The Obama followthrough

It’s now been one week since America elected Barack Hussein Obama its next president. I’ve withheld public judgment until now because I’ve been trying to regain control of my emotions. Had I spewed out what was on top of my mind last Tuesday night, I would be no better than the leftists that wrongly accuse the right of hatred and speak unfiltered from the heart.

Obama will definitely put liberal justices on the Supreme Court bench; therefore, America has moved schizophrenically moved from an all-liberal national government to an all-conservative one, to a moderate one with a conservative president, and now back to an all-liberal one. Though it was the likely scenario with George Bush’s approval rating at historically low numbers, I’m still disappointed in America. It put no check on the Democrats’ agenda. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid inquired about using some of the $700-billion financial industry bailout plan on the auto industry. That would be deceitful and against the law, but America has spoken.

Obama will be my president on January 20, 2009. I will not move to another country, nor hollowly threaten to do so – as many liberals did when Bush was re-elected in 2004. I will support him with a sharp tongue. Notable conservatives have moved on from the McCain campaign very quickly and pointed out that Obama has done nothing wrong as president yet. These same conservatives noted what a fine victory speech he gave last Tuesday night in Grant Park in Chicago. It was a nice, if dour, speech of the same variety he eloquently gave throughout his 21-month campaign.

Stop. Think about that for a minute. Our next president ran a nearly two-year presidential campaign when the country knew virtually nothing about the man – and it’s still learning quite a bit. Very impressive, and the fact that he is half black marks a pivotal moment in American history. That’s all I have to say about race. Obama had more to say, though. He told Americans that his opposition would try to scare them by pointing out that he was black and had a funny name. McCain scrupulously never mentioned Obama’s race, nor did he speak Obama’s middle name. I wonder if it was ever part of the Obama campaign’s goal to convince America it was still racist to guilt-trip it into voting for the black man on the ticket.

One of the major issues of this campaign was campaign reform. Obama agreed on virtually every reform policy John McCain backed, yet it was Obama who ran this unprecedented long and expensive campaign. He vowed to use public funds, but turned his back on that promise when he realized it would give away an advantage. He even bought a 30-minute primetime infomercial as a lead-in to the World Series! Although he socialistically espoused “spreading the wealth,” he would not share one penny with the McCain camp. These two presidential candidates had a golden opportunity to set precedents as to how to run a modern campaign. They both failed. McCain said all the right things. Obama agreed. Then Obama backed out, just like he did on the “anytime, anywhere” town hall meetings, and McCain followed suit to stay in the race. So instead of losing the election rather than his bearings, McCain lost both.

I think Obama ran a smart, but ruthless campaign. Despite the fact that as president he has done nothing right or wrong yet, there will be one of two outcomes. Either he will enact the socialist policies he advocated during his campaign, and American capitalists will resent his administration for it; or he will go back on many of his policies as he finds out they can’t feasibly be done. Either way, he will succeed, as I believe this country has shifted from center-right to center-left. The left will still want to keep likely Republican candidates Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, or Bobby Jindal out of the White House in 2012.

But all is fine in the Obama house at the moment, because he has the power. He has so much power that he is trying to impose his will upon the current administration by putting the blood of the auto industry bailout on Bush’s hands. America will be socialist come hell or high water. It doesn’t matter, though. To the prince, the end justifies the means.

Don't give up on democracy yet!

Even if Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on most issues, at least they can agree that they love their country and will stand up and fight for it. Oh, wait. Nevermind. I was confusing bipartisanship with tyranny.

I recently engaged in a series of intriguing emails with a left-wing liberal democrat who holds Barack Obama on a pyrite pedestal. She is your standard well-educated, working, wisdom-lacking, American-voting, citizen-of-the-world that looks at things through rose-colored glasses. My ideas, of course, were “absurd” (as well as a host of other descriptions I will not list off for sake of time). But here’s the bottom line: If you could be born and live in any country in the world, where would you choose to live?

Most leftists dodge the question and give superfluous evidence to an unstated point. They say everything except a straight answer to the question. Not this cat. She prattled off a large handful of central European countries. I was shocked. This liberal was actually straightforward. So I give her John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address and ask her to name the speaker. You know the one: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” Ooh! Rejection! Your greatest democrat hero just told you to stick it out and fight! How do you respond to that one, ma’am?

She informed me she is studying for Greek citizenship to move there and be able to work anywhere in Europe. (Dramatic pause.) OK, so my point backfired in my face. But this raises the question as to why she would engage in a lengthy debate with me on American politics at all. Why isn’t she turning her head east to Greece? If she’s getting the heck out of Dodge, why should she get a voice as to who governs me? She needs to forfeit her vote!

Our founding fathers established the Electoral College to protect democracy. After all, pure government theories do not work with imperfect human nature. It would go to ensure that ill-informed Americans could not elect the wrong leader for themselves. It does not make sense to me that educated Americans (such as the one I email-debated) would vote for such a power-hungry individual in Obama. But that’s the point. The College would protect less well-informed Americans from electing Obama. But it won’t. “Educated” Americans are trying to put him in the White House.

There is nothing anyone can, or should, do to stand in the way of someone with a legal right to vote of casting her ballot. But that person, especially someone of education, should have the morals and common decency to abstain from voting in an election that will not affect her. Attempting to change the tides of leadership and leaving after your effort is useless to that person. It’s arrogant and oppressive. (It’s also the same thing Obama is trying to do by pulling out of Iraq before the democracy and freedom has been firmly established.) If you’re moving out of the country and changing your citizenship, I’m the one who has to live with your vote, not you! It’s immoral and disrespectful.

However, freedom is what makes this country of America great, so I would never stand in the way of someone voting if she has that legal right. She should not cast her vote, I affirm. Since no one stands in her way, it becomes incumbent upon her to decide what is right. If she chooses to punch that chad in November, whether it’s blue or red, she chooses of her own free will to tyrannically oppress me and my fellow American citizens who are leaving our country, who are not asking for a handout, who are asking how we can help make our great country even greater.