Motivation

As the Republican debates drone on, enthusiasm wanes. Eyes glaze over and we are tempted to turn away.  The nominee will most likely fall short of expectations and it’s unlikely that another contender will turn up to set our hearts aflutter.

Some among us claim that electing another establishment “go along to get along” Republican will only prolong this nation’s long slide into socialist bankruptcy.  We hope that whoever the Republican is, he (or she) will have learned something from the last four years and resist the temptation.  But even if all we accomplish is to buy time, it is a better alternative than accelerating disaster.

If the present administration wins a second term, the megalomaniac-in-chief who asserted his 2008 election “would cause the oceans to rise and the planet to heal” will be able to claim a mandate for his policies.

A crystal ball isn’t necessary to predict the nation’s future, or lack thereof.

The Affordable Heath Care Act was only a prelude. As Yogi Berra put it, it will be “déjà vu all over again.”

Thomas Sowell in his 1995 book, The Vision of the Anointed, describes an ideologically driven elite that eschews facts, logic and reality and bases social policy on emotion, fine sounding rhetorical assertions and the belief that it is uniquely qualified to order our lives. The book was written prior to the Obama presidency but the description fits.

The only reality that interests this president is the election of 2012.

Adrift between demands from labor unions for jobs and the green lobby’s opposition, President Obama delayed a decision on the vitally important Keystone pipeline until after the election. You might say he has voted present.

Similarly, he told EPA administrator Lisa Jackson that the job-killing Clean Air Act standard would be revisited in 2013.  According to the New York Times, he said,  “We are just not going to do this now.”

Also in the wings for after the election is a proposal to nearly double the required miles per gallon for passenger cars and light trucks by 2025. The new standards would add several thousand dollars to vehicle prices, putting cars out of reach for many Americans. It is possible, even likely, that manufacturers will ration larger vehicles by raising their prices, in order to meet the overall standards.

It is in keeping with the statement of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood at the National Press Club in 2009, when he admitted that it was necessary to  “to coerce people out of their cars, ” and into federally subsidized mass-transit, for our own good, of course.

Then there is the new version of H.R. 4646, (introduced in the 111th Congress) which would impose a 1% tax on all bank transactions. H.R. 1125 sponsored by Democratic Rep. Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania, is called The Debt Free America Act.  It applies, with few exceptions, to ”any transaction that uses a payment instrument, including any check, cash, credit card, transfer of stock, bonds, or other financial instrument.”  There are those who claim that the exceptions in the bill provide protections for tax-payers:

EXCEPTIONS- The term ‘specified transaction’ shall not include–
(A) any transfer between accounts of the taxpayer, and
(B) any deposit into a personal account of an individual.
These exceptions do not seem to cover withdrawals, or a host of other transactions.  Who knows how this will be applied.  Supposedly, the bill comes with a promise to do away with the personal income tax, too — in 2017.  Convenient.

Timed just right, (“never let a crisis got to waste,”) it would be touted as eliminating the national debt and setting the nation on the road to prosperity.  Sort of like the Affordable Health Care Act was supposed to save money.

It’s best not even to think about the Supreme Court appointments Obama could make.  Even the new vampire movies aren’t that scary.

Obama’s foreign policy, if such it can be called, is a whole other subject. Jewish voters, an important Obama constituency, might ask themselves if, in that famous tete–a-tete over an open microphone, French President Sarkozy would have made his venomous remark about Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu unless he knew Obama shared his antipathy to Israel in general, and Netanyahu in particular. Obama’s response verified Sarkozy’s assumption.

Then there are the president’s failed efforts to woo Iran and Russia, the consequences of which we are only beginning to realize.

Four years after this administration took office, the Founders’ creation is barely recognizable.  After eight years it may no longer be possible to reclaim what has been destroyed.

Consider this essay a motivator for the dispirited.

“Can you hear me now?”