Barack Obama: Thoroughly Statist Politician

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” – Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

I have referred to Barack Obama as a fascist, even calling him Barack “Benito” Obama. I suppose that may be counterproductive and taken as simply an insult, when my wish is to show how the Obama Administration has apparently set out, with whatever motivations, to systematically destroy much of America’s social and political structure and free market and replace it with something they might think is more fair and equitable, but looks suspiciously like totalitarian and socialist things that have been tried and have failed before. At any rate, the Constitution, already seriously stretched, is being pushed toward the breaking point as the federal government in all branches far exceeds its constitutionally permitted powers.

Individual freedom is now under its greatest threat in a long time in the United States. Other than in times of world war, we have seldom seen such a broad based assault on personal liberty. Maybe it’s inappropriate for me to call it “fascist,” but it certainly fits the term “statist.” You may read Ayn Rand, or Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny to get a good idea of what statism is. Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism points out fascistic features of the Woodrow Wilson Administration, American progressivism, FDR’s New Deal, etc.

“The Fascist State organizes the nation, but it leaves the individual adequate elbow room. It has curtailed useless or harmful liberties while preserving those which are essential. In such matters the individual cannot be the judge, but the State only.”
– Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile [1]

That said, in what ways is Obama a thoroughgoing statist?
He pursues statist corporate takeovers and has succeeded in taking control of various commercial entities (auto makers, banks, insurance companies, etc.)
He is very sensitive to criticism and works forcefully to stop it.
He wants the government (i.e., himself) to dictate as many daily life activities of the American people as possible. The following items illustrate this. In many instances, the matter is nearly complete. Others represent the logical result of plans already in motion. Obama and the leftists in government control or want to control these items (partial listing):

Your home, your TV, your thermostat, your building code, your toilet tank, your water, electricity and gas, your pets, your landscape, your mortgage …
Your car, what you can and can’t buy, who you can buy from (including what dealer is still around to sell you a car), how much gas mileage it must get, quantity and type of emissions it can have . . .
Your travel plans …
Your healthcare, what procedures you can and cannot have, how much they should cost, who can and cannot perform them, when they will be available, who will be paying, what kind of insurance you may purchase or be forced to purchase, which and what kind of medical providers you may see and when…
Your sports, baseball’s steroid problems, the BCS bowl situation …
Your exercise requirements at school, work, and elsewhere …
Your nutrition, how much and what kinds of food you can buy, where and when you may buy them, how you may cook and eat them, what your and your kids’ body mass index must be …
What religious activities you may and may not engage in, what religious beliefs may be construed as “hate” …
What you may say and must not say, about what and whom, especially with reference to what may be deemed “hate speech” …
You will lose tax incentives to contribute to charities, but may be forced to provide “community service” if the 13th Amendment can successfully be overcome.
Your guns, your right of self defense (It shouldn’t be too difficult to eventually get the Second Amendment reinterpreted.)
Your reading material, radio programming, entertainment (Some variant of the “Fairness Doctrine” is being attempted)
Your bank accounts, 401(K) account, IRA (There have already been many changes, and more are planned, some of which could wipe out your investment accounts, remove pre-tax status, or replace stocks and bonds with new government “securities”)
Your job, determining whether your employer is a winner or a loser in the economy, based on things other than market forces. (Markets are subject to serious government meddling and manipulation.)

He has a program of maximum spending, that will achieve very little good and will cost trillions of dollars, burdening this and future generations, and causing massive inflation, and threatening our national security. (Cap and Trade, the “Stimulus,” Healthcare “Reform,” Financial Institution regulation, Fannie and Freddie expansions, etc.)

He seems to want the U.S. to become a Third World country, with the middle class being economically wiped out, they and the upper economic groups having their wealth confiscated to pay for his fascist program. When the wealth runs out, having been squandered by government, there will be a privileged few (political class and their supporters) with others being reduced to subsistence level standard of living. That seems to be the long-term plan. Maybe a few decades, assuming the leftists can stay in power or at least wield influence. Remember, Obama’s mentors are Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, and other radicals. His style is after the Chicago political boss methods.

Even though some people (for now) think he’s going to make things better for America, there’s often going to be a “crisis” to provide an excuse for failure and an occasion for even more expansion of government power. We have seen several examples of this since Obama took office. (At some point, they won’t be able to blame Bush any more.)

We now have the Census Bureau politicized and moved to the White House. We will, in effect, have ACORN and Black Panthers working the elections to defraud and intimidate as needed in critical areas. There will be armies of leftist lawyers to question any election of a conservative where the vote was at all close. (We saw some of this in the 2008 elections.)

The statists will do their best to destroy any effective conservative candidates they can, by investigation, harassment, and slander. They will attempt to criminalize any actions by authorities the leftists don’t like … (Think Sarah Palin and Scooter Libby.)

Obama appoints “czars” for many aspects of his program, and they are not subject to Senate confirmation and appear to be accountable only to Obama.

The free market has already taken quite a beating under Obama. It is conveniently blamed for problems that were primarily caused by government misconduct, meddling and incompetence, and not the free market. That is the statist tactic. We’ll see a lot more of it if Obama gets his way. The Administration has already asked for authority to seize any financial institutions as the government deems necessary…

Benito Mussolini’s motto: “Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

I’m getting to be a little suspicious of the government. I don’t know anyone’s inner motivations, but we can evaluate their words and actions. Even if they have the purest motives, they are leading our country on a destructive and dangerous path.

“America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”
– President Warren G. Harding

Maybe the Tea Party movement and the next two election cycles can influence the government in the right direction. But it may take quite a while to restore the Constitution to its proper place.

[1] The Doctrine of Fascism, 1932, at www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/mussolini.htm, a website that seeks to educate for the purpose of promoting democracy.