There is perhaps no other American president who stands in such stark contrast to the US Founding Fathers than Barack Hussein Obama. By almost every measure, his reign of error is completely at odds with what the Fathers envisaged.
Whole books could be written about Obama’s demolition job on the American vision, his desecration of the US Constitution, and his utter disregard for the basic principles upon which the nation was founded. In fact, they already have been written.
So let me here just focus on his latest act of blatant anti-Americanism. On Sunday he delivered a commencement address at Ohio State University. In it he said this: “Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works; they’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.”
Now isn’t it odd that a president who seems to be doing his best to turn America into a PC dictatorship should tell these graduates to not listen to those who warn about these very things? This is of course the exact opposite of what the Founding Fathers said.
America of course was established as an act of resistance to tyranny. And this right to be wary, to be on guard, to be vigilant, and if need be, to resist tyrannical rule, was at the very heart of the thought and practice which went into America’s founding. Consider just a few – of many – representative quotes:
-“Rebellion to tyrants is Obedience to God.” Benjamin Franklin
-“A government is like fire, a handy servant, but a dangerous master.” George Washington
-“It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.” James Madison
-“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” Thomas Jefferson
-“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” Thomas Jefferson
-“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Thomas Jefferson
-“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then.” Thomas Jefferson
-“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” Patrick Henry
-“If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants.” William Penn
-“…no civil rulers are to be obeyed when they enjoin things that are inconsistent with the commands of God…. All commands running counter to the declared will of the Supreme Legislator of heaven and earth are null and void, and therefore disobedience to them is a duty, not a crime.” Jonathan Mayhew
These sentiments could not be further afield from those expressed by BHO. He seeks a submissive, compliant populace which asks no questions, dares not rock the boat, and slavishly does whatever their political masters tell them to do. The Founding Fathers would be rolling in their graves to hear such idiocy.
Ben Shapiro has just commented on this. He says, “Government, in Obama’s view, is the great guarantor of rights. Never mind that government – yes, government in America – has routinely stripped its citizens of rights. Never mind that state governments stripped black people of their basic personhood for decades, enshrining slavery with the help of the federal government. Never mind that for a century after slavery, state governments, with the silent assent of the federal government, enshrined Jim Crow. Never mind that the federal government stripped thousands of Japanese citizens of their rights during World War II and the unborn of their rights in 1973.
“None of that matters to Obama. He said, ‘This country cannot accomplish great things if we pursue nothing greater than our own individual ambition.’ The Founders believed, to the contrary, that government’s job was to protect our most basic rights so that we could pursue the individual dreams and ambitions that truly make America great – the dreams and ambitions that created Edison and Ford, Jobs and Gates.”
He concludes: “Obama’s rhetoric here is more than perverse — it is supremely dangerous. American rights cannot be removed by a limited government. They can be, and have been, removed by a government actively seeking to remove rights. The Founders knew that. That’s why the system they set up was designed to check interest against interest, to prevent consolidation of power in any one branch or any one person. The Founders were skeptical of government and feared government tyranny. That’s why they rebelled against the British crown. And that is why the system of checks and balances they created – a system that has gradually been overthrown and replaced by leftists from Woodrow Wilson to Obama – was designed to stop such tyranny through complexity and balance.
“A people that does not fear government oppression is not a free people. It is a subject people. A people that believes that the government somehow invariably guards rights is not an American people – it is a Rousseauian rabble prepared to accept the yoke of tyranny. God gave us rights. The Founders gave us a messy system of government to allow the government to protect those rights while preventing the government from usurping them. Worshipping government achieves neither of those purposes.”
And Gary DeMar asks these questions: “Would Barack Obama have spoken out against Stalin or Hitler before their governments degenerated into full-orbed tyrannies? Would the President have supported the Polish Solidarity movement over against the Communist tyranny?
“Would he have joined the 52 signers of the Declaration of Independence? Here’s the opening paragraph: ‘When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.’
“In fact, the signers of the Declaration described the king of England as a tyrant: ‘The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world’….
“The Second Amendment prohibits the Federal Government from forbidding people in the various states from ‘keeping and bearing arms’ for ‘the security of a free state.’ It is the duty of the states to protect its citizens against the usurpation of their constitutional rights. Ours is a slow moving tyranny. An iron fist in a velvet glove.”
We have nothing to fear from a citizenry zealous to defend freedom and guard against tyranny. But we do have very much to fear from a president who criticises such people, and claims their concerns are simply unfounded.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/us/politics/obama-tells-ohio-state-graduates-hes-optimistic.html?_r=0
http://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2013/05/08/will-tyranny-ever-come-to-america-n1590337
http://politicaloutcast.com/2013/05/president-obama-sometimes-tyrannies-do-lurk-around-the-corner/
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