Some conservatives believe that other conservatives, on
talk radio and Fox News Channel, are damaging the cause of conservatism by
dishonestly overstating their case against President Obama to increase their
ratings and profits.
More reasonable Republican politicians, they argue, would
like to cooperate with Obama on bipartisan solutions but don't have the power
to resist these extremists with the megaphones and so have buckled in lock step
to their demands and become the party of "no" and the purveyors of
gridlock.
The problem is that the presuppositions underlying those
allegations are wrong. There may be some exceptions, but the large majority of
leading conservative voices are doing their very best to save this nation from
Obama's policies, which they believe are leading to the nation's financial,
cultural and national security ruin. Obama is a leftist, very extreme by
historical standards. To compromise with his positions would not be in the best
interest of the nation but would advance the cause of leftism, so any pressure
conservatives can bring to bear on Republican politicians to strongly oppose
his agenda is laudable.
I can't conceive of too many situations in which
splitting the difference with Obama has advanced or would advance the cause of
conservatism or constitutional liberty. We wouldn't reduce our debt, for
example, by agreeing to reduce the levels of increases in spending. We couldn't
improve the quality, cost and availability of health care by agreeing to more
government intervention when we believe in free market solutions. We couldn't
prudently agree to a half-measure stimulus package when we believe stimulus
spending not only doesn't stimulate the economy but does further increase the
debt. We couldn't agree to some compromise reductions in our nuclear and
conventional forces if we believe that even these lesser cuts would jeopardize
our national security. We couldn't agree to meet Obama halfway on energy policy
by signing on to policies that punish conventional energy only half as much and
waste just half as many billions on quixotic green energy debacles.
We can get mired in a semantic argument over whether
Obama is a card-carrying communist, a European socialist, an admirer of Hugo
Chavez's and Daniel Ortega's or, as he says, a fierce advocate of the free
market, but such quibbling is more misleading than the labels themselves.
Perhaps Obama doesn't technically favor ushering in Karl
Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" en route to the
"withering away of the state" and the promised utopia. But the issue
isn't whether Obama subscribes to this or that brand of socialism -- Marxism,
Trotskyism, Stalinism, Leninism, democratic socialism or whatever. The point is
that he's a radical leftist who subscribes to the radical leftist worldview,
and many of us believe that if left unchecked, he would go much further than
he's gone to undermine our Constitution and our freedom tradition. Considering
the degree to which he has thwarted and circumvented the Constitution and the
rule of law -- and otherwise abused his executive authority during his first
term -- despite facing re-election in 2012, there is no telling how radical he
might become with four more years in lame duck status.
I do think a strong case can be made that he has Marxist
leanings and thus believe the term is warranted as a general descriptor. For 20
years, he belonged to a church that emphasized race and materialism more than
it did Christian theology. He appointed radical czars, some of whom
self-identify as Marxists, and others support Chavez's track record in
oppressing media freedom. He constantly demonizes the "wealthy,"
business and "excess profits." He obsesses over redistributing
wealth. He seems to subscribe to the Marxist theory of surplus value, believing
labor never receives its fair share and often abusing his executive authority
to remedy that perceived injustice. He is in favor of ever-increasing
government control of business and industry -- not just health care -- and has
a manifest distrust of the market.
Call him what you want, but don't tell me he isn't an
extreme leftist by American standards. He might be a moderate in Europe, but
not here.
If not for strong conservative voices opposing his radical
agenda, he would have gone much further: larger and more stimuli, much greater
deficits and debt, even higher percentages of people on the welfare rolls and
not paying income taxes, an even more lawless Justice Department, a
single-payer health care system, the consummation of the war on conventional
energy and further wasteful green energy experiments, a more progressive income
tax code, a possible value-added tax, more liberal activist judges, greater
unilateral disarmament, further relaxation of border control, more government
control over business -- and more.
Thank God for conservative talkers and other voices on
the right who aren't deterred from doing what is right for fear of being called
extremists themselves.
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