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Scandal or Storm: The Making of Obama’s Legacy
Townhall.com ^ | June 3, 2013 | Dan Holler

Posted on 06/03/2013 7:16:57 AM PDT by Kaslin

Democrats are practically pleading with President Obama to sharpen his message. After successfully raising taxes on every working American at the beginning of the year, the progressive movement has suffered one debilitating blow after another.

In March, many in the media laughed when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) declared conservatives were winning. But the rallying cry of collective action that rang throughout Obama’s second inaugural address now seems like more empty rhetoric, not an emerging reality.

Still buzzed from their victory over Mitt Romney, Team Obama held the misguided belief they could convince Americans (not collectivists to begin with) that they should join the team. Of course, whatever hope they had of changing the American people vanished as the IRS scandal grew.

Just last week, McClatchy reported the IRS audited a retired Army Lt. Col. after he began donating to and participating in conservative causes. As he explained it, “I am just a common citizen, who honorably served his nation for 23 years, who has not had this experience before and now honestly questions the actions and motivation of the IRS and how far they have gone in their actions.”

Bill Clinton’s former labor secretary Robert Reich cannot simply dismiss this as the “scandal du jour." Rather, it strikes at the very core of the Obama agenda.

For Americans to put their faith in the President’s government-centric solutions, they have to put their faith in government. They must also be comfortable with power inevitably vested in nameless, faceless bureaucrats as the leviathan grows.

Proponents of big-government are not stupid. They understand Americans are not comfortable with the necessary erosion of freedom that comes with the growth of government. They understand that nicer, more Orwellian ways exist to say those sorts of things.

To wit, last week in Asbury Park, New Jersey, President Obama made clear “part of the reason I came back, to let people know we’re going to keep on going until we finish.” To make sure the crowd understood, he said, “I promised you that your country would have your back. I told you we would not quit until the job was done, and I meant it. I meant it.”

There is absolutely no denying the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy. But going back to the Jersey Shore provided Obama the opportunity to demonstrate how he was making their lives work. He wanted to show the American people the federal government could work for people, not just take their tax dollars and spend them on targeting conservatives.

This approach stands in stark contrast to the comments made by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) in the days after a massive tornado swept through Moore, Oklahoma:

“We have too much government now. What you have seen already in Oklahoma is a complete voluntary response. Almost $50 million has been raised and given for the cause down there. You have seen a tremendous neighbor-to-neighbor response. Less than 25 people had to spend the night in a shelter out of everybody that was displaced because neighbors are helping neighbors. Watch how we handle this. We will get by and rebuild.”

Some may be tempted to dismiss any comparison between the two events. Before doing so, consider the President’s words after touring the damage in Moore:

“And when we say that we’ve got your back, I promise you, we keep our word. If you talk to folks in Alabama who have been affected over the last couple of years; you talk to the folks at Joplin, who I know have actually sent volunteers down here to Moore; if you talk to folks in New Jersey and New York, they’ll tell you that when we say we’re going to be there until you completely rebuild, we mean it. And I want everybody to have that confidence.”

Obama’s legacy will be defined by how people perceive the role of government, perhaps more specifically the role of his government. We should ask ourselves if we want a government that has our backs every step of the way? Perhaps the more important question is, if so, are we willing to accept the inevitable consequences of a government large enough to do so?

I, for one, am not.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: biggovernment; conservatives; hurricanesandy; legacy; obama; oklahoma; tomcoburn

1 posted on 06/03/2013 7:16:57 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
Hey, don't blame me . . . I'm just an idiot!
2 posted on 06/03/2013 7:22:27 AM PDT by laweeks
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To: Kaslin
Gerald R. Ford: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have,"-Address to a joint session of Congress on August 12, 1974.

American citizens, given the current state of things, might want to mull on the significance of this remark.

If those words were considered, the great and self-professed benevolent "redistributor" and "fair share" advocate might be exposed, and a better understanding of terms might influence voter opinion.

"Fair share" is just "slavery" by another name. Government "masters" buy votes in exchange for retaining their "master redistributionist" status, while their "voters" yield up freedom for themselves and future generations.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C. S. Lewis

All who doubt the wisdom of Lewis might watch a YouTube video of the President's remarks at a National Prayer Breakfast. There, Obama arrogantly misappropriated Jesus's spiritual challenge to individuals, claiming those words as validating and authorizing abusive use of coercive power by himself and his cronies to "take" from some in order to buy votes and accumulate more power to themselves--all in the name of "helping" the beneficiaries of such unconstitutional "takings."

Hear Samuel Adams:

"Is it now high time for the people of this country to explicitly declare whether they will be free men or slaves. It is an important question which ought to be decided. It concerns more than anything in this life. The salvation of our souls is interested in this event. For wherever tyranny is established, immorality of every kind comes in like a torrent, it is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice.” - Samuel Adams

And:

“The utopian schemes of leveling and a community of goods, are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. These ideas are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government unconstitutional.” - Samuel Adams

3 posted on 06/03/2013 7:29:59 AM PDT by loveliberty2
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To: Kaslin

“O’s” Legacy...?

Well, it proves (if you NEED proof at this point) the definitively epic fail of both the MSM (the premier sausage factory of all time) and the NEA.

TOGETHER, these organizations have effectively devalued academic rigor (without which education cannot properly be CALLED education) and trivialized journalistic ethics to the level of broad farce!

On the one hand, they generate shamefully unfit poseurs and foist them into leadership roles… and on the other hand… they systematically and routinely, mass produce the fat lazy cattle who wouldn’t DREAM of challenging MSM hype… even IF they had the least intellectual integrity or the faintest recollection of HOW to demand honesty and ethical conduct from these self-crowned ‘journo-politicos’ who by now, RUN this country!

Garbage IN and garbage OUT!


4 posted on 06/03/2013 7:39:57 AM PDT by SMARTY ("The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings. "Henri Frederic Amiel)
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To: Kaslin
Here are 185 examples of Barack Obama’s lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, etc.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3026718/posts

5 posted on 06/03/2013 8:13:16 AM PDT by grundle
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To: Kaslin

Consequences of a government.Yes you get what you didn’t vote for.


6 posted on 06/03/2013 10:00:32 AM PDT by Vaduz
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