "progressive" counterparts – finally come to acknowledge that Barack Hussein Obama, 44th president of these Divided States of America, is, indeed, a grade-A tyrant.
In recent months, as this administration has been rocked by self-inflicted scandal after self-inflicted scandal, a vibrant, three-dimensional picture of Mr. Obama has begun to emerge. So obvious and outrageous are his abuses of power that many of his sycophantic holdouts are finally taking a second, less-jaundiced look at their Dear Leader.
For example, after it was learned that the Obama IRS was intentionally targeting conservative, Christian and Jewish organizations and individuals for harassment and political intimidation, Jon Stewart, liberal comedian and host of "The Daily Show," did a scathing spot in which he told the president, "You've vindicated conspiracy theorists."
More recently, in response to the IRS and NSA scandals, "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno joked of "Snoop Obama": "We wanted a president that listens to all Americans," he said. "Now we have one."
Both the liberal New York Times and hard-left filmmaker Michael Moore have similarly opined that the Obama administration has "lost all credibility," while left-leaning Politico observed that, "Nothing brings the left and the right together quite like government snooping."
This is the tip of the iceberg. Liberals are running from Obama like Occupy Wall Streeters from Irish Spring. Each of these scandals (Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS-gate, spying on the media, NSA spying on the American people, et al.) are, ostensibly, grievous enough, when taken alone, to rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors."
When taken together, however, they are manifestly impeachable.
Unfortunately, I doubt Congress has the courage to do it. It would take a bipartisan, consensus effort. We're still not there yet. Even so, we've come a long way. No reasonable person, liberal or conservative, can, in good faith, still deny that Barack Obama is the most lawless president in American history.
Oh what a difference a couple centuries make. While Benjamin Franklin famously warned, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety," President Obama – with his hand caught in your information cookie jar – now assures us that Franklin had it all wrong: "[O]ne of the things that we're going to have to discuss and debate is how are we striking this balance between the need to keep the American people safe and our concerns about privacy," he said, "because there are some tradeoffs involved."
Yikes.
"The president is conducting an all-out assault on the constitutionally protected rights of American citizens," responded Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, one of the fastest-growing civil rights legal organizations in America.
"Electronic data collection on this massive scale clearly violates the Fourth Amendment. It is tantamount to having a government official sneak into your home or business and copy all of your papers, records and personal effects. The fact the government may not immediately use copied material except when it needs it is irrelevant. The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit searches and seizures without probable cause only if the government uses the information," he said.
"We cannot justify such massive collection of American citizens' data by any government agency under the guise of preventing crime or even terrorism. This government overreach is an indictment on both political parties, as both have been involved in authorizing these unconstitutional acts. Our government leaders and bureaucrats have forgotten the price of liberty and are too willing to give up liberty for a little security," concluded Staver.
This isn't a left or right issue. This is about freedom. This is about the rule of law. Barack Obama has exposed himself as an enemy of the Constitution, an enemy of the American people – all of the American people – whether liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican.
Liberals, let's agree to disagree where we disagree. Likewise, let's agree to agree where we agree.
Let's come together and do something about America's Barack Obama problem.
© J. Matt Barber
June 17, 2013
More often than not, when someone says, "I hate to say I told you so," they love to say they told you so. Prepare to have a bucket of gloat dumped on your head.
Still, there are those rare occasions when people both say it and mean it. A few possible examples come to mind: Aboard the Titanic. At the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Standing before the pearly gates (after your stupid bomb squad partner goes ahead and cuts the blue wire). And right now.
Liberals, we conservatives hate to say we told you so.
But we told you so.
In the wake of CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden's earthshaking revelation that the Obama NSA has been spying on tens of millions of Americans – conservatives, liberals and moderates alike – by illegally searching and seizing telephone calls and other private data, I tweeted the following: "So can liberals and conservatives all come together now and agree that Obama is a Marxist tyrant?"
Ian Murphy, a liberal freelance writer with Salon.com, AlterNet.org and similar such "progressive" publications, tweeted back: "He's not a Marxist."
"We'll split the difference," I replied.
The implication behind Murphy's brief comment is both clear and profound. While he, a proud leftist, inexplicably remains in denial of Obama's patently evident Neo-Marxist socio-political worldview, he has, nonetheless – and along with a fast-growing number of his "progressive" counterparts – finally come to acknowledge that Barack Hussein Obama, 44th president of these Divided States of America, is, indeed, a grade-A tyrant.
In recent months, as this administration has been rocked by self-inflicted scandal after self-inflicted scandal, a vibrant, three-dimensional picture of Mr. Obama has begun to emerge. So obvious and outrageous are his abuses of power that many of his sycophantic holdouts are finally taking a second, less-jaundiced look at their Dear Leader.
For example, after it was learned that the Obama IRS was intentionally targeting conservative, Christian and Jewish organizations and individuals for harassment and political intimidation, Jon Stewart, liberal comedian and host of "The Daily Show," did a scathing spot in which he told the president, "You've vindicated conspiracy theorists."
More recently, in response to the IRS and NSA scandals, "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno joked of "Snoop Obama": "We wanted a president that listens to all Americans," he said. "Now we have one."
Both the liberal New York Times and hard-left filmmaker Michael Moore have similarly opined that the Obama administration has "lost all credibility," while left-leaning Politico observed that, "Nothing brings the left and the right together quite like government snooping."
This is the tip of the iceberg. Liberals are running from Obama like Occupy Wall Streeters from Irish Spring. Each of these scandals (Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS-gate, spying on the media, NSA spying on the American people, et al.) are, ostensibly, grievous enough, when taken alone, to rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors."
When taken together, however, they are manifestly impeachable.
Unfortunately, I doubt Congress has the courage to do it. It would take a bipartisan, consensus effort. We're still not there yet. Even so, we've come a long way. No reasonable person, liberal or conservative, can, in good faith, still deny that Barack Obama is the most lawless president in American history.
Oh what a difference a couple centuries make. While Benjamin Franklin famously warned, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety," President Obama – with his hand caught in your information cookie jar – now assures us that Franklin had it all wrong: "[O]ne of the things that we're going to have to discuss and debate is how are we striking this balance between the need to keep the American people safe and our concerns about privacy," he said, "because there are some tradeoffs involved."
Yikes.
"The president is conducting an all-out assault on the constitutionally protected rights of American citizens," responded Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, one of the fastest-growing civil rights legal organizations in America.
"Electronic data collection on this massive scale clearly violates the Fourth Amendment. It is tantamount to having a government official sneak into your home or business and copy all of your papers, records and personal effects. The fact the government may not immediately use copied material except when it needs it is irrelevant. The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit searches and seizures without probable cause only if the government uses the information," he said.
"We cannot justify such massive collection of American citizens' data by any government agency under the guise of preventing crime or even terrorism. This government overreach is an indictment on both political parties, as both have been involved in authorizing these unconstitutional acts. Our government leaders and bureaucrats have forgotten the price of liberty and are too willing to give up liberty for a little security," concluded Staver.
This isn't a left or right issue. This is about freedom. This is about the rule of law. Barack Obama has exposed himself as an enemy of the Constitution, an enemy of the American people – all of the American people – whether liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican.
Liberals, let's agree to disagree where we disagree. Likewise, let's agree to agree where we agree.
Let's come together and do something about America's Barack Obama problem.
© J. Matt Barber
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