Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said the Obama administration has created a “culture of intimidation” with its widespread misuse of government power to target and intimidate its political foes.
Speaking on the Senate floor on Wednesday, the Florida Republican said reports of the IRS targeting political groups, revelations that Benghazi whistleblowers were intimidated by the State Department, and moves by the Justice Department to search the phone records of The Associated Press were “chilling” and “unacceptable,” and he likened the actions to “tactics of the Third World.”
“In the span of four days, [there were] three major revelations about the use of government power to intimidate those who are doing things that the government doesn’t like,” he said.
“These are the tactics of the Third World. These are the tactics of places that don’t have the freedoms and the independence that we have here in this country.” [Source: Newsmax.com]
Rubio is right on the money, except for one thing: No President can literally create a culture of intimidation.
A ‘culture’ refers to the trends, attitudes and behaviors of a majority of people. A President with authoritarian intentions can exploit a culture of weak and vulnerable people—but not create it.
Let’s be honest. If America were a culture dominated by strong, self-confident and rational individualists, Obama would never have been elected and reelected in the first place—much less have been able to get as far as he has with restraining or usurping individual liberties.
Obama enjoys the support of the majority—at least for now—because he is presiding over a majority of people who feel angry, disoriented, confused, entitled, or somehow off course. Otherwise, he wouldn’t still be in office. Like any dictator, Obama caters to the weakest and the worst within people.
Political leaders such as Senator Rubio are right to say everything they do in condemning Obama. They ought to curb his attacks on liberty, and even consider impeachment hearings. This is unlikely, but action on this scale is required to send a message to our government that ‘This is NOT OK, and we’re NOT going to take it.’
Opponents of the Tea Party ought to be just as fired up about this scandal as Tea Party supporters. The scandal with the IRS is not about the IRS vs. the Tea Party. It’s about the relationship between the individual and the state.
Either the individual is sovereign over his own life, or he isn’t. The IRS took action, under Obama’s watch, which blatantly violated the Constitution. Obama can claim he didn’t know about it all he wants, but even if that’s true, this only proves his lack of competence at governing.
A President is supposed to uphold the Constitution and to protect Americans from the threat of force. Obama failed miserably, and for once in his life he ought to be held accountable for something.
In all honesty, I don’t believe this will happen. The reason is that American culture is no longer respectful of the rational virtues and attitudes which nourish freedom. The majority now seem to look to government to tell them what to do, how to behave, how or where to purchase health care, how or whether to take out a mortgage, and on and on.
A lot of people, maybe even a majority, don’t like all the government interference and strangulation of daily life created by the federal monstrosity. But their attitude is mostly one of resignation and, ‘What can you do?’
In psychology we call this learned helplessness, a common definition of depression. Rest assured this was not the attitude which gave rise to the American Revolution and the establishment of our free republic in the first place.
The kind of principled anger required to tell the government to get the hell out of the way is not present—or at least not dominant—in a society that would put somebody like Obama in office in the first place.
If America is slowly turning into the status of a third world dictatorship, it’s the Americans themselves who have let it happen. They do this as much by what they don’t say and do as by what they do. Fury and outrage against a President for doing the things that have occurred under Obama’s watch should be no-brainers. People have lost their capacity to be angry about the right things.
If Social Security or Medicare were cut by one percent, you’d probably see rioting in the streets and protests on an epic scale. Government harassment of private citizens for incorrect political views? No big deal.
Sure, plenty are angry that, ‘Somebody else has more money than I do, somebody else got a break that I didn’t.’ Just by being more successful than you (according to your perception), a person has committed a crime. Obama is there to somehow avenge that. Resentment, envy, and subtle hostility are everywhere. These are the sort of petty attitudes and emotions that put someone like a Barack Obama in office and keep him there.
Obama is absolutely everything Marco Rubio says he is, and worse. But Obama is only doing what he was elected to do: ‘Take care of me’ absolutely implies, and inevitably leads to, ‘Tell me what to do.’ Obama gets this.
Can people change? Of course they can. I’m a psychotherapist by profession, and I not only believe this—I know it. But I also know that people must want to change. They must be willing to identify their errors and make significant course corrections, when necessary. Most of all, they must confront their fears.
Get real, America: Your government is full of dishonorable and rotten people because we have empowered them to do dishonorable and rotten, unjust things. We direct them to rob Peter to pay Paul, to make things work for me at the expense of someone else’s property or rights. It’s sort of a G-rated mafia, it we’re brutally honest about it. Why condemn Obama for turning it into something more resembling The Godfather or The Sopranos—or Soviet Russia, for that matter?
If we don’t care enough about ourselves to fight for our liberty on principle, the Obamas of the world will always be there to take over everything for us. To curtail Obama and his ilk, Americans must turn themselves into the sort of people their government does not wish them to be.
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