In December 2007, Sen. Barack Obama’s reassurances to the Boston Globe suggested that he understood constitutional limits on executive and government power. He knew that there were things the “president does not have power under the Constitution” to do, including unilaterally authorizing military action and surveilling citizens without warrants. He said he would “reject the Bush administration’s claim that the president has plenary authority under the Constitution to detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.”That thoughtful skeptic of executive power now sits in the Oval Office. Isolating random bits of his presidential rhetoric, you can almost believe that he understands how a society really thrives. Obama said in his pseudo-State of the Union Address, “The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.”
But in just three months, we have seen what Obama means when he talks about “reach.” He doesn’t mean “our reach” but his own. His sense of that reach, and the abrupt and scary speed with which he’s used it, marks him as an executive with a tentacled grip—multiple, crushing, inescapable. No longer the cautious critic of presidential power of the campaign trail, he now sees nothing as beyond his grasp.
Less than a hundred days in, the fully articulated ideological contours of his vision remain unclear—just as he wishes. It suits Obama’s self-image as a mere pragmatic problem solver to never explain, to float from power grab to usurpation as if nothing but thoughtful reaction to the exigencies of the moment guides him. But it’s already obvious that those actions veer strongly toward expansive government, limiting our options in every aspect of national life.
I had started to title this blog entry, 'Live For The Moment?...' and write about how there really is no such thing as "The Moment", only past and future...and thus how it was foolish of conservatives to back the previous President's extension of governmental powers knowing full well that an opposition candidate was likely to win the next election.
But then it occurred to me that that is how I was suppose to react reading that article. It has to be.
No writer could be so obtuse as to not realize the main hypocrisy in the context of such a political piece.
I mean, it's not enough to make a vague mention of Bush in the article, it (the article) has to begin with the acknowledgment that these over extensive power grabs by Uncle Sam have been ongoing for decades now in order to have any credibility in its critique of the current administration.
Which begs the question, what then was the purpose of the article?
Pressure valve!
Articles like the one above function to let us let off some steam vicariously so we don't react in any other way.
And by posing such a rather obvious hypocritical point, it becomes interactive in encouraging people to comment on that hypocrisy and thus feel as if they are participating in relevant issues of their society when actually they are being less engaging on real issues than their parents and grand parents.
Am I reading too much into things here?
Well, maybe.
But as I said, I can't believe anyone with an IQ high enough to tie their shoes would write that article being so intentionally obtuse as to sidestep the last president's paving the way for the current one's ongoing extension of government powers.
And let us not forget that the media today is 50% propaganda and 50% entertainment.
For Leftists (even those in the guise of conservatives) reality is just so boring and even unjust toward their sensitivities for how they think the world should be.
So if they can't re-make the world into their own deluded fiction, they'll at least attempt to alter the perception of reality to the fullest extent possible by presenting their fiction as reality.
And nothing helps you let off a little steam like a nice engaging piece of fiction.
'Life is a stage' and our modern elite have cast you in the role of the passive, sedated consumer....
.
