Thursday, August 1, 2013

Fearing Obama


By Alan Caruba

I have been sensing something about the mood of many Americans that I think is unprecedented in the history of the nation. It is a fear of the President. A fear that one observer, Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal, calls “the president’s creeping authoritarianism.”

Obama has had four and a half years to pursue his goal of “transforming” America and, along the way, he has continually expressed his disdain for the constraints of the Constitution, his contempt for Congress and the Supreme Court, and, if his recent speeches are any indication, his belief that enough Americans are so dumb they will believe anything he says.

Overall, there is a growing sense of foreboding as four in five Americans are facing some degree of poverty and a small chance of finding work. One can feel the nation slowing down, its momentum sapped, its national sense of optimism being drained.

The bankruptcy of a major American city, Detroit, tells one everything they need to know about the result of decades of liberal governance and its acceleration under Obama. What other cities face a similar fate? Is the nation on the path to becoming a third-world economy?

I had my own fears evoked by a news report that “The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge user’s stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.”

In countless ways, the Constitutional protection of privacy is being eroded along with reports that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been purchasing huge quantities of ammunition and military-style vehicles. A new book discusses the way local police forces have been developing SWAT teams with similar capabilities. What kind of domestic uprising is DHS anticipating? And why is it anticipating it?

The National Security Agency is building a huge complex in Utah, larger even than the Pentagon, to store data it collects, presumably about Americans as well as foreigners. Kiss the Fourth Amendment goodbye, yet Congress just voted to sustain the NSA without restraints.

Why hasn’t Congress acted to repeal the National Defense Authorization Act that permits the government to arrest and detain any American without recourse to an attorney or the courts?

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has been on a tear, presumably to find out the sources of leaks in the Obama administration, seizing the telephone records of the Associated Press without giving the AP due notice.

Americans are beginning to suspect that there is little justice to be found in the DOJ, particularly since the revelations about “Fast and Furious”, an idiotic program of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency to purchase and “walk” guns into Mexico in order to “track” them. It was obvious they would end up in the hands of the drug cartels. It took an executive order by Obama to shut down a congressional investigation into this bizarre scheme. His administration has done everything it could to undermine the Second Amendment.

Over at the Internal Revenue Service, one of its officials accused of targeting patriot organizations seeking tax except status has plead the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering a congressional committee’s questions.

Meanwhile, the Affordable Care Act—Obamacare—is in the process of expanding the IRS as the government begins its takeover of one sixth of the nation’s economy with a piece of legislation that has already been declared a “train wreck”, unmanageable and, most importantly, so intrusive into our personal lives that no previous generation would have ever allowed it. Obamacare is already wrecking the economy as businesses large and small try to anticipate its costs.

The appalling lies about the terrorist attack on the U.S. Benghazi consulate are evidence in themselves that the Obama administration is prepared to deceive Americans about the killing of a U.S. ambassador and three of his security personnel. The orders given during the course of the attack were to do nothing. This is unprecedented. And frightening.

Millions of Americans out of work have very real cause to fear for their well-being, but the President recently told them the real threat was “climate change”, not an economy that is not producing jobs, but in fact shedding them, keeping the rate of unemployment unchanged for years.

There is a point when one must ask if this is deliberate and not just the result of bad domestic policies. If the answer is yes, then Americans have real cause to fear the President and the prospect of living in a surveillance state where everything they communicate and everyone with whom they communicate can be identified.

There are those raising warnings about the direction in which the nation is going, but unless there are demonstrations by Americans that want to see an end to these laws and trends, the progress toward tyranny will continue.

Marches are being planned for Washington, D.C., and they may hold the key to the future before America becomes a totalitarian nightmare.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

9 comments:

TexasFred said...

I honestly don't think ANYONE fears him, they may fear what he can DO but to fear Obama would be the same as fearing an impertinent child...

Anger, on the other hand, is a universal emotion where Barack Hussein Obama is concerned..

Michelle said...

Col. Bud Day was buried today, a true National Hero...........where was the Pretender in Chief, not a peep out of him.

Ronbo said...

I have to agree with TexasFred - most people I know have nothing but contempt for Obama - and some are so angry at him that, like Glenn Beck, they refuse to use his name.

Obama for many has become, "He whose name will not be mentioned."

This, I submit, is dangerous anger and contempt...and is the adult version of ignoring the demands of a spoiled brat who wants attention by acting out.

It is Obama who needs to beware the seeming silence of the posse, because it means that are all agreed - and the next act will be the swarm.

Guy in Ohio said...

I agree with Ron and Fred ... fear really isn't the word I'd choose. Anger, contempt, maybe even disgust, but not fear.

Most of us have been watching our government trample our Constitution for decades now, amassing the levels of power and influence that the Constitution was specifically designed to prevent. We've known that tyranny was coming for a very long time now, and fortunately, most of us have made the necessary preparations. As a result, we needn't fear this government, or anyone else ....

LD Jackson said...

I may not fear Obama himself, but his attitude and his actions concern me greatly. His disdain for our Constitution and the principles behind it are so great, I wonder what he will do next.

Harry Dale Huffman said...

I fear the division in America, primarily "racial" (encompassing both blacks, and now the growing "latino" group, but now with Muslim extremism and its debasement of religion, not to mention women, "unbelievers", the fundamental laws of any democracy, and the inalienable rights of every individual, infesting the minds of blacks who see racism everywhere except in themselves, where it truly resides today) and I fear the thoughtlessness of the electorate (I say, in humble honesty, not braggingly, that people should have seen Obama as a radical ideologue without any true character well before the 2008 election--I thought the Rev. Wright episode told all one needed to know about him, not to vote for him).

"There is a point when one must ask if this is deliberate..." To me, this statement is symptomatic of what is fundamentally wrong in America--not being able to focus upon the truth, and stay on it. Again, I say anyone who is not SURE by now that it is deliberate (on the part not just of Obama but the entire Insane Left that acts as his chorus), whether they have a list of his misdeeds ready on their tongue or not, is avoiding the plain truth. Alan, you HAVE listed his misdeeds here, any number of times, yet you wrote that sentence as if there was still some doubt whether he acted knowingly evil. (How high does the pile have to be before people can no longer look over it, despite themselves, but MUST see it for what it is--overwhelming evidence of a deliberate agenda that cares not for America and all that makes America strong?) I can guess you did so to be politic, because the country IS so divided and so many are avoiding facing the truth in their own minds, and will NOT listen to it coming from others. I fear a President who continually, deliberately acts AGAINST America, and relies upon America's long-nurtured divisions to continue on his mad rush towards American oblivion.

chuck wilder said...

Mr Caruba is my Guest this Monday 4 PM EDST WWW.CRNTALK.COM

Ronbo said...

@Harry:

Early on in Obama campaign during the spring of 2008, we patriot bloggers were sending up massive smoke signals that Obama is a Communist, and that if elected he would attempt a Marxist revolution against the Republic.

It gives me no pleasure to see that we patriot bloggers were right on target concerning Obama's putsch against liberty, which has to date gone rather well for the Left.

However, I take encouragement from the fact that 38% of the American People strongly oppose the Obama Regime - and many of these patriots are quietly preparing for whatever the future holds - and have swept the dealers shelves clear of guns and ammunition.

History proves that it only takes 3% of a given population to start a revolution...

RStabb said...

It has occurred to me that after seeing Obama on "The Jay Leno Show" that our fearless leader is just a celebrity.
Nothing more.
He talks about things like his relation with Putin as nothing more than casual relationship gone south.
He spoke about the Travon Martin episode before the facts were even presented. No place for the leader of the most powerful nation in the world should have ever ventured.

He's a hero among his people and others that spend their time more worried about the winner of a game show.