Obamaism

"A house divided against itself cannot stand".  Abraham Lincoln said that in 1858, two years before he became president.  One hundred and fifty-five years later we have again become irreconcilably divided, all due to the actions and rhetoric of one man named Barack Obama.  At no other time in our history have we had a president who tells us every day that winners of elections can do whatever they damn well please and losers shut the fuck up.  At no other time in American history have we had a president who absolutely refused to work with the opposing party to negotiate on legislation.  In America it has always been the responsibility of the president to work for all the people, not just those who voted for him.  In Barack Obama's case less than 3 in 10 eligible voters did vote for him, and that undoubtedly included some people who were dead, ineligible to vote, and voted more than once.

Over the last three months Barack Obama has been quoted as saying, "The one unifying principle in the Republican Party is making sure that 30 million people don't have health care".  And "In order to achieve this they are willing to tank the entire economy".  And "The Republicans promise economic chaos if they don't get their way."  And "The Republicans desire to actually plunge this country back into recession - all to deny the basic security of health care to millions of Americans".  And "Republicans want to default on the debt to cause a world-wide financial crisis".  And "You have never seen in the history of the United States the threat of not raising the debt ceiling being used to extort a president or a governing party", when in fact that is exactly what a rookie Senator named Barack Obama did in 2006 to attempt to defund the Iraq war.

Obama is not saying that in his opinion a deep recession, a global financial catastrophe, or people losing health care coverage would likely be the result of Republican policies.  He is saying those are the Republicans goals.  He is saying Republicans are mean and evil monsters intent on making fellow Americans suffer.  The previous three sentences and the prior paragraph were culled from an article in the Wall Street Journal by Karl Rove.  No matter what anyone may think of Karl Rove, the last paragraph and a half are part of the public record and therefore indisputable.

Let's assume you are a Democrat, or more accurately today, an Obamacrat.  Have you ever heard Republicans demean your intelligence and integrity by saying such things as "Because of your opposition to school choice and charter schools you obviously don't want children to get a decent education"?  Or "Because of your support for ObamaCare you evidently want to inflict on the public a health care system that subjects citizens to higher costs, long waits for substandard medical care provided by an unfamiliar physician, and reliance on government health panels to approve needed medical procedures".  Or "You clearly want future generations to live in poverty by burdening them with massive debt, high unemployment and unavailable job opportunities".  Or "Your goal is for all of us to die in a nuclear holocaust because you are unilaterally dismantling our defense capabilities".  In other words, you intentionally want to destroy our country.

What would you think if you constantly heard Republicans saying these things?  Would these provocative accusations inspire you to change your opinions?  I seriously doubt it.  It would just piss you off.  But this is what anyone who disagrees with our president has to put up with every day.  Could anything be more polarizing?  I am not even a Republican and it pisses me off.  I am an independent.  I don't agree with many Republican positions on the issues either.  But I adamantly disagree with most of the Obamacrat policies, and therefore strongly object to the arrogant bully's condescending lectures and inflammatory rhetoric.

Obama said if he negotiated with the Republicans it would mean the Republicans would get everything they want and the Democrats would get nothing.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The Republicans wanted to postpone the implementation of ObamaCare for one year and make it applicable to Congress and the Congressional staffs.  That was it.  There was nothing in the Republican proposals about what they really want, such as reducing taxes, reforming Medicare and Medicaid, increasing defense spending, rationalizing welfare or approving the Keystone Pipeline.  For Obama his rhetoric was all just his standard operating procedure, more malignant slanders about throwing old people under the bus, eating the children, and exploiting the poor.  He lies deliberately with impunity, and no one from his major media propaganda machine ever objects, calls him out or holds him accountable.

The recent budget agreement ending the government shutdown naturally has been proclaimed by the groveling talking heads of his in-house media as a total victory for Obama and the Obamacrats.  But was it really?  Is it a victory when for the foreseeable future we will continue on the road to oblivion with political business as usual, having to argue over the same issues every few months?  Obamacrats will continue to demean, vilify and slander Republicans with outrageous lies.  The illusionists of the Obama controlled major media networks will continue to call the Republicans doctrinaire and obstructionist, even though the Republicans were the ones that submitted proposal after proposal to reach a budget compromise that Obamacrats refused to even consider.  We now know without a doubt that Obamacrats will never stop the growth in unaffordable entitlement programs no matter how much damage they are doing to the future of the country.  That is because it buys them votes.

So who is the obstructionist here?  If Barack Obama and Harry Reid would have agreed to any of the minor changes to the law Republicans requested then the government shutdown would not have occurred.  These were changes that should have been made, particularly in view of Obama's unilateral actions to delay the employer mandate, grant over a thousand wavers to his financial backers, and in light of the fact that it wasn't ready to be implemented as has been proven by its disastrous launch.  The only thing that held America hostage was Obama's monumental ego.  Any attempt to get Obamacrats to act in a responsible and rational manner is always met by vitriolic name calling and a refusal to consider opposing opinions.  That is not the way a government based on separation of powers is supposed to work.

Obamacrats love to say the Republicans dogmatic pursuit of unrestrained capitalism and heartless social policies are the reason we have unsatisfactory economic growth, inadequate health care, high unemployment, homelessness, income inequality, etc., etc., etc.  What a crock of bullshit.  Social security has been with us for nearly eighty years.  Medicare and Medicaid have been in existence for nearly fifty years.  They are all now out of control and growing at unsustainable rates.  Unemployment insurance, free food, public welfare for the indigent, and other income security programs have been around for years.  Government rules and regulations have expanded exponentially to handcuff and straightjacket private enterprise and job creation.  Where is the heartless social policies and unrestrained capitalism Obamacrats incessantly complain about?  Massive government bureaucracies and unmanageable entitlements programs have created our problems, not over-indulged capitalism or inadequate social safety nets.

ObamaCare is not only another unaffordable entitlement, it is also the one that is most unjustifiable.  Social Security is probably necessary since most Americans are not capable of planning ahead to adequately save for their own retirement.  Medicare and Medicaid serve a useful purpose, but would be more effective if merged into one program that provides basic care for the indigent and universal insurance for catastrophic injuries and illnesses that are too expensive for all but the extremely wealthy to afford.  Basic health care services should rely on free market competition among insurance companies to offer affordable insurance for the ordinary and routine medical care people need.  We don't need and can't afford ObamaCare.  We need the current health care industry to be privatized, restructured and rationalized.

The Democratic Party used to believe in the traditional American foundation of democracy, capitalism, individual rights, personal responsibility, and equal opportunity.  But they have now morphed into the Obamacratic Party, populated with Obamacrats believing in Obamaism.  They no longer believe in democracy.  They believe in one party rule.  They no longer believe in individual liberty.  They believe in monitoring and controlling citizens behavior.  They no longer believe in justice for all.  They believe in favoring special interests and ethnic groups to buy their votes.  They no longer believe in private enterprise and free markets.  They believe in government control of economic activity, including federal subsidies for favored industries and financial supporters.  They no longer believe in capitalism, where incentives for personal gain lead to creativity, innovation, economic expansion and widespread affluence.  They believe in redistributing income from the productive middle class to those dependent on government, including the special interest groups who need government funding to promote their agenda.  And apparently Obamacrats no longer believe in a socially unified nation that stands for equal rights and opportunity for all.  They now believe that anyone who opposes their policies and actions must be demonized, marginalized, humiliated, denigrated and silenced.

One thing I have learned over my nearly 65 years is that the way something is perceived in the present is often not the way it is perceived in the future.  As already mentioned, the national media painted the Republicans in general and the so-called tea party in particular as the big losers in the government shutdown fiasco.  Personally, I think the biggest losers were the establishment Republicans.  They have been outed as nothing more than Obamacrats Light, supporters of big government and advocates of political business as usual.  A lot of these fat and happy dinosaurs may find themselves out on their butts next November.

Perhaps over the long run the biggest loser in the shutdown debacle will be the Obamacrats themselves.  November 2014 is still more than a year away.  More and more independents are realizing every day that we cannot sustain big government and political business as usual.  Maybe some folks who call themselves Democrats will become enlightened and realize the Obamacrats are not who they thought they were.  Perhaps they will toss a few of the entrenched, obstructionist oligarchs of their party out on the street as well.

Regardless, there remains a very large segment of the population that will not forget the tactics of demonization and the malicious names they have been called by the president of their country just because they do not kiss his ass and endorse his policies.  He has polarized America beyond reconciliation.  Either the Obamacrats will eventually pay the price for this uncivil behavior of their leader, or the country will.  That is not a threat.  I have no influence or power over anybody.  It is a prediction.

A year from now ObamaCare will likely be exposed as a monumental disaster, so dysfunctional and damaging to the country's physical and financial health that even the Obamacrat controlled media will no longer be able to cover it up.  Obamacrats will pay for that at the polls, if we are still allowed to have elections by His Eminence in the White House.  Furthermore, if Americans continue to condone a party in power that refuses to negotiate with the other one that represents an almost equal amount of Americans, and whose only arguments about policy contain nothing but slanderous lies, hysterical demonization, outrageous accusations and irrational insinuations regarding their opponents, then this country is going down.

The only people in this country that can restore America's traditional principles of liberty, justice and limited government are the independents who reject both political parties and the segment at the core of the Republican Party that focuses on the important issues and could care less about the demands of the religious right.  I am not saying the religious right is wrong, but they need to understand there are much more important issues than gay rights and abortion.  They also need to understand that America was founded on separation of church and state, and that they cannot impose their beliefs on every American citizen.

The most recent Gallup poll of less than a month ago found that 30% of Americans identify themselves as Democrats, down just 2% from a year before.  20% identify themselves as Republicans (down 8%) while 47% (up 9%) are independents.  Independents reject the ideological rigidity of the extremists of both mainstream parties.  A party in the middle that rejects the big government domination and expansion of the Obamacrats and the unpopular social restraints of the Republican far right could coalesce to become the viable alternative to extreme leftists that now run the country.  They could bring rationality, responsibility, cooperation and civility to the American political environment.  It could bring an end to the unproductive and dangerous polarization of American society.

Finally, I will venture a forecast that to most folks will appear to be absurd folly.  I predict the biggest winner of the October 2013 budget war will eventually be Ted Cruz.  He fought the good fight against another entitlement because ObamaCare is wrong.  He did it because of principle and the knowledge that America will not survive with business as usual.  It was exactly what his constituents elected him to do.  Someday soon Americans will again realize that government leaders with intelligence, principles and integrity are what we must have to survive as a free, just, and prosperous nation.  Our elected representatives must represent us, not themselves.  If I am wrong, then it is time to start praying to the God of your choice, if you are still allowed to have one other than Barack Obama.