If President Obama weakens America, will the world be more “fair?”
Back on September 20th of 2009, I authored a column that pondered this very question.
At that time, our President was still holding frequent press briefings in which he reminded us of the terrible $1.3 trillion deficit that he “inherited” from his successor, while ignoring the fact that he had spent more than half that amount in one, so-called “economic stimulus” bill, and had implemented an annual budget costing an additional $3.6 trillion.
At that time, our President had also alienated a good bit of Europe (factor in the countries of England, France, Poland, and the Czech Republic) by capitulating to Russia and abandoning America’s role in a Western European missile shield program. The President seemed not to care that Western Europe fears the resurgence of a brutal, dictatorial Soviet Union-styled Russia about as much as the U.S. frets over a nuclear Iran.
And today, things are worse. On fiscal matters, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that President Barack Obama’s budget and spending will incur $9.3 trillion in federal deficits between 2010 and 2019 --$2.3 trillion higher than what President Obama claims.
The healthcare legislation that President Obama is still “selling” – the legislation that he promised would bring a greater quantity and quality of healthcare for less money without raising taxes on anyone earning less that $250,000 a year – imposes new taxes and “surcharges” and “fees” on everyone, for purchases of everything from medications to wheelchairs to tanning salon services (yes, Obamacare imposes new taxes on tanning salons).
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On foreign policy and national defense, Liz Cheney’s recent description of Obama’s three-pronged approach seems frighteningly accurate: "apologize for America, abandon our allies and appease our enemies.”
And then there’s President Obama de-facto disarmament of our nation, with his new “policy” on the use of nuclear weapons. After Sarah Palin criticized the President’s course of action, likening it to a kid who tells his peers “punch me in the face, and I’m not going to retaliate,” the President could only respond by declaring that “last I checked, Sarah Palin’s not much of an expert on nuclear issues…”
Indeed, it’s been a destructive seventeen months for America since Barack Obama placed his hand upon Lincoln’s Bible, and recited the “oath of office.” And this past week, alone, seems to have been especially destructive.
Throughout the Obama presidency – which, less than two years into his term, we can already describe as an “ordeal” – good people have disagreed as to what President Obama is actually trying to accomplish. Even this past week, I had a sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives (a Republican, no less) tell me privately that President Obama is just “naïve,” and actually believes that he is strengthening America.
And isn’t that just a distinctly “American” way to approach the matter? We Americans, we’re pretty gracious people. We like to assume the best about our President, even if we disagree with him.
Yet the time for “assuming the best” has expired with President Obama. He has already demonstrated far too many times during his brief presidency that, individual liberty be damned, his objectives are to expand his own control over American life, while reducing our nation’s economic and military prowess internationally.
These objectives are antithetical to the way most Americans view our nation. But for a quick primer on how any American could think that neutralizing and weakening America could be a good thing, try reviewing the 1995 film “Crimson Tide,” starring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman.
In “Tide,” two competing visions of the United States collide with each other as the old-school, white male Navy Captain Frank Ramsey (played by Hackman) debates, and ultimately fights over the proper role of nuclear warfare, with the young, better educated, African American Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter (played by Washington). Ramsey concerns himself with “how and when to push the button,” while Hunter contemplates “why” anyone would push the button. When quizzed about his new-fangled way of thinking by Ramsey, Hunter explains that “in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself..”
So stop and consider for a moment what one must assume, in order to believe that the United States’ “true enemy” is “war itself:” one must assume that no nation is better than any other. And our current President has already signaled his relativistic view of America, having made it clear that, in his view, “American exceptionalism” is no more “exceptional” than the “exceptionalism” with which people around the world view their respective nations.
So if one really views America in this relativistic way, then, if you’re the President, there’s no reason not to weaken our nuclear warfare capacities and bring our economy into a state of decline. That would simply make matters “more fair” for other nations around the globe.
Review this fifteen year-old movie, and consider its implications for what has happened in the White House in the last week, alone.
Then, stop assuming the best – and prepare for the worst.
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