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Pushed too far
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Almost daily we see articles detailing the President's declining approval numbers. It appears the rose has lost its bloom. They say his numbers have dropped faster than Letterman's pants after a day of taping. ("Say, ah, Mr. President. Does that public option include a Viagra benefit?)
How did the mighty fall so far so fast? This political recession is hitting Obama's friends real hard, those calling themselves 'progressive,' interchangeable with 'liberal,' 'leftist,' 'radical leftist,' 'socialist,' 'communist,' and 'Democrat.' If the Virginia gubernatorial race is a bellwether, Dems are doomed.
The essential explanation for Obot plummet: dishonesty. For all the moral decline we've allowed for decades, honesty is a principle we still cherish, in most places, most of the time.
Progressives can only get elected when they pose as moderates. Once in office, their inner socialist demands release. The People detected the charade early on, and they realize they've been had. No one likes being made the fool. When the inevitable backlash occurs, progressives regress.
It happened with a vengeance with Lyndon Johnson. It happened with Jimmy Carter. It is happening with Barack Obama. (Yes, it works both ways but to a far lesser degree. GWB was not the conservative we expected but at least his words and actions matched up to a large degree.)
Obama posed as a moderate, a liberal in the older, traditional sense, ala Moynihan. Despite many efforts to inform voters of his radical past, people seemed to be swept up in the emotion of the moment, which of course is another problem with progressives, the tendency to allow emotion to overrule reason. Once Obama, by his own behavior, was revealed truly radical, this middle-right country of ours reacted with revulsion. When he said he didn't want to run car companies, then took over, jaws dropped. When he said we were no longer a Christian nation, insisting he is a Christian, then was found bowing and scraping in the presence of Muslims, tongues wagged. And when he insisted he was a fiscal conservative but ran up insurmountable debt on the backs of our kids, there came the gnashing of teeth. By his own double talk and erratic behavior, Mr. Obama lost enormous ground.
Once progressives get found out, they counterattack, predictably. The only way progressives seem to believe they can retake ground is to viciously attack conservatives, violating another principle: you cannot elevate yourself by standing on somebody else, stamping your feet, shrieking protests. This Administration's enemies list grows weekly: Fox, Chamber of Commerce, corporate American, health insurers, doctors, hospitals, Big Pharma, Republicans, conservatives, grandma at a Tea Party, grandpa at a Town Hall. Soon the enemies list will include "anyone disagreeing with us!"
It's unseemly, embarrassing, amateurish, unprofessional. Worse, it is destructive.
Another explanation for the fall to earth by Obots is their inability to keep their story straight, another dimension of dishonesty, aggravated by a worldview propped up by inaccurate information, false assumptions and illogical conclusions. How long do they expect people to believe everything is Bush's fault? How long do they expect us to ignore the recession is mostly the result of 'progressive' policies? When will we discover federal malfeasance under BHO contributing to the H1N1 disaster pales compared to Katrina?
As to inaccurate information and errant conclusions: just because one person gets rich it does not mean another person is forced into poverty, a person supporting DOMA is not automatically a homophobe, just because one person objects to ACORN's waste, fraud and abuse does not make him a racist, and because the earth is cooling it does not mean we need to sign the Copenhagen Treaty. Also, those who embrace traditional values are not by default idiots, those who support economic and social freedom are not oppressors of the proletariat, and people who promote strong national defense are not imperialists. People opposed to government takeover of healthcare don't hate the poor, as another example.
Common sense Americans have always intervened to pull us back from the brink, and this is what is happening today in the face of incredible excesses by the executive and legislative branches. Still, the President wages war on those very Americans: the Catch 22 of his own approach to governance. What a surprise to learn from our President and his allies that Norman Rockwell Americans are the enemy.
Like the man struggling with the Chinese finger puzzle, Obama lashes out at the CIA, rendition, Gitmo, FISA, Iraq, Afghanistan, the war on terror and our own military, changing little in practice if any in these areas compared to the former administration. Even so, his press agents and czars insist we deny our own eyes and perceive massive change delivering hope. The more he struggles, the more he is seen stuck in a role above his pay grade.
Progressives are also paying political dues today because they suffer from a misread of human nature.
People tend to look to their own interests. Some might call it selfishness, and often, it is indeed a self-focused impulse that drives people psychologically, economically, socially, politically. There's no way around it. Self-interest is a powerful motivator, perhaps the most powerful motivator.
History teaches there only two ways to redirect the selfish impulse: inspiration, or compulsion. For a culture to function and last, cooperation is required. You can force people to work together, a short-term proposition requiring massive amounts of control. Or, you can inspire them to set aside at least a margin of selfishness long enough to voluntarily cooperate.
It would appear that 99% of the human experience has been driven by the lash of compulsion. Only in rare moments and for short periods of time have people looked above their immediate self interest long enough, allowing themselves to be individually inspired sufficient to engender a virtuous sense of altruism.
The compulsion model takes many forms: fascism, communism, monarchy, oligarchy, various forms of statism.
The inspiration model thrives in only one form: republic.
Even democracy fails eventually, demonstrating the superiority of Rome over Athens.
The American republican form of government, birthed in the minds of geniuses taking the best from the Judeo-Christian and Age of Reason/Enlightenment traditions, proved the surest and most effective way to establish and promote the inspiration model, the very model progressives work to replace with a compulsion model established by force and control.
Older and middle aged Americans are wise to the con. It remains to be seen if the younger voters will awaken to the encroachments on liberty required of a 'progressive' agenda.
The problem progressives face is their good intentions pave the road to hell. They cannot rely on individuals virtuously promoting altruism because they reject the source of virtuous individualism, cutting off its nourishment. Progressives always tend toward control and compulsion, playing god, insisting they know better the nature of problems, and therefore, they assume they possess superior solutions, not acknowledging that some problems simply cannot be solved by government, or otherwise rejecting the idea of bipartisan problem-solving.
Progressivism: it's an exclusivity thing. Americans are inclusive, and we don't like force and control. Hence, progressives pit themselves against the majority of people they seek to govern.
Finally, it is being demonstrated once again that those who yodel the loudest about bigotry are being shown more prejudicial than the objects of their derision. At least with certain people (a vast minority) from the South, from New York, from Minnesota or Los Angeles, they will tell you straight up they hate niggers, spics, kykes, wops, nips, chinks, gooks, krauts, squareheads or whomever. At least with a bold-faced bigot, a conversation can start. You know where you stand.
With the progressive bigot there isn't even a basis for communication. Why? They are in such denial, it is impossible to even start the healing conversation---reference Jeremiah Wright, Farrakhan, Ayers, Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Pelosi, Van Jones, Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, Chris Matthews, Bill Moyers, Robert Reich, Barney Franks, Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and many, many others. From time to time these people have spewed the most vile hatred for Jews and Christians and conservatives. Hating those not like you is the height of bigotry, yet they have the incredible presumption to make it a full time job to finger bigotry in others, and insist you support them, or you are a bigot too!
And so, progressives and their ilk reveal themselves both childish, and hypocritical. The more Mr. Obama aligns himself with these kinds of 'progressives,' the more divisive he appears. People want a leader to unify them, especially in times of great peril and stress. Instead, the more the contrary and 'progressive' pressure he receives and encourages, the more he pushes. Division is the fruit.
Mr. President, you are pushing too hard in the wrong direction, and in short order, you have pushed us beyond the limit. You have no one to blame but yourself. The only name on your enemies list should be your own.
In the words of Jimmy Cliff: the harder they come, the harder they fall, one and all, (by their own foolishness and dishonesty one might add).
