We can still salvage enough of the Constitution to remain a free, democratic nation
Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill once said, "All
politics is local." That may have been true in Tip O'Neill's day, but
some elections are decisively on national issues — and the Congressional
elections this year are overwhelmingly national, just as the elections
of 1860 were dominated by one national issue, namely slavery.
In 1860, some abolitionists split the anti-slavery vote by running their own candidate — who had no chance of winning — instead of supporting Abraham Lincoln, who was not pure enough for some abolitionists. Lincoln got just 40 percent of the vote, though that turned out to be enough to win in a crowded field.
But what a gamble with the fate of millions of human beings held as slaves! And for what? Symbolic political purity?
This year as well, there are third-party candidates
complicating elections that can decide the fate of this nation for years
to come. No candidate that irresponsible deserves any vote. With all
the cross-currents of political controversies raging today, what is the
overriding national issue that makes this year's Congressional elections
so crucial?
That issue is whether, despite all the lawless edicts of President Obama, threatening one-man rule, we can still salvage enough of the Constitution to remain a free, democratic nation.
Barack Obama will be on his way out in two years
but, if he can appoint enough federal judges who share his contempt for
the Constitution's limits on federal government power in general, and
presidential powers in particular, then the United States of America can
continue on the path to becoming another banana republic, even after
Obama has left the White House.
President Obama understands how high the stakes are,
which is why he is out fundraising all across the country — seemingly
all the time — even though he has no more elections to face himself.
Obama came to power saying that he was going to fundamentally change the
United States of America — and he intends to do it, even after he is
gone, by giving lifetime appointments as federal judges to people who
share his view that this country's institutions and values are
fundamentally wrong, and need to be scrapped and replaced by his far
left vision.
If only Obama's critics and opponents understood this momentous issue as clearly as he does!
The issue is whether "we the people," as designated by the Constitution, continue free to live our own lives as we see fit, and to determine what laws and policies we want to live under.
President Obama's vision is very different. In his
vision, our betters in Washington shall simply order us to live as they
want us to live — telling us what medical insurance we can have, what
doctors we can go to, what political groups shall be favored by the
Internal Revenue Service, with more of the same coming in the years
ahead, long after Obama has left the White House.
Critics who deplore President Obama's foreign
policies in general, and his weak response to the ISIS threat in
particular, as showing incompetence — and who see his incessant
fundraising as just a weird distraction — fail to understand how
different his priorities are from theirs.
Barack Obama understands clearly that his ability to
fundamentally remake what he has long seen as a deeply defective and
corrupt America in the image of his far left vision depends crucially on
having control of the Senate that has the power to confirm his
appointments of federal judges with lifetime tenure. His fundraising is
key to maintaining the Democrats' Senate majority.
Foreign policy is subordinated to Obama's overriding
ideological vision. The president will not risk losing this year's
Congressional elections by taking military actions that will alienate
his political base. Token military actions can minimize the political losses from other voters.
That people will die while he stalls on military
action is a price he is willing to pay. His ordering thousands of
American troops into Ebola-infested Liberia shows the same ideologically
driven callousness.
The big question is whether those who wish to
preserve a free America see the issue and the stakes equally as clearly
as Barack Obama does — and see that this is the overriding national
issue of our time, with our votes for Senators not to be confused by
local issues.
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