Boundaries
As CJ pointed out, the Secretary of Homeland Security has apologized for a portion of the report which painted veterans, the defenders of the republic, as potentially one of the greatest threats to it. Whoopie. Another thrust towards the boundaries, another parry, another seeming retreat. This is a trend with the new administration, though… do something outrageous, see if you can get away with it, find resistance, withdraw… but don’t give up all the ground. This follows within a month of the President’s initiative to force veterans to use their private insurance to pay for service-related wounds and injuries.
Of course, veterans issues aren’t the only issues involved. I have never seen a departmental report citing bills that had been submitted, especially such outrageous bills as the assaults on the Second Amendment that have been submitted in this Congress, as potential inspiration for domestic terrorism. As has been noted on this blog, these bills are beyond ridiculous. Under no previous Congress would they ever be of any worry whatsoever. They would be symbolic rantings of the far left against the Second Amendment which has always stood in the way of would-be despots in this country. The fact that they are being used as a justification by an executive department of the administration to put those who would vociferously oppose such legislation on a list of potential domestic terrorists is an indication that the departments of this administration are preparing to deal with the backlash of an item that is on the administration’s agenda.
During the election, the idea of socialized medicine was met with a loud cry against it. Leftists salivate over the proposition, but anyone who values liberty and is disgusted by the idea of the government running our lives down to the rationing of health care rebels against the concept. As with the veteran’s issues that Obama claimed to be the champion of, he claimed to want to solve the insurance issue and avoided Hillary’s call for socialized medicine. Obama also denied that he was a threat to our Second Amendment rights as guaranteed in the Constitution. Yet under his administration, a major department is preparing for what appears to them to be the eventuality of the infringement of those rights.
Of course, there is plausible deniability for much of this. Obama himself stuck his finger in the meat grinder with his off-the-wall initiative on veteran’s health care, but all the other stuff was not done by his own hand, but by his appointees and his party.
These TEA parties aren’t happening in such a massive wave across America in a gleeful reaction to the policies of this administration, either. Veteran’s issues, health care and gun control aren’t the only boundaries being pushed so hard that there is a loud and visible backlash. The Obama administration is riding the outside rim of the envelope with the aggression of a champion surfer with a death wish.
Seeing 54 percent of the votes as a massive mandate to pursue an agenda that veers hard to the left, this administration prepares to push it so hard that they begin to look to identify those who will finally decide that it has gone too far and take up arms to resist it. The most divisive president in the past 100 years is running an administration that knows that it will face a backlash and is preparing for it by identifying those whose values this administration is attacking or plans to attack.
Claiming the largest voter turnout in history when there were fewer votes cast than in 2004, the entire left has felt an emboldening that brings forth the nuttiness that we are seeing, feeling that the President himself has their back. The groundswell of the TEA parties is a heartening indication that those who marginalized themselves during the last election are now getting off their couches to take action. Just as when the veteran’s groups like the VFW and Amvets jumped all over Obama with his veteran’s health initiative, the TEA party movement is going to help the left to find their left and right limits… and it’s mobilizing conservatives and those who value liberty over government coddling of the individual. That’s a good thing, and 800 simultaneous protests blanketing the United States is an awesome sight, beginning to show that there are some boundaries, some limits to the “mandate.”
If Obama has brought “hope and change,” it may be in forcing the mobilization of those who value liberty and who recognize that “freedom” means first freedom from having your life managed by your own government. Democrats brought their liberal agenda hard in the first two years of the Clinton presidency, and the result was losing Congress in 1994. Taking back Congress in 2010 would restore a lot of balance and alleviate many of the concerns of those in the center and on the right. Sometimes it takes someone pushing your boundaries to make you more aware of where exactly they are and how important they are. Now it appears that there is “hope” that people are realizing that their boundaries are being pushed and they will “change” the leadership in Congress as soon as possible.
Posted on April 17th, 2009 by Andy Wahl
Filed under: Uncategorized
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