Neil Snyder explicates the conundrum many of us conservatives feel is where we are at present in our political and collective life in America. In short we are caught between two world views that are simply incompatible. The one is the progressive view that man is perfectible and providing we put ourselves in the hands of the enlightened elites who know best all will turn out for the best. This view holds that the perfected society is one in which everyone shares equally in material wealth and that government programs, planning, regulations and direction will see to it that equal outcomes are the rule. This is collectivism and statism and has been tried and found wanting every time from the USSR's 80-years of communist dictatorship to the reign of terror going on today in North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela for three contemporary examples. It is a world view base on a false and perverted understanding of human nature and what motivates individuals. Those who believe in this world view are simply wrong, to put it politely and mildly. But that doesn't stop them from believing, nor does it stop them from dragging everyone down to their level of inhumanity and degradation of the human soul.
February 17, 2013
President Obama has set in motion forces that he can't handle.
Barack Obama is a terrible president. That's obvious to everyone who isn't chronically ignorant or incurably liberal. By "liberal" I don't mean the classic definition of the word which has to do with being open-minded and objective. I mean the modern version of liberal: self-centered, emotional, illogical, and void of reason. Unfortunately, in 2012 ignoramuses and liberals represented the majority of those who voted. I'm not worried about offending them with my harsh words. My very existence offends them, and so does yours if you don't buy into their worldview.
From economic policy to energy policy to environmental policy to foreign affairs to national security to border security to you name it, the president failed the test, but we re-elected him anyway. Obama's misadventures in the Oval Office are becoming the stuff of legend. Benghazi and Fast and Furious are two of his more high profile blunders, but they aren't the only ones. If George W. Bush had committed just one of those offenses, the mainstream media would have demanded his head on a platter, but they gave Obama a free pass. The nation as a whole became complicit in the president's shenanigans because we didn't demand that he be held accountable.
President Obama has done one thing superbly well: he has demonstrated skill par excellence on a national scale as a community organizer. He is second to none when it comes to inciting, agitating, race baiting, stoking fears, and motivating the masses. If you discount voter fraud, more than anything else, those skills got him re-elected. But like a snowball gathering momentum as it rolls down a hill, the forces that he has unleashed will be impossible to stop without pain and suffering.
For example, Occupy Wall Street's demands for social justice dovetailed perfectly with the president's fairness campaign. Was that coincidence or was it by design? The answer should be obvious, but whatever the case may be, the OWS crowd eventually ran amuck in cities across the fruited plain until government officials finally took action to shut them down.
That's the way it is with unruly mobs. Once agitators get them started, you never know what will happen. But we do know this: President Obama is their champion, and they are still among us waiting in the wings for another opportunity to vent their frustrations. Will the next version of OWS be more malevolent than the first? Only time will tell, but I wouldn't rule it out.
OWS types aren't alone. In the United States today, large and growing numbers of people believe that their mere existence is their contribution to society. They think that those of us who have worked hard all of our lives owe them a living, and not just a living, but a very good living. The takers among us are easy pickings for a man with exceptional community organizing skills, and as I said, the forces that the president has unleashed will prove to be impossible to control. If they explode, there will be hell to pay.
Common sense is totally absent in their world. For instance, who would dare to suggest that the 1% who paid almost 40% of federal income taxes in 2010 should pay more because it's "fair" even though about 50% of our fellow citizens paid no federal income tax? The answer: Barack Obama and his merry band of malcontents. If George Orwell were alive today, he would be scratching his head and thinking about a mind-bending plot for another novel.
Takers have no misgivings about attaching themselves permanently to the government tit, and they feel no guilt or shame as they scream for more. Obama knows them and their predilections all too well, and he takes advantage of every opportunity to stoke the fires that burn within them. The president's mother and his grandparents should have taught him the basics -- things like if you play with matches, you will get burned -- because the fire that he's igniting can easily turn into an inferno. If it does, all of us will pay a very high price.
In due course, simple mathematics will dictate that we can't afford to keep able bodied men and women on the dole. Our current debt and deficit situation is so dire that something has got to give. Judging by a recent Gallup poll, most Americans agree with me, but metaphorically speaking, it may take a swift kick in a sensitive area to wake up our elected officials in Washington. Be that as it may, the day is rapidly approaching when no one can ignore our fiscal quagmire because the combination of Medicare, Social Security, and defense spending plus interest on the debt and paying freeloaders threatens to sink this nation.
Reneging on our national debt is out of the question since global pandemonium would ensue. Obamacare may help to reduce healthcare costs, but when evidence mounts that those "death panels" that we have heard so much about are real and that we are saving money by medicating patients and allowing them to pass away peacefully rather than treating their maladies, people will be hopping mad. Many of them will take to the streets to vent their anger. If you think that it can't happen here, you haven't been paying attention.
Social Security is a special breed of cat because it involves seniors, a powerful voting block, and it is regarded as a national promise that we must not break. Besides, people actually paid in to Social Security as did their employers so it's an annuity -- and not a very good one at that. Any politician who thinks that he can safely tamper with Social Security isn't playing with a full deck of cards. Even so, we can't solve our debt and deficit problems unless we make adjustments in Social Security and Medicare. It's the quintessential Catch 22.
Similarly, we need to cut defense spending without jeopardizing our national security, but defense reductions translate into job cuts and that creates another set of problems. No matter what we do, people will not be happy with the outcome, and many of them will vent their frustration in the voting booth and possibly on the streets.
This is the point: a perfect storm is brewing. I think we're heading for a chaotic and violent period in this country the likes of which no one alive today has ever witnessed. If I'm right, conditions will be ideal for criminals to ply their craft, and President Obama is pushing for gun control at precisely the wrong moment.
I believe that what I have described is realistic and unfortunately inevitable, and that brings me back to my back to the president. He has set in motion forces that he can't handle, and all of us are going to suffer the consequences so get ready for a wild ride.
Neil Snyder is the Ralph A. Beeton Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia. His blog, SnyderTalk.com, is posted daily.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/02/president_obama_has_set_in_motion_forces_that_he_cant_handle.html#ixzz2LCQWUxiP
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