Blog: The ObamaCare lie and the global warming lie

Blog: The ObamaCare lie and the global warming lie

The ObamaCare lie and the global warming lie

Thomas Lifson

November 29, 2013

 

 

Now that Americans have largely caught on that their government will lie to them to support the expansion of state power, America's progressives are in for a rough time ahead, according to Peter Ferrara, writing at Forbes.

The second shoe is preparing to drop to shatter the world view of so-called Progressives.  Coming, global revelations will demonstrate the fraud behind the theory of man-caused, catastrophic, global warming, just like the real world has shattered the falsehoods behind Obamacare.
That is because the underlying reason for both frauds was the same: to expand government power.  Enablers went along with the fraud in both cases for the same underlying reason - political correctness.  In both cases, going along with the cause for the assumed public good without raising questions was considered the politically correct thing to do for all "good" people.  Soon the enablers in both cases will have to pay the price for participating in and perpetuating the fraud.

Drawing on the work of S. Fred Singer and other leading global warming skeptics who have shown that the actual temperature evidence is contradicting the warmist hypothesis, Ferrara makes a fascinating comparison to other scientific frauds perpetrated in the name of enhancing state power. Quoting the eminent MIT atmospheric sciences professor emeritus Richard Lindzen:

"Global climate alarmism has been costly to society, and it has the potential to be vastly more costly.  It also has been damaging to science, as scientists adjust both data and even theory to accommodate politically correct positions.  How can one escape from the Iron Triangle (ambiguous statements from scientists translated into alarmism by advocates and the media, with politicians responding by feeding the scientists taxpayer money) when it produces flawed science that is enormously influential and is forcing catastrophic public policy.

There are past examples.  In the U.S. in the early 20^th century, the eugenics movement had coopted the science of human genetics and was driving a political agenda.  The movement achieved the Immigration Restriction Act of 1923, as well as forced sterilization laws in several states.  The movement became discredited by Nazi atrocities, but the American consequences survived well into the 1960s.

In the Soviet Union, Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (1898-1976) promoted the Lamarckian view of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.  It fit with Stalin's megalomaniacal insistence on the ability of society to remold nature....However, opposition within the Soviet Union remained strong, despite ruthless attempts to suppress dissenters....

Global warming differs from the previous two affairs.  Global warming has become a religion.  A surprisingly large number of people seem to have concluded that all that gives meaning to their lives is the belief that they are saving the planet by paying attention to their carbon footprint.  There may be a growing realization that this may not add that much meaning to one's life, but outside the pages of the Wall Street Journal, this has not been widely promulgated, and people with no other source of meaning will defend their religion with jihadist zeal.

In contrast to Lysenkoism, Global Warming has a global constituency, and has successfully coopted almost all of institutional science.  However, the cracks in the scientific claims for catastrophic warming are, I think, becoming much harder for the supporters to defend."

Lindzen concludes that the previous examples of the eugenics movement and Lysenkoism lasted 20 to 30 years, which is about equal to the run of the global warming movement since its American rollout in 1988.  He suggests that the global warming movement may be just about spent as well.

We shall see. Having witnessed the ability of progressives to believe demonstrable falsehoods for decade after decade, I am not quite so optimistic that the scales will fall from their eyes. On the other hand, the graph below, comparing warmist predictions with actual results shows that the gap is getting bigger and bigger, to the point where laughter is the only sane response.

Menawhile, China, India, and other competitors of the warmist-obsessed Western democracies are forging ahead, unencumbered by carbon taxes. The resulting economic pain is causing a backlash in Britain, Australia, and other countries that have hobbled their industries.

I do think that Ferrara is correct in positing that the realization that statists lie is a gateway to skepticism across the board. ObamaCare may be the gateway drug for skepticism on governmental overreach.

Hat tip: Cliff Thier

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/11/the_obamacare_lie_and_the_global_warming_lie.html#ixzz2m73wYmTW
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

The Miracle of the United States - A warning to future generations

The Miracle of the United States – A warning to future generations

By Bill Bailey On April 7, 2013 · 7 Comments · In Current Events

On February 22, 1832, the 100^th birthday of George Washington, members of Congress and guests from across the union gathered in Washington, D.C., to commemorate the occasion.  Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster was asked by the Committee of Arrangements to deliver the address.
In the course of that address, The Character of Washington, Senator Webster delivered several stern and sobering warnings to futurity:
“Gentlemen, the spirit of human liberty and of free government, nurtured and grown into strength and beauty in America, has stretched its course into the midst of the nations. Like an emanation from Heaven, it has gone forth, and it will not return void- It must change, it is fast changing, the face of the earth. Our great, our high duty is to show, in our own example, that this spirit is a spirit of health as well as a spirit of power; that its benignity is as great as its strength ; that its efficiency to secure individual rights, social relations, and moral order, is equal to the irresistible force with which it prostrates principalities and powers. The world, at this moment, is regarding us with a willing, but something of a fearful admiration. Its deep and awful anxiety is to learn whether free states may be stable, as well as free; whether popular power may be trusted, as well as feared; in short, whether wise, regular, and virtuous selfgovernment is a vision for the contemplation of theorists, or a truth established, illustrated, and brought into practice in the country of Washington.”[i]

“Gentlemen, for the earth which we inhabit, and the whole circle of the sun, for all the unborn races of mankind, we seem to hold in our hands, for their weal or woe, the fate of this experiment. If we fail, who shall venture the repetition? If our example shall prove to be one, not of encouragement, but of terror, not fit to be imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where else shall the world look for free models? If this great Western Sun be struck out of the firmament, at what other fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted? What other orb shall emit a ray to glimmer, even, on the darkness of the world?”[ii]
“There is no danger of our overrating or overstating the important part which we are now acting in human affairs. It should not flatter our personal self-respect, but it should reanimate our patriotic virtues, and inspire us with a deeper and more solemn sense, both of our privileges and of our duties. We cannot wish better for our country, nor for the world, than that the same spirit which influenced Washington may influence all who succeed him; and that the same blessing from above, which attended his efforts, may also attend theirs.”[iii]
“Among other admonitions, Washington has left us, in his last communication to his country, an exhortation against the excesses of party spirit. A fire not to be quenched, he yet conjures us not to fan and feed the flame. Undoubtedly, Gentlemen, it is the greatest danger of our system and of our time. Undoubtedly, if that system should be overthrown, it will be the work of excessive party spirit, acting on the government, which is dangerous enough, or acting in the government, which is a thousand times more dangerous; for government then becomes nothing but organized party, and, in the strange vicissitudes of human affairs, it may come at last, perhaps, to exhibit the singular paradox of government itself being in opposition to its own powers, at war with the very elements of its own existence. Such cases are hopeless. As men may be protected against murder, but cannot be guarded against suicide, so government may be shielded from the assaults of external foes, but nothing can save it when it chooses to lay violent hands on itself.”[iv]

Did you know Government arrest records are posted online? CLICK BELOW to get detailed information on anyone and everyone you could possibly want!

“From the letter which he signed in behalf of the Convention when the Constitution was sent out to the people, to the moment when he put his hand to that last paper in which he addressed his countrymen, the Union, the Union was the great object of his thoughts. In that first letter he tells them that, to him and his brethren of the Convention, union appears to be the greatest interest of every true American; and in that last paper he conjures them to regard that unity of government which constitutes them one people as the very palladium of their prosperity and safety, and the security of liberty itself. He regarded the union of these States less as one of our blessings, than as the great treasurehouse which contained them all. Here, in his judgment, was the great magazine of all our means of prosperity; here, as he thought, and as every true American still thinks, are deposited all our animating prospects, all our solid hopes for future greatness. He has taught us to maintain this union, not by seeking to enlarge the powers of the government, on the one hand, nor by surrendering them, on the other; but by an administration of them at once firm and moderate, pursuing objects truly national, and carried on in a spirit of justice and equity.”[v]
“The political prosperity which this country has attained, and which it now enjoys, has been acquired mainly through the instrumentality of the present government. While this agent continues, the capacity of attaining to still higher degrees of prosperity exists also. We have, while this lasts, a political life capable of beneficial exertion, with power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us against the ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts, every public interest. But dismemberment strikes at the very being which preserves these faculties. It would lay its rude and ruthless hand on this great agent itself. It would sweep away, not only what we possess, but all power of regaining lost, or acquiring new possessions. It would leave the country, not only bereft of its prosperity and happiness, but without limbs, or organs, or faculties, by which to exert itself hereafter in the pursuit of that prosperity and happiness.”[vi]
“Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome.  If disastrous war should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skilful architecture which unites national sovereignty with State rights, individual security, and public prosperity? No, if these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coliseum and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them, than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw, the edifice of constitutional American liberty.”^[vii]

---

[i] “The Works of Daniel Webster,” Edward Everett, Boston: Little, Brown and company, 1853, Vol. 1, p. 224

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Ibid

[iv] Ibid, p. 229

[v] Ibid, pp. 229-230

[vi] Ibid, pp. 230-231

[vii] Ibid, p. 231

Articles: Gun Control, the Jews, and the Third Reich

Articles: Gun Control, the Jews, and the Third Reich

Gun Control, the Jews, and the Third Reich

By Abraham H. Miller

November 20, 2013

 

 

In 1996, in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the modern Olympics, the German government issued a set of four stamps. One of these celebrates Alfred and Gustav Flatow, cousins, who were gold medalists in the 1896 Olympics. Alfred took the first in the parallel bars and with his cousin also won gold for the German team's overall performance.
In 1932, Alfred Flatow registered three handguns, as decreed by the harsh gun control laws of the Weimar Republic that were drawn amid the violence and chaos of the aftermath of World War I. The Weimar Republican grew out of the ashes of the Great War. Perceived as an institution imposed by Germany's enemies, Weimar lacked political legitimacy and was vulnerable to insurrection.
The first assault on the Republic, however, came not from the right but from the communist left. Under the leadership of Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht, the German Communists attempted to overthrow the government by armed struggle. The fragile government mobilized the Freikorps, undisciplined militias composed largely of veterans. The Freikorps brutally put down the communist insurrection and murdered its leaders. The Communists had also seized the government in Bavaria and the Freikorps succeeded in vanquishing them.
Hoping to stem further attacks on the state, the liberal Weimar Republic imposed Draconian gun control laws that made it punishable by death to carry a gun. The brutal and undisciplined Freikorps were given the task of enforcing these laws and did so with alacrity, even murdering nurses who carried firearms for protection against rape amid the post-war chaos.
The Weimar Ministry of the Interior made gun registration mandatory. The overall intention of the gun control laws was to disarm those who were making war against the state and each other. Inspired by gangster violence in Chicago, the Nazis and the Communists loaded up cars with thugs armed with Tommy guns and invaded each other's neighborhoods.
Like most attempts at gun control, the policy failed. Neither the Nazis nor the Communists gave up their guns, but law-abiding citizens like Alfred Flatow did and bore the consequences. Although the Weimar Ministry of the Interior worked to assure registrants that their information would remain safe, this proved to be an empty promise. When the Nazis took over in 1933, the information was culled for registrants who were deemed "enemies of the state," a euphemism for Jews, communists, and other political opponents.
Gestapo legal adviser Werner Best proposed to execute Jews who were found in possession of firearms. He had both ample precedent and experience to draw upon from the harsh gun laws and their brutal enforcement in the Weimar Republic.
In 1938, in preparation for Kristallnacht (November 9-10, 1938), the Gestapo used the Weimar gun registration records to disarm Jews and focused on Jewish gun owners for deportation to concentration camps. Alfred Flatow fled Germany for the Netherlands, but when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, in May 1940, Flatow was on the Gestapo's list.
Flatow was arrested and sent to Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, where he died from starvation on December 28, 1942. His cousin Gustav died in the same camp three years later.
Throughout their conquest of Europe, the Nazis encountered armed resistance by those who refused to accept defeat. Even the pitifully armed Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto put up meaningful resistance, as did the Jewish Bielski partisans in the forests of Byelorussia and Poland. Among the conquered people of Europe, where there were arms and munitions there were partisans who continued to fight.
Only in Germany was there no armed resistance, other than what came from the military. Would armed resistance on German soil have made a difference? No one can answer that with any certainty, but clearly it was a formidable concern for Werner Best and his Gestapo henchmen. Without arms there was no hope of meaningful resistance.
The issue of an armed populace resisting tyranny is why the Second Amendment exists. It was not written to promote hunting or target shooting. It was written to keep a check on tyrants both foreign and domestic.
A new book, Gun Control in the Third Reich, analyzes the manner in which the Nazis capitalized on the strict gun control policies of the Weimar Republic and used those policies to consolidate power and render the political opposition defenseless and the Jews hopeless.
It is far too facile to dismiss any comparison between the rise of Hitler and a threat from analogous policies in a viable democracy. As scholar Stephen P. Halbrook notes, historians have failed to see gun-control policies as the prelude to the rise of tyranny, even in Nazi Germany.
The Weimar Republic, despite problems in legitimacy and economic strangulation by the victors of World War I, was a struggling democracy with liberal principles. Its leaders thought that their policies of gun control would end the street violence between radical groups and promote political stability. The Weimar ministers did not comprehend that their gun control policies would pave the way for tyrants to direct and remove the political opposition.
Hitler came to power without ever winning a majority vote. His own electoral results paled in comparison to those garnered by President Paul von Hindenburg, and the Nazi party itself never received more than 37% of the vote. In the last free and fair German parliamentary elections of November, 1932, the Nazis actually lost 34 seats. Through orchestrated chaos and the incompetence of others, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. He stayed in power by eliminating future elections and preventing armed struggle against the regime. The fragile democracy of the Weimar Republic had created a tyrant, who now abused the pledge Weimar had made on the secrecy of gun registration.
Any real analysis of the rise of the Third Reich should contribute to our own debate over gun control, but of course, that is a pipe dream. When it comes to guns, the lines are tightly drawn. If you are among those who believe that you do not need a gun and no one else should have one, then there really is no room for debate. In this country, John Lott, Jr., through decades of exhausting empirical research, has shown that guns save lives. Yet, Lott's work hardly gets mentioned in the policy debate.
Jews, who should look at the Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto and understand the value of resistance for the sake of preserving the dignity of the human spirit, are all too prone to utter the fatalistic Yiddish adage that translates as -- if it comes to this, nothing will help. In other words, when I will need a gun it will not do any good.
Such sentiments, in the light of Jewish history, are appalling, as are the attitudes that liberal Jews generally bring to the gun control debate. I am reminded of my great aunt Sifra, who stood nearly six feet tall and fought with the Bielski partisans. She died fighting; it was a noble death. She died a warrior's death, not an anonymous death as a nameless, faceless victim. That is what separates a hero from a victim. That is the difference a gun makes. 

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/11/gun_control_the_jews_and_the_third_reich.html#ixzz2lDjRkZ00
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

 

 

Why So Many Christians Are Relaxing Over Alcoholic Drinks - Trending Christian Blog

Why So Many Christians Are Relaxing Over Alcoholic Drinks - Trending Christian Blog

Why So Many Christians Are Relaxing Over Alcoholic Drink 

Debbie Holloway

November 19, 2013 

Moody Bible Institute has relaxed a rule for its employees, reports Kevin P. Emmert at Christianity Today. Full-time employees of MBI are no longer required to totally abstain from tobacco and alcohol. A spokesperson from Moody writes that the change in rules,
"came out of a desire in Moody's leadership to reflect a high-trust environment that emphasizes values, not rules,"
and that the Institute wants to,
"require no more and no less than what God's Word requires.
We are giving employees the freedom that God gives them… We trust that they have the wisdom and spiritual maturity to make appropriate choices for their lives and the communities in which they are a part."
Which begs the question (drawn from the article’s title) why are so many Christian insitutions (like Moody and others) relaxing over alcohol drinks?
Or perhaps the question should be, should American Christians have ever made such stringent rules about drinking in the first place?
If you grew up in mainstream evangelical Christianity in this country, especially in the south, there’s a good chance you grew up hearing about the evils of alcohol. And not without good reason. As Paige Patterson of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminar points out,
"There is no industry in America that causes as much sorrow and heartache [as the alcohol industry].”
Most, if not all, people could easily name at least one family member or acquaintance broken irreparably by alcohol abuse.
But according to many pastors and leaders, there’s so much more to this issue. First, it’s important for Christians to recognize that total abstinence from alcohol is not something widely practiced by the global church. There have always been monastic sects, but, in much of Europe for example, the legal drinking age is far lower and many families share wine together without giving it a second thought.
Emmert reports Jennifer Tait’s perspective, that,
"It's not that groups of people throughout history didn't practice complete abstinence. The Nazarites in the Bible didn't drink alcohol. But in the 19th century, a whole segment of the church said it's not just an ascetic practice that some people might choose; they said this is for everybody—all Christians must stop drinking or they're not Christians."
Pastor Eric Raymond on Crosswalk.com also recognizes that total abstinence from alcohol is certainly not something Jesus himself practiced.
“Even if you say [the wine was] diluted, there’s still some alcoholic content and there’s no way to get around that.”
Indeed, any probing into cultural norms of the biblical eras will show that wine and other fermented drinks were the go-to beverages for most cultures, owing largely to the fact that grapes grow in abundance in Mediterranean climates, and the water was often unsanitary and unsafe to consume.
According to Raymond, Proverbs speaks of the dangers of OVER indulging in alcohol, not of simply partaking responsibly.
“Alcoholic beverages…point to the joy that we’ll have in the Kingdom.” 
He says that “Kingdom images” in the Bible often utilize wine-related metaphors to help people understand the joy that will take place in Paradise.
“To say no one should ever do it would be to say something different than what Scripture is saying.”
The She Seeks devotional at Christianity.com tackles this issue in “Bottom’s Up?” – insisting that every young person must be honest with themselves about whether alcohol consumption is a good or bad idea. Jim Liebelt on Crosswalk.com reports that, according to at least one study, many families believe that letting younger children taste alcohol (rather than making it a “forbidden fruit”) decreases the likelihood of adolescent alcohol abuse. Whitney Hopler examines the talking points in the book God Gave Wine: What the Bible Says About Alcohol in her Crosswalk article “Should Christians Drink Alcohol?” - writing,
“Remember that alcohol is part of God's creation, and as such, it can either be used well or abused. Just as people have abused the gifts of food, sex, and money, people have also abused alcohol, causing great destruction in the process. Alcohol itself is not intrinsically bad; the way in which it is often used is bad. Approach alcohol with an attitude of wise stewardship.”
So, what do you think? Did the Puritans have it right? Or is alcohol just one in a long list of things Christians must learn to properly steward?
Debbie Holloway is the Family Life Editor for Crosswalk.com
Publication date: November 19, 2013

Articles: Obama vs. Liberalism

Articles: Obama vs. Liberalism

Obama vs. Liberalism

By J.R. Dunn
 November 20, 2013

The conservative attitude toward Obama has largely been a mirror image of that of the left. To liberals, Obama is the ideal vision of Liberal Man -- the Lightbringer, the new FDR in a darker shade,who will right all wrongs, set the U.S. firmly on a progressive path, and give out lots of free stuff (from "Obama's stash," as one admirer put it.)
Conservatives see the exact opposite: a demonic figure, the community organizer from Hell, a combination of Caligula, Lenin, Mao, and Blofeld, a Muslim-communist- progressive Antichrist with a perfect and implacable plan to destroy the U.S. and the Western world as a whole.

Events of the past few months have belied both the liberal and conservative visions. If Obama is the Antichrist, he's a kind of goofy, inept, comical Antichrist at best. And as for the Lightbringer, events speak for themselves. Plainly, Obama is worst enemy liberalism has ever had.

Take a look at his record. Any aspect of his record, from any angle excepting only his media boosters. Finance, the economy, employment, energy, healthcare, foreign relations...in each case, Obama has taken the liberal agenda and smashed it against the nearest brick wall.  He has, furthermore, left no plausible way of repairing or recovering the fragments.

If he is a demon, Obama is Goethe's Mephistopheles, who "wills forever evil, and does forever good."

We can begin anywhere. Why not renewables? Obama had a master plan for the country's energy resources, derived directly from the agenda of the greens as expressed through the work of John Holdren (his "science czar") and the Ehrlichs: abandon fossil fuels completely in favor of renewable power on a nationwide basis. If that causes misery and economic dislocation, that's fine -- no price is too high to pay for a "sustainable" future. Obama set this plan in motion though the shutdown of the coal industry (as he'd promised in his first presidential campaign) by the EPA as the first step toward banning fossil fuels. And at the same time....

Well, at the same time, the administration tossed billions of dollars into renewable energy, concentrating on that green daydream, solar power. The aim appears to have been (we can't be certain since no one's willing to discuss it at this point) to bootstrap the solar power industry using government subsidies so that it would slide into place as coal vanished.

Instead, administration largesse led to a series of bankruptcies that will appall and terrify business students for generations to come. Solyndra, EPV, Sunfilm, Evergreen, Abound, Solar Millennium -- the names have already attained the status of legend. There has been no full accounting of the money they wasted (and no serious investigation scheduled either). The renewables catastrophe followed the standard blueprint for any given Obama scheme: no planning, no vetting, lack of due diligence, improper disbursement of funds, lack of accounting, incompetent management, and, following the collapse, a complete denial of responsibility from all concerned, both corporate and governmental. Not a single Obama-era renewable company can demonstrate any prospects whatsoever. As a legacy, several plants have been left so polluted that they cannot be sold or utilized and will require millions in cleanup costs.

To ice the cake, at the same time, fracking, pioneered by oil magnate George P. Mitchell, blazed across the country like a wildfire, transforming the United States in five years from an energy beggar to the leading producer in the world. It also, not to put too fine a point on it, attained most of the goals that Obama claimed for renewables: lowering dependence on foreign sources, slashing prices, and cutting levels of CO2.

Electric cars, another Obama obsession, have followed a similar trajectory. The introduction of mass-market electrics, which was to transform the country... right around now, as a matter of fact, has been nearly as complete a washout. Bankruptcies have occurred or are imminent among both car manufacturers (Fisker), and battery suppliers (A123). The basic objections to electrics -- range, battery life, dependability, and expense -- have never been overcome. While a few Leafs and Volts can be seen whirring back and forth, national impact has been minimal. The latest news involves the Incredible Exploding Car, Elon Musk's contribution, the Tesla. It seems that a Tesla running over deadly road obstacles such as gum wrappers can suffer catastrophic damage causing the car to burst into flames. This has happened a few times over just the last couple months. You could toss "dangerous debris" of the type that crippled Teslas (rocks and broken tow hitches) at the undercarriage of any internal combustion vehicle then get in and drive across the country without a second thought. Let's hope Musk is better at rockets.

The best that can be said about the Tesla is that Musk largely paid for it himself, without the billions from Obama's stash thrown to the rest of the industry. It's unlikely that much investment money will be spent on electrics in the near future, particularly since we have access to cheap natural-gas powered vehicles if we need them.

Which brings us to ObamaCare. Now, if you can picture the Titanic, packed with black plague victims, exploding over Lakewood, NJ, you have a reasonable picture of the enormity and impact of ObamaCare, a fiasco that will cause more damage than any other government-sponsored operation since the heyday of the Marxist dictatorships in the mid-20th century.  While the collectivization of the 1930s and the Great Leap Forward (1958-1962) certainly caused more human suffering, ObamaCare is unique in that it is occurring in a Western democracy, supposedly secure from such government-fomented catastrophes. Literally hundreds of millions of lives are being disrupted by this program. Untold thousands will die prematurely. Tens of thousands will be crippled or dogged by easily-treated disorders. Millions will suffer serious economic stress. It is not impossible that another recession will wrack the country. And there is no way to stop it. Obama's "fix" is mere theater. The avalanche is still headed downhill, the American populace (most of them, as we know, Obama voters) staring at it wide-eyed. I intend to watch from the top of my secure stone tower with interest and sympathy. But Obama won't be around. He has a golf date.

The outline is simple: Obama has a vision. In Ozymandias mode, he declares that his vision must be made manifest.  His staff, the Executive Branch, the Democratic Party, and no small number of citizens race about to make it so. Treasury pulls a few billion from the eighth dimension. One of Valerie Jarrett's relatives is dragged out to run the thing. Anybody who actually knows anything at all about the industry or specialty in question is carefully winnowed out. The media rhapsodizes, establishment Republicans nudge each other and whisper, "You know, there's a fortune in lobbying for this deal...."

Then it comes crashing down. The media falls dead silent. Jay Carney stares off into space biting his lip. Obama glumly tees off. A week later it starts all over again.

That's the pattern, one that could not have established itself without a complete lack of honesty, historical knowledge, common sense, or professional pride among anyone concerned. A sensible Democrat would have long ago pulled Obama aside and straightened him out -- but the last one of those (Daniel P. Moynihan) ascended to abide with Al Smith years ago. All that's left are the hacks, the crooks, and the ideologues, who think that the Obama wheel will continue turning forever.

ObamaCare was put into effect just as its models in the UK, Canada, and Australia were in the midst of collapse, and several years after Sweden began desperately privatizing its national healthcare program in order to stave off the same kind of disaster. It is a system that cannot be repaired, cannot operate without the cooperation of people who have already been cheated, and cannot be replaced.

We could go on, but instead we'll turn to foreign policy.

One of the great desires of the liberal elite of our time is perfect communion with radical Muslims. This yearning for oneness with butchers is in no way a new trait. In previous decades, it was the criminal class in the United States, various political misfits of the Black Panther/Weatherman variety, and the leadership or cadres of the Communist totalitarian states overseas -- Fidel, Mao, the Viet Cong, and so on. Liberalism long ago ceased being able to exist on its own terms and instead adapts practices, ideas, and goals from some of the most repellent ideologies in human history. Today it's radical Islam, which liberals take as being identical to Islam as a whole. We're supposed to "learn to live with" people who shoot schoolgirls, burn off the features of young women with acid, torture and behead people whose crimes amount to questioning passages of the Koran, and murder thousands of innocents of other creeds and backgrounds for no other reason than sheer spite. We are simply to accept this and learn to sing "Kumbaya" in Arabic or Farsi, with compelling new lyrics about murdering kaffirs and driving the Jews into the sea.

So Jihadi villains disappear from films. School textbooks, carefully cleansed of any mention of Christianity, suddenly feature lengthy, detailed accounts of the "contributions" of Islam to the West. Newspapers begin placing PBUH after the name of Mohammed. Marvel Comics comes up with a Muslim superhero. It's surprising that nobody has turned Salman Rushdie over for the reward. 

Obama embodies this in pure form. He is culturally Islamic (no way he couldn't be, having spent his formative years in an Islamic country, Indonesia). Religiously he is a nullity, an empty secular of the type that infests the current elite. His leaning toward Islam has been expressed variously in claims that Islam forms an "important part" of American culture and that Islam has made endless "historical contributions" to the United States.

He has also made covert efforts to provide the Islamic world with what, in his ignorance and lack of insight, he believes it wants: to turn its people and governments en masse over to whatever Jihadi outfit is available. As a result, we have seen Libya descend into chaos, with an American ambassador and members of his staff paying the ultimate price, and Egypt, the leading Arab power and a firm ally of the United States, almost overturned on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood. In Syria, the United States has found itself supporting "rebels" who tear out living hearts and eat them.

The administration is even now negotiating a treaty with Iran that will make the efforts of the British appeasers of Hitler in the 1930s look like the first wave to hit the Normandy beaches. The details of this effort remain vague -- not surprising, since one of the architects is John Kerry -- but the first version was spineless enough to appall the French, crippling the sanctions regime while giving the Mullahs carte blanche to complete their efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. In other words, peace in our time.

The Obama record being what it is, it will be somewhat surprising if Iran doesn't slide into the Indian Ocean five minutes after a treaty is signed. Any Middle Eastern leader can tell you that cooperation with Obama is the mark of doom. So it will go with Iran. At a minimum, we will see large-scale warfare in the Middle East, and perhaps even a nuclear conflict (though not WW III, as some of the more hysterical legacy media commentators have predicted -- it's impossible to picture either Russia or China going to the mattresses over a Shi'ite theocracy). There will be some odd developments -- how about an Israeli-Sunni coalition against Iran? -- before the region at last shakes down into a new status quo. The price will be millions of dead and untold human misery. Obama's responsibility for this will be direct and total.

Finally, Obama has also destroyed what has stood as the last hope of liberalism since the New Deal. Once the liberals have blown things up, they turn to the GOP, much as a four-year-old turns to Daddy, to fix it and make it work. So Eisenhower acted as conservator of the New Deal and Nixon savior of the Great Society. Obama, with his conniving, his insults, and his rampant ego, has ruined that. While there are plenty of Republicans who would come to his aid for a handful of magic beans -- McCain, Graham, Ayotte, and Rubio, to mention only a few -- they can't. Not today, not in the second decade of the new millennium.  They can't because the party rank and file is infuriated, the tea parties are out for blood, and the barbarians, led by Ted Cruz, are within the gates.  

This will stand as Obama's great contribution: acting as modern liberalism's executioner.  Liberalism has been running on fumes for decades. Based on ideology and wish-fulfillment daydreams, it was connected to reality by the thinnest of gossamer threads. Now even those connections are gone, severed by Barack Obama. So what do its adherents do now? Fade away? Become even more weirdly cultic than before? Or switch to the vicious brutishness of their foreign models? Thanks to Obama, we're going to find out.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/11/obama_vs_liberalism.html#ixzz2lAaFxMFn
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook