By Eddie Howell
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| That time has arrived. |
O.K., you can put me down as pretty
much anti-government, that is, anti-Obama Administration. This
administration's continuous power grabs and attacks on constitutional
freedom must be stopped. The Administration's outrageous acts cannot
be allowed to continue unabated. There are various steps that can be
taken to keep them somewhat in check.
Apparently, congressional Democrats in
both houses are not up to any kind of constitutional challenge to
the dictatorial President Barack Obama. This is likely due to one or more of the
following: Fear of jeopardizing their career, being OK with the
status quo because they don't know and/or don't care about American
freedom, the Constitution, or their constituents (other than as vote
sources), or, like Obama himself, they just simply have a very
strong Marxist/fascist mean streak. It's hard to believe nice people
in high office would have such low regard for Americans' freedom.
Many of these people apparently do have a low level of concern for
these things, or else they're very afraid.
The Republican leadership has yet to
show much of a desire to do anything about it, except for the
occasional good-sounding statement. They are upset with their
colleagues who are actually voicing concern, people like Senators
Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX). The fact that John Boehner
(R-OH) is still House Speaker is rather remarkable in view of the
leadership's acceptance of being steamrolled on such issues as the
debt ceiling. The GOP controls only one house of Congress, but their
leaders behave as though they control nothing. Actually, they control
quite a lot since they have the power of the purse. Yet they are so
lacking in skill and/or desire to plan any kind of strategy to oppose
Obama, that they look helpless.
At this point, the best strategy, to
me, seems to be this: Wait until after the 2014 elections, and if the
GOP ends up controlling both houses of Congress (and the
congressional elections are, after all, theirs to lose), then impeach
Obama and remove him from office. Of course this is likely
only in some fantasy. But Obama's malfeasance in basically every area
rises beyond the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” because
of his lawless behavior.
“When law and morality contradict
each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing
his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.” – Claude
Frederic Bastiat
The Administration has plenty of
willingness to go after people of opposing political views who might
have disobeyed the law, for example Dinesh D'Souza, but care little
for obeying laws that inconvenience themselves, such as Obamacare, which
has been changed just about weekly, by executive action, without
regard to Congress. The Administration has no concern about violating
religious freedom, as illustrated by the Obamacare contraception
mandates, or economic freedom, as evidenced by Obamacare itself. (Nor
can the Supreme Court be relied upon to protect liberty, but that's
another article).
“The two enemies of the people are
criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the
chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the
legalized version of the first.” – Thomas Jefferson
The history of the Obama Administration
is a continuing story of abuse of power, obsession with increasing
executive power, stonewalling on scandals, lie upon lie, attempts to
destroy their opponents or people who might get in their way and
vicious attacks on personal liberty.
The latest attack on American freedom
today comes from the Federal Communications Commission, which is
going to carry out a “study” of local news broadcasters about
whether the regime is pleased with their performance regarding
“critical information needs” of various audiences. This is
extremely disturbing since the “study” could, and likely will,
later be used to exert pressure on any who are politically
inconvenient, the FCC being the licensing agency for local
broadcasters and having power to shut them down by executive action.
It is very clearly an act of intimidation to small, basically
defenseless local broadcasters, who may feel the need to please the
government and not risk losing their broadcast licenses. One member
of the FCC had an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal
warning of
the dangers of the “study” (not to mention the million-dollar
cost). Conservative House members plan to investigate and probably
hold hearings.
As
serious and potentially evil as this FCC action is, it is a
relatively small thing in the agenda of the Obama Administration.
They readily send government agencies (FCC, EPA, IRS, etc.) after
people who are effective political opponents of theirs. It
is clear that Obama's "pen and phone" Executive Branch is a special interest striving to promote
itself and increase its power by whatever means it can get away with.
It is foolish to suppose that we can rely on the federal bureaucracy
to be concerned about citizens, especially those they don't like. The
great irony is that We the People are paying for our own
oppression.
I am confident that this state of
affairs will not stand. I believe Americans are not so weak and
docile as to continuously put up with abuse of their liberties and
policies that undermine the economy, harm the United States in the
world arena, and create ever-more citizen dependence upon government. To correct this, we should start by voting Democrats out of Congress, and replace a few Republicans as well.
* * *
Further reading: Jay Sekulow, "Is Obama trying to kill a free press?," Fox News, 02/20/2014.
