We Are Losing Our Republic Much Like Rome

by Joe O'Neill

January 9, 2012

Upon completion of the Constitutional Convention, in 1787, as he walked out of the Philadelphia Statehouse, a question was asked of Benjamin Franklin. "Well, Doctor, what have we got - a republic or a monarchy?" Franklin's reply was prescient, "A Republic, if you can keep it."

I believe that, unless Americans rise up en masse (in November) to reverse the corruption and fundamental economic reshaping taking place in the United States, we will lose any vestige of recognition of the Republic we have grown up knowing. I truly believe this is the most important election in the history of our Republic since the Civil War, and the last best chance we have to begin turning things around. Should we fail to remove Barack Obama, his cronies, and reclaim the Senate in November, we might very well never see again the United States as the world's beacon of freedom and liberty.

Barack Obama came into office promising to reshape America. He has largely succeeded. He passed, by hook and crook, the first comprehensive Health Care law designed to place our most intimate freedom of choice - that of choosing a doctor and making health decisions - under the auspices of nameless, faceless government bureaucrats. Ostensibly passed to lower costs and increase choice, businesses across America are dropping their plans or increasing premium payments because they see where costs are headed - UP! The Individual Mandate, by 2014, will make costs prohibitive, thereby throwing Americans' health care into one giant pot of government rationed care, and destroy business in the process. 

 Barack Obama has brought us not only increased unemployment, but has 'cooked the books' on reporting of same, the Solyndra and Fast and Furious scandals, 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, Occupy Wall Street protests, Union unrest in Ohio and Wisconsin, an increased federal welfare state, the EPA and Cap and Tax, the TARP II Spending Bill (of trillions of dollars) of new unfunded debt and pay-offs to the banks, and has begun the process of weakening our national defenses and security by ignoring Iran, China, and Russia. He is reducing the size, funding, and scope of our military forces, and he has regularly refused to protect, support, and defend the U.S. Constitution on issues of illegal immigration, the Mexican Drug Cartels, and in his use of Recess Appointments, thereby sidestepping Congressional oversight. While regularly throwing expensive White House parties, his wife takes separate jets and vacations (on our backs), while he has racked up over 90 golf outings of his own - all during the personal and frequent vacations he takes. He does all of this during a time of massive unemployment and hardship for the majority of his fellow American citizens -  and regularly maligns Americans as lazy while waxing eloquent on his Marxist, Socialist policies of "spreading the wealth."

Give Obama and his Socialist ilk another term in office and the whole idea of the United States as a country founded upon the individual's right to freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness will cease to exist. Our founders wisely foresaw that through the power of individual choice, to pursue excellence in their lives, careers, and aspirations, Americans could unleash the power of liberty to positively influence the direction of their lives and the direction of limited government.

What Obama and his cronies seek is nothing less than the complete transformation and subversion from limited government and the freedom of the individual, to one of complete and total control of the people and centralizing of all government power. In short - tyranny, dictatorship.  Don't believe me? Just look at what has transpired over the past three years. If you don't take my word for it, let's take a look at what SEIU Union Leader, Andy Stern, wrote in his latest Op Ed Wall Street Journal piece, written on December 1, 2011. In his Op Ed piece referenced below, Stern agrees that free market principles have been superior over planned economies (Read: Socialism) but he then proceeds to attempt to make the case for China's Superior Economic Model.  Obama followed this up on December 6, 2011, with the following speech highlighted by this:  "The market will take care of everything, they tell us, ......Now, it's a simple theory that fits well on a bumper sticker. But here's the problem: It doesn't work. It has never worked." He made this statement in Osawatomie, Kansas.

We find ourselves at a point in our nation's history where Communism/Socialism is being openly espoused by our President, and others, as the government model we should emulate. Our personal liberties and freedoms are under attack. We find our choice of health care in danger, our freedom to own, possess, and use firearms under assault (Fast & Furious), Congress is out of touch with normal Americans, and in certain instances occupied by corrupt officials, and our total national indebtedness equals our total Gross Domestic Product output. Soon, the debt will exceed the GDP. Our children's and grandchildren's future freedoms are in danger of being lost because nations like China, England, Saudi Arabia hold or own our debt. The borrower is truly servant to the lender. As anyone who has ever been late on a bank loan, mortgage payment, etc. can testify, it isn't long before the noteholder is hounding you for repayment.

The Senate and House composition needs to also undergo further electoral change. Judicial Watch recently released its Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politician's List.  The Senate alone, under Democratic control, has failed to submit a budget in over 900 days, a clear Constitutional requirement.  Both Houses of Congress, with Obama's active support, have passed policies of profligate printing and spending of money we don't have, thereby devaluing our currency. The last time I looked, the money we earn is private property. So, for the government to actively devalue our private property rights is clearly an infringement of our Constitutional freedoms. Wake up, my fellow Americans, our very freedoms are slowly, but surely, being taken from us!!!

Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus, of Alabama, is on the list for Insider Trading. He has made money trading on knowledge that, were you and I to use, we would go to jail, but is perfectly legal for him to do. President Obama is listed, as is Attorney General Eric Holder, who, is at the center of the Fast and Furious scandal and cover-up of gunrunning to the Mexican Drug Cartels. When it comes to corruption, greed shows no particular party affiliation, it's all about abusing your office for personal gain. It is interesting to note, though, that in the top ten listing, six of the ten mentioned are Democrats as are six of the eight listed on the Dishonorable Mention List.

In 1864, President Lincoln wrote a letter that stated his belief his administration wouldn't survive; and that he'd have to cooperate with McClellan and the Peace Party between the election and inauguration in trying to save the Union. Lincoln had his Cabinet sign the envelope without showing them the contents. Lincoln was truly depressed and concerned for the preservation of the Union, the lack of progress in prosecuting the war, the defeat of the South and freedom for the slaves. It was, perhaps, the most important election in the Republic up to that time. The Northern citizen, the troops in the field, and even the Confederacy, saw the 1864 election as being the most profound in its impact upon the future of the country. As Lincoln said in his 1858 House Divided Speech, "I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other." The Northern electorate did their duty in the 1864 election, returning Lincoln to the White House and seeing the war to its victorious conclusion. They were faithful to the Founder's vision, having spent untold millions in treasure and upwards of 600,000 lives to preserve the idea of liberty and justice for all.  

We are, once again, at a similar threshold. Let us not fail in returning America to its principal founding roots of liberty and freedom for the individual. For if we do fail, our lives, as Americans will forever change for the worse, and we won't ever be the same again. Life, as we have known it, will have ceased to exist.  The great thinker, C.S. Lewis, wrote the following: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated;  but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

It's past time that we take back our Republic, at the ballot box, in November, and put Obama and all his kind out of office and into the unemployment lines. Let them feel the sting of hardship for a change. Of course, our "Dear Leader" will most likely just go off on another of his golf outings. "Fore!", is more than just a golf warning in this case. Be forewarned, this is, most likely, our last best chance to keep our Republic.