Obama's Second Declaration of War on America

Sitting down to parse President Barack Obama's second inaugural address of January 21^st, one's eyes begin to glaze over while scanning the transcript of the speech. There again are the same old platitudes, bromides, and catch phrases and secret coded messages. There again is the sanctimonious delivery of a person who wants to be remembered for something, because otherwise he is a zero who can only recite a speech someone else wrote and polished and ensured that no gaffes or unintended meanings were in the text. But he read the speech, he vetted it and approved of it, and he delivered it, so, it's his speech. He owns it, for better or for worse. And the unrelenting theme is worse.

Worse for the country, because he means to "transform" it. Which, to anyone who values freedom and governing his own destiny, means to damage it, perhaps irreparably.

Without Secret Service tut-tuts, you really want the chance, instead of laboriously construing the content of his inaugural spiel, to slap the man silly and hard across that smug, arrogant phiz of his for uttering words like "liberty," and "free markets," and "We hold these truths to be self-evident…" and other words and phrases that occur in the speech. Why? Because the words mean nothing but trouble to him. They meant nothing to the speechwriter. He is an enemy of those words. He is a power-luster. Liberty, free markets, freedom, and self-evident truths are his nemesis. He worked hard in his first term to denigrate and diminish them. He will work harder in his second term to eradicate them altogether.

He as much as said so.  "I'm here, and I'm going to do as I please – 'transform' the nation from a mixed economy/welfare state – which was bad enough (chuckle, chuckle) – into a full-scale Progressive/Socialist utopia, and what're you gonna do about it?" Boil away all the rhetoric, and that's thug talk. That's Chicago talk, the Rahm Emanuel gangster persona and approach to politics that never left the White House when the master of expletives and crisis-exploiter departed to return to his old stomping grounds.

In Congress, there is no one to oppose him. The Republicans may as well charter themselves as a dues-paying affiliate of the Democratic Party. The appellation "republican" for these compromisers and appeasers is undeserved and obscene. The Republican Party has, for just about a century now, behaved like a Chihuahua riding on the back of a Doberman. It goes wherever the Doberman goes, and yaps when the Doberman barks, and dares not jump off, because the Doberman will have it for lunch.

The Republicans, after all, helped to midwife the birth of the Progressives and the inauguration of socialism in the nation and of its economy in 1912, by Teddy Roosevelt's split with William Howard Taft  over Taft's using the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to break up U.S. Steel, a pet of Roosevelt's. The conflict between the conservative and Progressive Republicans handed Woodrow Wilson, a committed advocate of nascent fascism, the election of 1912. Virtually everything on the Republican Progressive platform – such as an income tax, the direct election of Senators, an inheritance tax, and so on – comported easily with the official Democratic Progressive agenda. That's bipartisanship with a capital B.

Having the Republicans and the conservatives for lunch is what is explicitly advocated by John Dickerson, political director of CBS News, in his battle plan that would allow Obama to consolidate his autocratic powers.

"The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP. If he wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat."

In explaining how Obama can divide and conquer the Republicans by abandoning attempts at bipartisanship, Dickerson advises:

Obama’s only remaining option is to pulverize. Whether he succeeds in passing legislation or not, given his ambitions, his goal should be to delegitimize his opponents. Through a series of clarifying fights over controversial issues, he can force Republicans to either side with their coalition's most extreme elements or cause a rift in the party that will leave it, at least temporarily, in disarray.

The "extremists," Dickerson suggests, should be so demonized that the Republicans will disavow any connection with them. Obama, he writes, has an opportunity "to hasten the demise of the old order by increasing the political cost of having the GOP coalition defined by Second Amendment absolutists, climate science deniers, supporters of 'self-deportation' [of illegal immigrants], and the pure no-tax wing."

Obama's inaugural agenda has that precisely in mind, and more. Dickerson needn't hold his breath. Conservative talk show host Mark Levin agrees with Dickerson's assessment of the state of the "Grand Old Party" and its inability to block the Obama agenda:

How to fight that agenda? Levin said the answer certainly doesn’t lie in the current Republican Party leadership. “I think the Republican Party, its apparatus, its so-called leadership, the parasitic consultants, represent an institution that is tired, old, almost decrepit, full of cowardice and vision-less. It has abandoned the Declaration of Independence and any serious defense of constitutional republicanism. The Democrat Party is now a radical 1960s party; it’s the anti-Constitution, anti-capitalism, anti-individual party. It largely controls the federal government, including the massive bureaucracy and much of the judiciary -- what I call the permanent branches of the federal government. The Democrat Party represents the federal government, and the federal government expands the power of the Democrat Party.

And, to paraphrase that comic line from Monty Python's The Life of Brian ("What have the Romans ever done for us?"), what have the Republicans ever done for us? Levin nails it:

On the other hand, the GOP today stands for capitulation, timidity, delusion -- so mostly nothing. Republicans may speak of the Constitution, limited government, low taxes, etc., but what have they done about them? Next to nothing if not nothing. Even when Bush 43 was president and the Republicans controlled Congress. What did they do? They went on a spending binge. They expanded Medicare, the federal role in local education, drove up the debt, etc. Meanwhile, we are lectured by putative Republicans like Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Tom Ridge, and a conga line of others trashing often viciously NOT Obama and what the Democrats are doing to our nation, but conservatives, constitutionalists, and tea party activists who are the only people left standing for liberty against tyranny in this country."

And why did the Republicans go on spending binges and expand the role and scope of government? Because they are morally and politically bankrupt. That was evident in 1912. They have been too obsessed with measuring up to the Democrats' and Progressives' notions of an ideal moral polity – which is collectivist, socialist, and ultimately fascist. But this would be news to the Republicans. When the Democrats bark, most Republicans yap in concurrence. Levin also nails Obama and his ideological origins and commitments:

I think Obama sees himself as correcting historic wrongs in this country, as delivering the fruits of the labor of other people to people who he believes have historically been put upon. I think there’s a lot of perverse thinking that goes on in his mind, radical left-wing thinking. He was indoctrinated with Marx and Alinksy [sic] propaganda. You not only see it in his agenda but in his words -- class warfare; degrading successful people unless, of course, they help finance his elections, causes, and organizations; pretending to speak for the so-called middle class when, in fact, he is destroying their jobs, savings, and future. Obama's war on our society is intended to be an onslaught in which the system is overwhelmed.”

I can think of a number of historical figures who saw themselves as "correcting historical wrongs": Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hugo Chavez, the Perons. And I think I can count on the fingers of one hand who have had the temerity to compare Obama with any one of them. Levin, perceptive as he is, is not of that number. It takes a species of honesty to make that comparison. I have heard no Republican or conservative courageous enough to make it.

Jerome Corsi of the Tea  Party reveals that the "executive orders" concerning guns was just a lot of official puffery, being little more than toothless presidential "proclamations."

What Obama signed were 23 presidential memoranda and proclamations that have no binding effect of law whatsoever.

But Congress is sure to help him making them lawfully binding in some form. No is not an operative verb in its lexicon. Maybe is. So, on to a little parsing of Obama's inaugural address. There is a wealth of assertions and statements that one can highlight. While not focusing how many times Obama said we (61 times) and together (seven) – he had to make sure that his audience identifies with his aims and that they will "share" the struggle with him – let's analyze a few, beginning with:

But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.

Meaning? Those "founding principles" no longer apply in the modern world. Reality is in flux and we must adapt to its new requisites. "New responses" are called for, such as abandoning those principles in favor of "collective action." Which means surrendering one's freedom as individuals for the sweaty warmth of the populist mob. It's just like squeezing into a packed subway car during rush hour. We're all going in the same direction, and have a right to be in that subway car.  Fidelity to principles must be replaced with loyalty to the state. To the leader. To the Führer.

My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it – so long as we seize it together.

Yes, "seize" it before it disappears again. "We are made for this moment" because we are all shapeless, malleable, interchangeable hunks of protoplasm, with no special claims on life. And if we "seize it together," that will make things all right.

For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it. We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class.

Here's his watered-down Marxism, omitting to mention that anyone connected with government contracts and lobbying and special interests comprise the new "shrinking few," except that the shrinkage is actually the unchecked growth of an oligarchy of a federal elite, in and out of government. Fox News reports on the locus of class:

The American Community Survey released last Thursday found seven of the nation's top 10 wealthiest counties now surround Washington, D.C. They include Loudoun County, Va., ranked No. 1, with a median household income over $119,000 dollars a year. Fairfax County, Va., was second with $105,000 and Arlington County, Va., third with just over $100,000 a year in median household income.

That "rising middle class" is chiefly a class of unproductive parasites of almost limitless description, from Congressional interns and staffers to Congressmen and Senators and lawyers and lobbyists and their staffers and thousands of organizations that have the ear of the power dispensers. I've left out the brigades of White House staffers and their sumptuous salaries and perks, as well as those of the Cabinet.

We understand that outworn programs are inadequate to the needs of our time. We must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, and reach higher. But while the means will change, our purpose endures: a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American. That is what this moment requires. That is what will give real meaning to our creed.

And Obama's creed is to "move forward," shoulder to shoulder, in lockstep, and he will reward us with higher taxes, more money for indoctrination camps otherwise known as "our schools," and special programs to enable "our citizens" to work harder and know more so they can become toiling tax cows. The "moment" requires that everyone surrender his individuality and become the one of the many, the Seven of Nine, the Sixteen of Two Million, and a loyal cipher unable to breathe free.

We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity. We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.

That "basic measure of security and dignity" means the welfare state, government-guaranteed golden parachutes, and the dodgy trampolines of safety nets. As for the "generation that will build" the future? It's already saddled with a debt that can never, ever be paid off – "fiscal cliff" or no fiscal cliff – yet the government expects everyone to be happy and to whistle while they work in a state of indentured servitude. Let's see, the $700,000 share of the national debt has been assigned to five-year-olds, but that figure won’t remain static, it will grow. Their generation – should it survive – will be asked to make more sacrifices. As for working, productive adults today – they're screwed already, so there's no need to make any appeals to them. The next time a doorbell rings, it's the government calling on your kids.

They'll be in it "together," you see. All for the common good. Forward!March!