Friday, March 26, 2010

Will America Break-up?...

President Obama is splintering America. The passage of Obamacare was a historic victory for liberal governance. Yet, its true cost may be that it triggers the eventual breakup of the country.

Mr. Obama has achieved what his liberal predecessors - Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Bill Clinton - could only dream of: nationalized health care. Obamacare signifies the government take-over of one-sixth of the U.S. economy. It has dealt a mortal blow to traditional America. We are now a European-style socialist welfare state. The inevitable permanent tax hikes, massive public bureaucracy and liberal ruling elites will stifle competition and initiative.

Republicans vow to repeal Obamacare. Their past record, however, leaves many conservatives rightly skeptical. Since FDR's New Deal, Big-Government liberalism has been on the march - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Education. The Republican Party has been unable to roll back the tide of statism. In fact, under Richard Nixon and both George Bushes, Great Society Republicans have been complicit in erecting a nanny state.

Socialism is the road to economic ruin and fiscal bankruptcy. It subverts democracy, threatening the very future of our constitutional republic. Socialist states degenerate into some form of autocracy or technocratic neo-feudalism, whereby the productive class is taxed and exploited to sustain a growing dependent class. Factions are pitted against each other; groups vie for handouts at the expense of their fellow citizens. The bonds of economic union and national solidarity slowly dissolve.

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not," warned Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson was right: Redistributionist welfare policies are undermining our democracy. The resentments in America are growing. Tea Partiers believe that their government no longer represents their interests or values. The heartland is becoming dangerously alienated from the political class, whom it feels has betrayed them.

Obamacare may be the last straw. It strips away fundamental economic liberties, empowering the federal government to de facto nationalize everyone's body by controlling our health. Americans are compelled - upon pain of penalty and eventual imprisonment - to purchase insurance.

Moreover, the law codifies the federal funding of abortion. Taxpayer dollars will be used to subsidize the murder of innocent life. Hence, Mr. Obama has violated the social compact: He has abrogated the conscience of pro-lifers, making them tacitly complicit in the slaughter of the unborn. Obamacare is a radical assault upon fundamental religious freedoms.

The Obama revolution threatens to tear America apart. This has happened before. Slavery eventually triggered the Civil War between the industrial North and the agrarian South. Abortion is the slavery of our time - the denying of basic human rights to an entire category of people.

The bitter debate over Obamacare has exposed the country's profound divisions. We are no longer one nation or one people. Rather, there are now two Americas: one conservative, the other liberal. Increasingly, we no longer just disagree but we despise each other.

Our disagreements encompass everything - politics, morality, culture and history. We no longer share a unifying essence or common values. One half of America believes abortion is an abomination; the other half considers any attempt to repeal it as oppressive and sexist. One half opposes homosexual unions because it elevates immoral and unnatural behavior to the sacred status of marriage; the other half supports it as an extension of civil rights. One half reviles Mr. Obama's socialist agenda, viewing it as the destruction of capitalism and our constitutional government; the other half embraces it as the culmination of social justice and economic equality. One half reveres America's heroes - Christopher Columbus, George Washington, James Madison, Davy Crockett - and its glorious history; the other half is ashamed of its past, seeing it as characterized by racism, imperialism and chauvinism.

Ultimately, a country is not simply its geographical borders with the people inside of it. It is something more - and deeper. A nation must share a common heritage, language, culture, faith and myths. Once upon a time, Americans celebrated the same heroes, sang the same patriotic songs, read the same history and literature, and gloried in its exceptional nature: a city upon a hill, with liberty and freedom for all. It was understood that, for all of our different ethnic and religious backgrounds, America is a product of English and Christian civilization. Those days are long gone.

Instead, we are going the way our Founding Fathers warned us against: increasing balkanization and sectionalism. A constitutional republic - unlike an empire - is only as strong as its national cohesion. It is based not on imperial coercion but civic consent. Mr. Obama is recklessly pulling at the strings of unity, further polarizing us.

In confronting Obamacare, state sovereignty, states' rights and state nullification of federal laws are being asserted. This is what happened in the 1830s and 1840s. They are the signs of growing political anarchy and social frustration - people can only be pushed so far. Mr. Obama's drive for a socialist super-state threatens America's very existence. As Jefferson warned about slavery, it is time we start ringing the "fire bell in the night."

"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold," wrote William Butler Yeats. "Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."

Conservatives will not be passive in this onslaught on all our core values. Mr. Obama's true legacy may be that he divides us deeper than ever before - unless he abandons his revolutionary project.

Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute, a Washington think tank. He is the daily host of the "Kuhner Show" on WTNT 570-AM (www.talk570.com) from noon until 3 p.m.

1 comment:

  1. Jeffrey Kuhner writes: << Republicans vow to repeal Obamacare. Their past record, however, leaves many conservatives rightly skeptical. >>

    Is there a superlative of the word "skeptical"? I hear on today's news that Sarah Palin -- the titular Queen selected by the Republicans is today on the Campaign trial beside Sen. John McCain who wants reelection AS a Senator. In January, Palin stated that SHE agrees with John McCain ONE HUNDRED PERCENT! That's 100%! The Republican Party wants to perpetuate its position as a total LOOSER. Palin stands FOR, OPEN BORDERS! AMNESTY FOR ILLEGALS! Bush's Bailouts of international banks; NAFT AND the establishment of THE NORTH AMERICAN UNION ... with the surrender of America's sovereignty, ACQUIESENCE TO THE DEMANDS OF THE UNITED NATIOS -- Bush's LAW OF THE SEAT TREATY WHICH PLACES ALL OF OUR WATERS UNDER CONTROL OF U.N. BUREACURATS! The INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT -ICC. The REPUBLICAN PARTY will DO the SAME AS OBAMA -- just take a little longer to to it.

    Weep for America! We have NO political party dedicated to the Constitutional principles on which America was founded!

    The next election in November, 2110, will most likely contain the most gross ELECTION FRAUD ever conceived -- the Communists which have taken over the USA are specialists in FRAUD and controlling the media which "could" investigate and report it.

    FOX News -- Beck, Hannity, OH Really? and the rest are, IMO, ALL controlled opposition. They keep the focus on "tragic events that HAVE happened" and keep the focus OFF what can REALLY be done to correct the situation. There SHOULD BE a movement to outlaw electronic voting -- which can be totally corrupted by the administration to guarantee their reelection. We should BE DEMANDING PAPER BALLOTS and the media should be explaining WHY! They won't.

    Say good bye to " America, the land of the free and the home of the brave."

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