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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: skinowski who wrote (481983)	4/11/2012 9:19:17 PM
From: KLP	4 Recommendations Respond to of 794210

IBD - Apotheosis of an Autocrat Obama Sacrifices Liberty To All-Powerful Government By ERNEST S. CHRISTIAN Posted 04/10/2012 06:12 PM ET Barack Obama is very dangerous, the apotheosis of an insidious strain of authoritarianism that destroys freedom from within. Like an invasive species, it had been gnawing away at America's vitals since the 1930s. Then, impatient for power, Obama's Chicago contingent hit upon the ultimate quick-acting fraud — capture the White House by electing an illusion. They conjured up an imaginary Obama invested with virtues never before or since found in the original. The make-believe Obama then starred in an electoral fairy tale scripted by the media and proclaimed a hit by bewitched voters. Thus did it come to pass in the year 2008 that Americans were duped into electing a president quite different from the illusion for which they voted. The real Barack Obama is a steely-eyed autocrat, dedicated to expanding his power at the expense of our liberty, still a bit of a Marxist, alternately hostile to or agnostic about capitalism, and intent on transforming America into a government-controlled society composed of obedient automatons. The lights of personal and economic freedom in America are starting to flicker. If Obama gets a second term, they will go out. As Charles Krauthammer said, Obama "will take the country to a place from which it will not be able to return." Upon arrival, we will sink into a new dark age of absurdities designed by Obama. Centuries of American law and civilization will be turned upside down. The sacred will be defiled, the repugnant exalted, the Constitution inverted. Instead of protecting us, it will be used to exploit and enslave us. Our rights to speech, religion and property, and to privacy in our persons and homes, will be transformed. They will become Obama's rights to take our property, tell us what to say, how and whether we may exercise our religion, what medical care we may receive and how long we are permitted to live. Swarms of bureaucrats will tell us how to raise and educate our children, what they shall be taught, what job they (and we) are to work at, the wages we receive, what to do with the money, and if we are allowed to "own" a business, whom to hire and fire, what to produce and sell, and how much profit (if any) we are permitted to make. Is this apocalyptic prognosis overstated? Perhaps — but not by much. Only the willfully obtuse fail to see how life in present-day America is beginning to resemble Obama's Orwellian world. That's because Obama's forerunners in the Democratic Party spent decades forcing government's tentacles deep into every nook and cranny of our existence. All Obama now need do is wind the coils tighter and squeeze us harder. The pain will be an exquisite "teaching moment" for the doubters. Confident that he can quickly finish killing off the remnants of capitalism and other earthly freedoms, Obama has opened a second front by attacking the Catholic Church on matters of conscience — the inevitable effort by a would-be totalitarian to eliminate competition and gain control over the spiritual lives of all people of all faiths. Obama's allies have already paved the way by hectoring Christianity out of the public square and trying to "hide the light of the Gospel under a bushel" or to extinguish it altogether. The stalwart Ronald Reagan forced Mr. Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" and freed the world from the scourge of old-style Soviet authoritarianism. But here they go again. Barack Obama — the new-style authoritarian — is now ensconced in the White House, transmitting secret messages to Vladimir Putin and directing the final assault on President Reagan's "shining city upon a hill." Obama is already bombarding America with deadly deficits, exploding debts and debilitating regulations. The economy is badly wounded. Millions of jobs have been obliterated. There is "Obama money" and make-work for those who collaborate — but hard times for everyone else. That's the way Obama's "protection racket" works. He has cruelly targeted the old and sick, threatening them with the emotional and medical horrors of ObamaCare. He has stolen the future from the young. Already facing a lifetime of high unemployment, high taxes and slow growth, they will stare in horror as a re-elected Obama tramples underfoot the last vestiges of the American Dream. Barack Obama will not throw dissidents into torture chambers or send trainloads of us off to gulags in Siberia. He won't need to. He will use federal rules and regulations to break us, forcing us to do and say whatever he wishes. No scars, no screams of agony, only the crushed spirits and shame of people bound head to foot in red tape and groveling for crumbs. If you think ObamaCare for your body is hazardous to your health and liberty, just wait until you experience ObamaCare II for your mind and ObamaCare III for your conscience and soul. • Christian is a lawyer in Washington, D.C., who served in the Treasury Department under President Ford and was on President Reagan's transition team in 1980.