Posted on 04/28/2012 5:15:45 AM PDT by IbJensen
Barack Obama attempts to intimidate contributors to Mitt Romney's campaign.
Try this thought experiment: You decide to donate money to Mitt Romney. You want change in the Oval Office, so you engage in your democratic right to send a check.
Several days later, President Barack Obama, the most powerful man on the planet, singles you out by name. His campaign brands you a Romney donor, shames you for "betting against America," and accuses you of having a "less-than-reputable" record. The message from the man who controls the Justice Department (which can indict you), the SEC (which can fine you), and the IRS (which can audit you), is clear: You made a mistake donating that money.
Are you worried?
Richard Nixon's "enemies list" appalled the country for the simple reason that presidents hold a unique trust. Unlike senators or congressmen, presidents alone represent all Americans. Their powers—to jail, to fine, to bankrupt—are also so vast as to require restraint. Any president who targets a private citizen for his politics is de facto engaged in government intimidation and threats. This is why presidents since Nixon have carefully avoided the practice.
Save Mr. Obama, who acknowledges no rules. This past week, one of his campaign websites posted an item entitled "Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney's donors." In the post, the Obama campaign named and shamed eight private citizens who had donated to his opponent. Describing the givers as all having "less-than-reputable records," the post went on to make the extraordinary accusations that "quite a few" have also been "on the wrong side of the law" and profiting at "the expense of so many Americans."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Sigh, I wonder if Ms. Strassel has ever read the Federalist Papers? So many of the “debates” we are having are explicitly addressed by our founders. Take this issue, in fact, what she’s really talking about is what Hamilton and Madison referred to as “factionalism”, addressed in depth in Federalists 9 and 10.
They aren’t hard to read - a little old and some colloquialisms - but the meaning is plain. They felt that democracy had within it an inherent risk that its politics would devolve into a factionalism in which politicians would manipulate coalitions of minorities or outright majorities to “vote” impingements on other “group’s” liberty.
They were terrified of it actually. They claimed it would destroy our ‘experiment in self-government’. They believed that free, self-governing citizens would need to engage their reason and understand that the limits classical liberal ideas place on government served all Americans and that they traduced another’s liberty at their own peril. Hamilton, Madison and Jefferson are on the record in many ways on this topic. Factionalism is un-American - a word I don’t use lightly.
Ergo, Obama is un-American in his use of factionalism as a political strategy, and is at odds with the very idea of limited democracy. People miss that the reason Obama is anti-capitalist and so enamored of the power of the state is that he - and every other Progressive=Social Justice Fetishist=Marxist - reject the moral philosophy which informed the very construction of our liberty. He thinks they, and those of us who still adhere to the classical liberal ideas of Madison and Jefferson, are wrong and clinging to a disproved ideology. Our founders sought to limit the ability of people like Obama who sought to use democracy (mob rule) to violate the liberty of classes of people he decides don’t deserve the same liberty as other groups.
The IRS is reported to be aggressively and some people seem to believe abusively auditing Republican and Tea Party candidates in the past and upcoming elections.
The Nixon enemies list was actually Dean’s list but Ofcourse was attributed to Nixon for political purposes. I can’t say that Nixon was without reproach but he was a piker when you take into consideration the administrations of LBJ, Clinton and obama
Kim rocks. Obama twiddles his thumbs when he’s not sucking them.
Just one more agency due for a top to bottom house cleaning come November.
Obama has an enemies list?
Can I be on it? Please, please, please...
I say let the Mormons finance Romney’s campaign. They got the money and Romney doesn’t have conservative love. My money is going to the guys challenging Lugar and Hatch.
Daniel Schorr made a living off of not being invited to a White House reception or something. And the trickster Sagretti was sent to jail for doing stuff like sending delivery pizzas to a Georgetown cocktail party.
Your analysis is brilliant. The truth is, Obama is alien to even the most basic fundamentals of freedom that have traditionally made our country great. Simply put, he is not one of us — or more correctly: he is not one of those of us who still share the essential values that made America great.
And thereby lies the rub — and, in fact, the great, and far more frightening, truth. Obama, you see, has correctly figured out that the factions that will return him to the White House have very little knowledge of, let alone respect for, the moral imperatives that once made America great.
His constituency is made up of the ne’er-do-wells, the cavilers, the profligates, the lazy, the lethargic, and the promiscuous. Tattooed, body-pierced, unbathed, and disease ridden, they scoff at those who value hard work, virtue, decency, dignity, a daily shower, and a bar of soap.
They are deeply offended by someone like Sarah Palin, who commits what to them is the goody-goody transgression of sleeping only with her own husband. And a sissified Tim Tebow who clings to his antiquated virginity is to them, quite simplt repulsive. Give them the Kardashians and Bobby Browns any day of the week. Now, they really know how to live!
Unfortunately, we now live in Barack Obama’s America. If you doubt that for one single, solitary second, just turn on the TV. Or the radio. Eavesdrop on the conversation of the folks under 40 sitting next to you at the local diner. Or, ask the next ten pregnant women you run into if they are married.
You are entirely correct: Barack Obama is engaging in repugnant and destructive factionalism. And, tragically, in America today, those two terms also describe his rapidly growing faction.
And he was a staunch anti-communist. It was the primary reason the MSM of the time went after him with guns blazing.
I would disagree with the “rapidly growing faction” part.
The people I meet, even here in deep-indigo Massachusetts, are much more conservative than they get credit for. Those who received an actual education in school seem to “get it” that the country is in a tailspin.
There is a Silent Majority and they are furious. Oppressive taxes, stifling regulations, widespread immoral behavior and a ridiculous foreign policy (just to name a few of the current outrages) ... all are feeding the fire.
If I was a reporter I would ask Obama his opinion of Federalist 9. Just to see him squirm and wonder where it appeared in Alinsky’s book.
I sure hope and pray that you are right. I really do.
Rules for Radicals.
And the Silent Majority isn’t speaking out due to reasons outlined above. I have never been more fearful of a KGB style Bureau in this country. Pray for deliverance in November. As in ‘deliver us from evil’.
If Seymour Hersh is right, the Kennedy administration was also awash with corruption. He repeats charges that Kenny O’Donnell and others were “skimming” campaign contributions and speculates that some of the money was going to JFK himself.
I would dearly love to see one or more of these “enemies” of Obama start a major ad campaign and directly challenge Obama and his justice department. Something along the lines of:
“Mr. Obama and his regime’s Just-us department have chosen target myself personally and the Corporation that I am CEO of for having the temerity to exercise my right of free speech in by donating my time and funds to a candidate that is opposing him in the upcoming election.
And here I thought that “Enemies Lists” were not acceptable and were one of the things that caused President Nixon to resign from his office.”
You can add more but now is the time to stand up to Obama because if he wins in November? All bets are off...
Mark
PJ O’Rourke has a good start on a list we can use...
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