I’ve always thought that I was a crotchity old man at heart. It explains how I’ve always been politically conservative, throwing the old Churchill attributed adage about age and evolution of thought right out the window as soon as I was old enough to know who the old stalwart was. I just never felt that a lack of personal responsibility, which is what a typical twenty year old’s idea of liberalism practically equates to, was cool. These days I’m feeling the same way about the public at large. There isn’t so much a groundswell of support for the so-called stimulus package so much as an eerie apathy to the systematic dismantling of the American capitalist system. Apathy was never where it was at. I’d rather be tuned-in and angry than drifting and delighted. I said the same thing during the Bush years. I’d rather have liberals paying attention and annoyed than spending the entirety of their news hour clicking on MTV.com.

Apparently Barack Obama isn’t too familiar with Churchill either as he’s thrown away another symbolic vestige of the Bush era by shipping back a bust of the World War II leader that was on loan by the Brits, who had offered to let it remain. I don’t know how to analyze this. Is it a shot against Bush since it was prominently displayed during his term? Is it a denouncement of Churchill’s wartime ideology? Is it more simply discarding a painful reminder of British colonial rule? For all the disastrous decisions Obama has made so far, and there are many, he hasn’t completely shown himself as the liberal foreign policy dove some of us feared him to be.

I don’t have a problem with people supporting Obama. What I am concerned about is how accepting the people seem to be with our Congress passing a TRILLION dollars in new spending without any of them having read it. Without any of us having been able to read it. Obama has already blown through one of his campaign promises to bring sunshine back to the political process and yet there is no outrage from his supporters.

A liberal minded friend of mine recently commented on how he was upset that the Republicans were being ‘obstructionist’. He was concerned that the Republicans weren’t open to trying someone else’s ideas. The problem with that line of thinking is that the Republicans were kept entirely out of the legislative writing process by the Democrats. This tactic was endorsed by Obama, whose idea of bipartisanship is having some commentators who disagree with him over for drinks before completely ignoring them. After being kept in the dark and forbidden from giving any input in the crafting of the bill, the Democrats expected the Republicans in the House to vote in favor of something that ended up being completely opposite their ideological gut instincts. If we’re meant to work together, how can you explain tactics like that? If we’re to put aside our differences, how can you lock roughly half the country out of the decision making process and expect is to come together?

It isn’t about trying someone else’s ideas. It’s about being railroaded and expected to keep a big smile on our face while it happens. The irony that Rush Limbaugh, someone whose critics have most likely never even listened to beyond ideologically friendly website provided soundbytes, proposed the most fair bipartisan idea shouldn’t be lost on anyone who is still in awe of his high lord Obama. Unfortunately for our country, most of those who would support the bill primarily to ‘try new ideas’ won’t really do much digging to see how the sausage is made, so to speak. They’ll continue to let the administration friendly media tell them what’s important. More bitter irony from those who claim conservatives are FOX drones. No worries, they won’t even have the option of dissent (the highest form of patriotism, remember?) before too long. You won’t have to wonder if the conservatives, republicans, democrats or liberals are lying to you because the former won’t be allowed on the airwaves. And then what will be next?

What it all boils down to is this: we’re being slowly crushed into government dependence in this country. Don’t take my word for it, do some digging while we’re still allowed to argue over it.

Tags: barack obama, churchill, economic crisis, liberalism, mainstream media, Obama, personal responsibility, stimulus

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 15th, 2009 at 8:44 PM and is filed under Democrats, Domestic, Economy, The Golden Age of Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.