Change We Don't Believe In

I have been somewhat quiet since the November 4th election, as I have primarily spent my spare time trying to come to terms with what we are now facing as a nation. I initially started out attempting to come up with the reasons why a majority of my fellow citizens would consciously vote a man into the most powerful office in our fair land who, to my knowledge, never once uttered the word "freedom" during any of his campaign appearances, and about who very little is actually even known. By November 6th I had cast those concerns aside and turned my attention to the future. After all, by then the milk was long spilled, and crying over it would change nothing.

Besides, we are clearly now living in the age of the dumbMasses, and as I see it, there is little we can do to change that sad fact now, other than to work diligently to resist the coming insanity that 65 million voters in this country supported, whether they realized it or not.

"Hope" and "Change" was the constant (and even early-on not a little nauseating) mantra of the Obama campaign. I mean, how many politicians on the national scene have come along promising to change things in Washington, only to be quickly overwhelmed by the inherent resistance to change by the deeply entrenched Washington establishment?

In the five weeks since the election, it appears the "hope" part of Obama's promises has been thrown under the now infamous Obama bus, which has to be on its third or fourth lift-kit by now in order to accommodate the ever increasing number of people and ideas piling up under it. Obama wasted little time in backing away from many of his campaign promises in what I believe was an attempt to temper the expectations of "hope" that so many had assumed they were voting for when they cast their ballots for the messiah early last month.

It also looks as though that "change" thingy was apparently nothing more than (surprise!) stylishly snappy campaign rhetoric, as Obama's cabinet choices to date have been taken right out of the Clinton administration's personnel directory. About the only Clintonista of note that hasn't been dug up, re-surfaced and recharged for duty in the messiah's coming administration is Janet Reno. That, I suppose, is a good thing.

I have to digress here for a moment and admit that the far-left's wailing and knashing of teeth over the messiah's "centrist" cabinet choices has been a constant source of entertainment for me. I laughed heartily when the Chosen One asked Robert Gates to stay on as SEC DEF, despite the Obama camp's indications that the messiah would be moving for an immediate troop withdrawal (surrender) from Iraq before he had even warmed the chair in the Oval Office. I was certain this alone was going to give the Kos kids a collective stroke, and perhaps even drive the DUmmies to suicide, or at the very least, have them spinning on their eyebrows and spitting nails. Just maybe Obama was actually paying attention in those early intelligence briefings, as I am pretty sure they were a major affront to his rose-colored, head-in-the-sand worldview.

Even the MSM has gotten in on the act in trying to lower expectations on the coming Obama presidency, as I am seeing more and more news stories cropping up suggesting that Bush has things so screwed-up that not even a man with the "intelligence" of Barack Obama can fix it quickly, if at all. Yes, they will get away with blaming Bush for a little while, but at some point the proverbial buck is going to stop at the desk in the Oval Office, and whoever is sitting behind it is going to have to make a decision that will profoundly affect every man, woman and child in this nation.

As for our increasingly fragile freedoms and liberties, what will an Obama presidency mean for them? I am not optimistic in this area, as the president-elect has already shown a disturbing willingness to use our courts to silence those who dare oppose him, and that was before he won the election. Obama has also indicated, despite having denied it during the campaign, his steadfast support for the "Fairness" Doctrine which, if you fully understand it, is anything but fair.

Those who appreciate true freedom have few enough outlets in the media as it is. If talk radio is somehow silenced by the government, that will leave the cellular telephone network, the internet, and snail-mail as the last hopes we have for aiding us in defending what is left of our way of life. Of course, the government ultimately controls all of those entities, and could very easily shut them down any time it chooses. Well, I guess there are always smoke signals, until the government outlaws outdoor burning, too.

Despite Obama's recent proclamation asserting that we gun owners have nothing to fear from his coming administration, I am having a really difficult time believing this, as his limited voting record indicates differently. I do find it interesting that firearm sales have spiked sharply since it became apparent that Obama was going to be the next occupant of the Oval Office. Whether you believe this phenomenon is due to concerns that an Obama administration will try to grab them at some point, or that there are very real possibilities of social unrest in our future, or some combination of both, you cannot deny that fear is what motivates the purchasers.

Many of the talking heads in the MSM are saying that Obama's "centrist" cabinet picks indicate he is going to be operating in the political "center" during his presidency. Some comfort. I am not impressed in the slightest, as his cabinet people aren't named Reid and Pelosi, who are about as far left as it gets, and none of these people will have veto power over any legislation that happens to land on the messiah's desk, no matter how kooky it may be. Besides, if the lefty MSM regards the recycled Clintonistas as "centrists," then I see them as well left of center, as even the once conservative Republican Party is, in my view, now firmly occupying the area of the political spectrum that was inhabited by the Democrat Party thirty years ago.

Then there is Obama's "plan." Personally, I don't believe Obama has really ever had one, as it appears to me that he is making things up as he goes along, or maybe his handlers are. As of this writing, the latest version of his "plan" is going to come with a $1 trillion price tag attached. Of course, this will mean a commensurate growth in the size and scope of the federal government, which has already grown far beyond anything ever envisioned by our founders. This is not good news for those of us who truly appreciate our hard-won freedoms and liberties, as history has proven decisively that freedom diminishes as the size and scope of government increases.

This is the area where I believe Obama will do the most damage to this nation, as I really don't see him single-handedly grabbing our guns or silencing us to any real degree - not that he isn't going to try. Remember, the Supreme Court has already ruled favorably on the 2nd Amendment, and I am pretty sure that, should the FCC attempt to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, the court challenges would come fast and furious.

You see, unlike the Reagan years, talk radio is seriously BIG BUSINESS now, and there is no way the government could suddenly just quash it without millions of people noticing immediately. It would be like the government suddenly banning NASCAR. I have to believe the messiah's efforts in these two areas will fail, but at the same time I cannot understate my alarm that he has targeted two of the most precious rights we as American citizens have, and that set us apart from nearly every other nation on Earth.

No, the growth in the size and scope of the federal government that his plan prescribes, even if only partially implemented, will do much more long-term damage to this country-not just in the area of reducing the freedoms we currently enjoy, but in damaging us economically as well. Personally, I believe his aim is to weaken this country, particularly in the area of military power. After all, how can we sustain our military might if we are pouring ever larger amounts of money into social programs and vast income redistribution schemes?

And just what, exactly, are we to make of this teleprompter-less quote from Obama back in July:

"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

Obama seems to think much of the U.N. and its continued fleecing of developed nations. I am quite sure he will push to have this nation sign on to the hideous Kyoto Protocal, which is all by itself a recipe for the economic destruction of the West, and particularly the United States of America. I further suspect Obama and his comrades will be quite willing to go along with any other hair-brained income redistribution schemes the U.N. goobers can come up with, too.

As bleak as our current predicament might appear, there are a few bright spots out there. The outcome of the recent run-off in Georgia and the special election in Louisiana are but two of them. William "Cold Cash" Jefferson getting run off by his constituents was an unexpected surprise, and Saxby Chambliss won rather handily over his democrat opponent here in Georgia, despite a pathetically small voter turn-out.

While many are taking comfort in the fact that the democrats were not able to gain a filibuster-proof majority, sadly there are enough RINOs in congress who could go all wobbly when it matters most, John McCain being chief among them. His behavior toward the Chosen One since his defeat five weeks ago has not exactly been encouraging, and his treatment of many republicans who supported him has been somewhat puzzling, although I cannot say I find it all that surprising. Let us hope that many of the so-called moderate-to-conservative Democrats who were swept into office along with the messiah might just tend to temper Obama's more extreme designs, and will at least cancel out McCain's aisle-crossing gymnastics on occasion.

Quite a few people who I respect have said that, for the good of this country, it is important that Obama not fail as president. I take the opposite view in that I think this nation will be better off should his entire agenda crash and burn upon takeoff, preferably before it manages to even get off the ground. Obama is not the United States of America, and the idea being perpetrated by the democrats and their MSM dog-washers that he is some sort of ultra-talented immortal of superior intellect is a total load of bunk. Sure, he sounds intelligent when he has a teleprompter planted in front of him, but on his own, he stammers his way along like a nervous schoolboy, not quite in command of the topic at hand.

As I see it, Barack Hussein Obama is really nothing more than a product of the famously corrupt Chicago political machine who, with the help of some very well-heeled benefactors such as George Soros, has managed to essentially erase his past and maneuver his way into the presidency with very little, if any, actual scrutiny. In observing him, I honestly get the feeling that he is not his own man, and has nary a clue about much of anything, really. You can almost see the marionette strings dangling from his manipulator above.

I believe this country can essentially run itself to a large degree, with little input or interference on the part of the federal government. Remember, this nation was originally structured so as to have a very weak central government, with most of the real authority to be left in the hands of the states.

If left alone, the U.S. economy will, without any "help" from government, recover all by itself. Any government involvement with additional bailouts, give-aways, ill-advised vote-buying stimuli, or any further interference in what little is left of our free markets will only prolong the agony.

What we who appreciate true freedom must do is make certain that government doesn't use the current economic situation as an excuse to bring about policies and regulations that will do nothing but grant government even more power and further erode the freedoms many of us hold dear, as that is where the real danger lies in all this. That should be our goal no matter who is in the White House.

We are most certainly in for a very rough four years, but it does not mean that we are finished as a free country. That will only happen if we stand idly by and do nothing.

Remember, at the end of the day, We the People are still ultimately in charge. Not even the messiah can change that.