EDWARD CLINE: OBAMA SAYS “SHUT UP”
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/obama-says-shut-up
While blaming the federal government’s shutdown on the House’s dragging its feet on a budget bill that would raise the debt ceiling and defund Obamacare, and not himself or the government itself for “shutting down,” President Barack Obama during an address to Congress in the White House State Dining Room on the morning of October 17th displayed his true anti-freedom and anti-freedom of speech colors by blaming bloggers, talk radio hosts and “activists” for the shutdown. It demonstrated his core hostility to freedom in any realm. In short, he would just rather we all shut up and let him get on with destroying the country, and not bother him or anyone else with the least squeak of opposition.
This is the portrait of a wannabe tyrant.
On Thursday Obama took a swipe at freedom of speech. Of the 2,464 words he uttered, these were the most ominous and relevant:
And now that the government has reopened and this threat to our economy is removed, all of us need to stop focusing on the lobbyists, and the bloggers, and the talking heads on radio and the professional activists who profit from conflict, and focus on what the majority of Americans sent us here to do, and that’s grow this economy, create good jobs, strengthen the middle class, educate our kids, lay the foundation for broad-based prosperity and get our fiscal house in order for the long haul. That’s why we’re here. That should be our focus.
It’s a statement so loaded with hypocrisy and venality and undisguised dissimulation, that if awards were given for secular taqiyya, Obama would win it hands down. He would easily trounce Richard Nixon, who, in 1973, declared, “I am not a crook.”
Andrea Peterson of the Washington Post criticized Obama’s remarks, ending her article with:
But blaming the blogging field for the way the Internet and the entire journalism industry works seems like a bit of a reach — especially lumping them in with professional activists and lobbyists who are literally paid to advocate one side or another, as well as partisan talking heads. Is the president trolling us?
He is doing more than “trolling” us, more than challenging us to shut up and be quiet. For the umpteenth time he has bared his teeth at America.
Noah Rothman on Mediate also reported on Obama’s “victory” speech:
Obama went after what he called the “rhetoric” which “gets worse” annually, and for members to focus on where they agree. He cited a “balanced approach” to a budget process as one of these areas of agreement between Democrats and Republicans.
“Had one side not decided to pursue a strategy of brinkmanship, each side could have gotten together and figured out how do we shape a budget that provides certainty to businesses, and people who rely on government?” Obama said.
He added that “comprehensive immigration reform” and a farm bill should also be the focus of the Congress for the rest of the year.
Can you believe the hubris of this man? Guess which side is guilty of “brinksmanship”? Obama. And the Senate. And that “should”? It sounds more like “You’d better focus on a farm bill and immigration reform, or I’ll be very, very angry.”
Kurt Nimmo of InfoWars came closest to construing what Obama really meant:
Following the deal to end the government non-shutdown, Obama took to the podium and teleprompter to excoriate Americans opposed to the staggering bankster and Federal Reserve debt destroying the country.
…In other words, Obama demands that the American people stop reading sites like Infowars.com and flock over to the corporate Mockingbird media where they can consume a standard fare of government propaganda and lies.
James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal had this to say about Obama’s forked tongue:
Yesterday Obama delivered remarks at the White House, in which he made only an oblique reference to ObamaCare: “You don’t like a particular policy or a particular president, then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But don’t break it. Don’t break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building. That’s not being faithful to what this country is about.”
This is galling for multiple reasons. For one, he was lecturing members of Congress, every one of whom (with the exception of three appointed senators) holds his office by virtue of having won his most recent election. Granted, Obama won his too, but with the help of an abusive IRS. And the country now faces a crisis because in 2009 and 2010, when it came to health care, Obama and his fellow Democrats failed to act in accord with the advice he now dishes out: “Don’t break it.”
Our predecessors didn’t spend over two centuries preparing the way for Obamacare or any other statist legislation. Who’s really doing the “breaking”? Obama and the Senate. And, but for a pitiful few in Congress, there isn’t a single politician or bureaucrat or Cabinet appointee who either knows what this country is about, or would be faithful to it if he did know.
Unfortunately, the only member of the GOP who came close to arguing against Obamacare in terms of its violation of individual rights was Ted Cruz during a 22-hour standup speech.
I would be thrilled to see Obama, seated with a smug look on his face in the Oval Office, being instructed by Thomas Sowell on the workings of the Constitution, with Harry Reid and all the Democratic Senators standing by, trying not to hear what Sowell was saying:
There is really noting complicated about the facts [about who was responsible for the shutdown]. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted all the money required to keep all government activities going – except for ObamaCare. This is not a matter of opinion. You can check the Congressional Record.
As for the House of Representatives’ right to grant or withhold money, that is not a matter of opinion, either. You can check the Constitution of the United States. All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which means that Congressmen there have a right to decide whether or not they want to spend money on a particular government activity….
The Senate chose not to vote to authorize that money to be spent, because it did not include money for ObamaCare.
It’s as simple as that. The House did not shut down the government. The Senate did, with the encouragement of the White House.
Obama said last Thursday morning:
Now, there’s been a lot of discussion lately of the politics of this shutdown. But let’s be clear: There are no winners here. These last few weeks have inflicted completely unnecessary damage on our economy. We don’t know yet the full scope of the damage, but every analyst out there believes it slowed our growth.
Speaking of damage to the economy, there is the matter of the fabulously expensive clunker of a website that was supposed to enable citizens to sign up for coverage at the speed of light, beginning with the October 1st “launch.” Never mind the fraud behind Obamacare that you can “keep yourplan.” That’s not true, as a former Secret Service man discovered and had the spine to say publically.
Mr. President,
In one of your famous Obamacare speeches you stated, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” Well, as evidenced by the below letter, which my wife and I just received, you lied.
Apparently the former Secret Service man was one of the very, very few able to negotiate his way through the Obamacare website and see the bad news, as well. Daniel Greenfield in a FrontPage article calls it the most incompetent thing Obama has ever done.
The ObamaCare website, which estimates have placed at anywhere from under 100 million to 400 million to just under 300 million to 634 million dollars, not only tops even Solyndra, but couldn’t have been designed any worse if Joe Biden had tried making it in his spare time.
The federal health care exchange was built using 10-year-old technology that may require constant fixes and updates for the next six months and the eventual overhaul of the entire system, technology experts told USA TODAY.
The root cause of the problems was a pivotal decision by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services officials to act as systems integrator, the central coordinator for the entire program. Usually this role is reserved for the prime information technology contractor.
As a result, full testing of the site was delayed until four to six days before the fateful Oct. 1 launch of the health care exchanges, the individual said.
For those wanting to entrap themselves in the Obamacare website’s netherworld, it’s a matter of hurry up and wait. The website is worthy of a Road Runner cartoon. Guess who would get to play Wiley Coyote?
On a last economic note, Obama delivered another passel of bare-faced lies.
Let me be specific about three places where I believe we can make progress right now. First, in the coming days and weeks, we should sit down and pursue a balanced approach to a responsible budget, a budget that grows our economy faster and shrinks our long-term deficits further….
And remember, the deficit is getting smaller, not bigger. It’s going down faster than it has in the last 50 years. The challenges we have right now are not short-term deficits; it’s the long-term obligations that we have around things like Medicare and Social Security. We want to make sure those are there for future generations. [Italics mine]
Come again? Mr. President, if you are reading this, please go to this link and watch the climbing numbers in the U.S. Debt Clock. Words fail me. But they apparently don’t fail you. Words mean nothing to you. They’re just devices to fill space and deflect reality.
Au contraire, we bloggers, talking heads, writers, critics, thinkers, and professional activists will not shut up. It isn’t a president’s business to tell people to keep quiet and let the juggernaut of statism roll over them unopposed. And if you try to shut us up…well, Patrick Henry had a few choice words for tyrants who wished to silence his critics. You would do well to remember them.
“Caesar,” said he, “had his Brutus, Charles his Cromwell, and (pausing) George the third (here a cry of treason, treason was heard, supposed to issue from the chair, but with admirable presence of mind he proceeded) may profit by their examples. Sir, if this be treason,” continued he, “make the most of it.”
Edward Cline is the author of the Sparrowhawk novels set in England and Virginia in the pre-Revolutionary period, of several detective and suspense novels, and three collections of his commentaries and columns, all available on Amazon Books. His essays, book reviews, and other articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Journal of Information Ethics and other publications. He is a frequent contributor to Rule of Reason, Family Security Matters, Capitalism Magazine and other Web publications.
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