It’s amazing how liberals try to use guilt against non-liberals when it comes to reducing the size of government. The classic ploy, and one they’re using now, is use of the term: “Obstruct.” It’s wrong, they claim, for anybody to try to obstruct what Obama is doing. No matter that Obama’s ideas and policies were clearly articulated and relentlessly acted upon by Obama himself, over the last two years. No matter that those ideas were overwhelmingly rejected in the most recent elections for Congress. According to liberal socialists, it’s always wrong to obstruct — at least, when the policies are liberal socialist ones. Also according to liberals, it’s always right to “make progress” — at least, when the policies are liberal and socialist ones.
Let’s get some things clear. Republicans and conservatives never have obstructed, and it’s not clear they ever will. If only Republicans were ever guilty of obstruction! If conservatives had successfully obstructed Social Security and Medicare when those programs first passed, millions of Americans would not now be dependent on government programs that the government can no longer afford, not without eventually raising taxes to 100 percent or inflating the currency to pre-Nazi Germany levels. If the incoming Congress holds its ground and does nothing but obstruct (including repeal), it will be doing its job. Sometimes they will fail, and Obama will go over their head using regulatory agencies of government; and sometimes they will succeed, and Obama will be to that extent defanged.
Some will claim this is an extremely hostile policy, but you have to remember that Obama is an extremely hostile President. He’s hostile to all things involving individual freedom and liberty. Obama is wrong in principle about absolutely everything and has therefore been wrong, in practice, about absolutely everything. Ideologically, he believes in the rule of brute government force over the individual. He believes in it not in some cases (as Bush did), or in many cases (as Clinton did); he upholds this ideology in every case. Fiscally, he is neither conventionally liberal nor conservative, but simply insane — as demonstrated by his toleration of a national debt that is bigger than it took 220 previous years of American history to run up.
It’s the duty of a Congress to obstruct a bad President with bad ideas and policies that will surely wreck the country. To suggest, as liberals are now doing, that “obstructing” is the main concern is to elevate the importance of a strategy above ideas and policies. Liberals are trying to evade the fact that their ideas of intensified socialism are wrong and largely unpopular. So they shift the discussion to strategy rather than content. “Well,” they chide newly elected Republicans, “You can’t just be concerned about obstructing everything.” Yes, they can. And they should. Whether Republicans actually follow through on principled obstruction will be another story, if past history is any guide. But the Tea Party Republicans certainly have my vote for making new history. Yes, I’m wary, but willing to hear them out. What choice do we have?
I’m not suggesting that someone with a rational point-of-view should only be against something. If one’s point-of-view is, in fact, rational, then by definition one is primarily FOR something and not against it. Republicans should be against all things Obama because they are all for things that favor individual rights, capitalism, private property, freedom of speech, freedom of association and the concept of limited government and enumerated powers expressed by the original U.S. Constitution. Every time a principled Republican obstructs something, he should use this as an opportunity to say, “I am FOR individual rights and private property; that’s why I want to repeal ObamaCare” or, “I am FOR the preservation of capitalism, which is why I am in favor or phasing out all bailouts and ruling out any in the future,” or, “I am FOR a strong defense and protection of the freedom and safety of American citizens, which is why I am against Obama’s policy of trying terrorists as civilians rather than war criminals, and setting many of them free.”
The problem with Republicans of yesteryear is that many of them didn’t know what they stood for, and some of them even stood for an ideology closer to Obama’s than to Thomas Jefferson’s. Unfortunately, many of those Republicans are still in positions of power in the new Congress. In order to be honestly against something, you have to know what you’re for in the first place. You have to be willing to articulate and defend it. If Republicans obstruct what’s wrong and promote what’s right, we’ll finally have a second political party in the United States.