Posted on 04/06/2009 8:55:07 AM PDT by Borges
I have been watching an interesting phenomenon on the right, which is beginning to cause me concern. I am referring to the over-the-top hysteria in response to the first months in office of our new president, which distinctly reminds me of the "Bush is Hitler" crowd on the left.
Conservatives, please. Let's not duplicate the manias of the left as we figure out how to deal with President Obama. He is not exactly the antichrist, although a disturbing number of people on the right are convinced he is.
I have recently received commentaries that claim that "Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history" and "never has a politician in this land had such a quasi-religious impact on so many people" and "Obama is a narcissist," which leads the author to then compare Obama to David Koresh, Charles Manson, Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein. Excuse me while I blow my nose.
This fellow has failed to notice that all politicians are narcissists. So what? Political egos are one of the reasons the Founders put checks and balances on executive power. As for serial lying, is there a politician that cannot be accused of that? And once, a recent president set a pretty high bar in this category, and we survived it. As for Obama's speeches, they are hardly in the Huey Long, Louis Farrakhan, Fidel Castro vein. They are in fact eloquently and cleverly centrist and sober.
So what's the panic? It is true that Obama has shown surprising ineptitude in his first months in office, but he's not a zero with no accomplishments, as many conservatives seem to think -- unless you regard beating the Clinton machine and winning the presidency as nothing. But in doing this, you fall into the "Bush-is-an-idiot" bag of liberal miasmas.
It is also true Obama has ceded his domestic economic agenda to the House Democrats and spent a lot of money in the process. But what's the surprise in this? After all, George W. Bush and John McCain both proposed (and in Bush's case pushed through) massive government giveaways (which amount to government takeovers as well). This is bad, but it doesn't make Obama a closet Mussolini, however deplorable the conservatives among us may regard it. Moreover, he has run into political resistance even within his own party. Charlie Rangel has made it clear that the itemized deduction tax hike is not going through his committee -- and that should tell you the American system is still in place.
Even as astute a conservative thinker as Mark Steyn has been swept up in the tide that thinks Obama is a "transformative" radical. But look again at his approach to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In both cases, he is carrying out the Bush policies -- the same that he once joined his fellow Democrats in condemning. And that should be reassuring to anyone concerned about where he is heading as commander in chief.
In other words, while it's reasonable to be unhappy with a Democratic administration and even concerned because the Democrats are now a socialist party in the European sense, we are not witnessing the coming of the antichrist. A good strategy for political conflicts is to understand your opponent first -- not to underestimate him, but not to overestimate him, either.
As we move forward, Obama faces increasingly tough choices in the wars against Islamic fascism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza and Iran. Hopefully, he will make the right choices, and should he do so, conservatives will need to be there to support him. If he makes the wrong choices, conservatives will need to be there to oppose him. But neither our support nor our opposition should be based on hysterical responses to policies that we just don't like. Let's leave that kind of behavior to the liberals who invented it.
The difference between “not exactly” and dead on the money is measured in millimeters...
Proof?
The anti-christ cannot appear until the Holy Spirit, which indwells Christians, is absent from the earth. IE, Christians will have to be gone before he can appear.
0bama has appeared, Christians are still here,
QED, he’s not the anti-christ...
Good enough?
geesh.....hyperbole alert.
While your facts may be correct, your sarcasm meter is broken. Get a sense of humor.
I wasn’t attempting to ridicule you,
just offering an analysis that there actually IS biblical proof that ‘bammy is too incompetent to be the antichrist.
On the other hand, he may be AN antichrist without being THE antichrist.
Leave it to a pundit to believe that a political accomplishment is on the same level as a real life accomplishment. So being the best liar and thief is now a great American accomplishment? You learn something new everyday.
Let’s just agree that he is stupid and evil and leave it at that.
I love it when we all come together in harmony.
I dont go by what pundits - even on the right - say.
I go by his own actions.
His budget is the most radical big-spending budget in the history of the USA.
With all due respect, our posts here are not legal documents, and this is not a college thesis.
We do not have time, most of us, to “split hairs” and respond, specifically, to either you or your wife.
Since you are both in the same household, seem to agree with each other, and have VERY similar names, on these threads, I will treat you as the same person.
Now to the point I was trying to make:
I doubt that either of you will have much success, at politics, if you truly due consider yourselves to be conservative Republicans, since neither of you seem to know how to be team players.
Even as astute a conservative thinker as Mark Steyn has been swept up in the tide that thinks Obama is a "transformative" radical. But look again at his approach to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In both cases, he is carrying out the Bush policies -- the same that he once joined his fellow Democrats in condemning. And that should be reassuring to anyone concerned about where he is heading as commander in chief.
Steyne's comment doesn't look especially wrong or objectionable. If people talk about a "Reagan Revolution" it's not far off base to speculate about Obama's "transformative radicalism."
I'm not saying that's what the final verdict on Obama will be, just that it's certainly as valid a guess as any as to what's going on. Talk of Afghanistan and Iraq looks beside the point: it's more likely to me that Steyne was talking about domestic politics.
A lot of the talk of Obama as a Marxist or Communist or fascist is nonsense and beside the point, but Horowitz doesn't appear to have much of a handle on how Americans have come to talk about politics under any administration.
I live in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to get certain types of ammo. Not impossible, but the normal places I go to pick some up for convenience are out of 9mm..9mm!
But, serving as the canary in the coal mine for the rest of you lucky people, I often have a preview of what is in store, given the fact that Deval Patrick and Barack Obama have a lot in common, ideologically speaking.
I figure this is how they are going to hobble the 2nd Amendment. They won’t ban guns, but they will make ammunition so hard to get and so expensive that we won’t be able to practice...
I am becoming more alarmed as the weeks go by with Obama in charge and the legislation the RATS are passing with abandon.
Your statement is very true. We truly are alone in the world. The USA saved Europe from what I believe we are now slipping into. Nobody is going to save US.
If anything, there will be wolves waiting to take us apart when we are at our weakest. China and Russia have been waiting for this for a long time.
Wise up, David. You can remain calm if you want. I am deeply disturbed by the whole GM thing.
No it wasn’t directed at you..
I had just read that in the original story and was going
to reply.
But instead of replying to the first post.. I just replied to yours.
But I completely agree with you. Horowitz is off his rocker.
Patience is the virtue of the hunter, but patience cannot be allowed to turn into inaction.
EveningStar, I know enough about Horowitz having read three of his books, most recently “Radical Son”, which is all you really need to read to get the measure of him.
And I don’t say that in a bad way. I admire him for being able to reflect and change his ideology, one of the hardest things for people to do.
But he is wrong on this. This IS a big deal.
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