Local or national elections? At least one person understands the stakes ... By Thomas Sowell
http://www.tsowell.com/
Monday, October 13, 2014
If only Obama's critics and opponents understood
this momentous issue as clearly as he does!
Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill once said, "All politics
is local." That may have been true in Tip O'Neill's day,
but some elections are decisively on national issues --
and the Congressional elections this year are over-
whelmingly national, just as the elections of 1860 were
dominated by one national issue, namely slavery.
In 1860, some abolitionists split the anti-slavery vote by running their
own candidate -- who had no chance of winning -- instead of
supporting Abraham Lincoln, who was not pure enough for some
abolitionists. Lincoln got just 40 percent of the vote, though that
turned out to be enough to win in a crowded field.
But what a gamble with the fate of millions of human beings held
as slaves! And for what? Symbolic political purity?
This year as well, there are third-party candidates complicating
elections that can decide the fate of this nation for years to come.
No candidate that irresponsible deserves any vote. With all the
cross-currents of political controversies raging today, what is the
overriding national issue that makes this year's Congressional
elections so crucial?
That issue is whether, despite all the lawless edicts of President
Obama, threatening one-man rule, we can still salvage enough
of the Constitution to remain a free, democratic nation.
Barack Obama will be on his way out in two years but, if he can
appoint enough federal judges who share his contempt for the
Constitution's limits on federal government power in general, and
presidential powers in particular, then the United States of America
can continue on the path to becoming another banana republic,
even after Obama has left the White House.
President Obama understands how high the stakes are, which is
why he is out fundraising all across the country -- seemingly all
the time -- even though he has no more elections to face himself.
Obama came to power saying that he was going to fundamentally
change the United States of America -- and he intends to do it,
even after he is gone, by giving lifetime appointments as federal
judges to people who share his view that this country's institutions
and values are fundamentally wrong, and need to be scrapped
and replaced by his far left vision.
If only Obama's critics and opponents understood this momentous
issue as clearly as he does!
The issue is whether "we the people," as designated by the
Constitution, continue free to live our own lives as we see fit, and
to determine what laws and policies we want to live under.
President Obama's vision is very different. In his vision, our
betters in Washington shall simply order us to live as they want
us to live -- telling us what medical insurance we can have, what
doctors we can go to, what political groups shall be favored by
the Internal Revenue Service, with more of the same coming in
the years ahead, long after Obama has left the White House.
Critics who deplore President Obama's foreign policies in
general, and his weak response to the ISIS threat in particular,
as showing incompetence -- and who see his incessant
fundraising as just a weird distraction -- fail to understand how
different his priorities are from theirs.
Barack Obama understands clearly that his ability to funda-
mentally remake what he has long seen as a deeply defective
and corrupt America in the image of his far left vision depends
crucially on having control of the Senate that has the power to
confirm his appointments of federal judges with lifetime tenure.
His fundraising is key to maintaining the Democrats' Senate
majority.
Foreign policy is subordinated to Obama's overriding ideological
vision. The president will not risk losing this year's Congress-
ional elections by taking military actions that will alienate his
political base. Token military actions can minimize the political
losses from other voters.
That people will die while he stalls on military action is a price
he is willing to pay. His ordering thousands of American troops
into Ebola-infested Liberia shows the same ideologically driven
callousness.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
Monday, October 13, 2014
If only Obama's critics and opponents understood this momentous issue as clearly as he does!
Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill once said, "All politics
is local." That may have been true in Tip O'Neill's day,
but some elections are decisively on national issues --
and the Congressional elections this year are over-
whelmingly national, just as the elections of 1860 were
dominated by one national issue, namely slavery.
In 1860, some abolitionists split the anti-slavery vote by running their
own candidate -- who had no chance of winning -- instead of
supporting Abraham Lincoln, who was not pure enough for some
abolitionists. Lincoln got just 40 percent of the vote, though that
turned out to be enough to win in a crowded field.
But what a gamble with the fate of millions of human beings held
as slaves! And for what? Symbolic political purity?
This year as well, there are third-party candidates complicating
elections that can decide the fate of this nation for years to come.
No candidate that irresponsible deserves any vote. With all the
cross-currents of political controversies raging today, what is the
overriding national issue that makes this year's Congressional
elections so crucial?
That issue is whether, despite all the lawless edicts of President
Obama, threatening one-man rule, we can still salvage enough
of the Constitution to remain a free, democratic nation.
Barack Obama will be on his way out in two years but, if he can
appoint enough federal judges who share his contempt for the
Constitution's limits on federal government power in general, and
presidential powers in particular, then the United States of America
can continue on the path to becoming another banana republic,
even after Obama has left the White House.
President Obama understands how high the stakes are, which is
why he is out fundraising all across the country -- seemingly all
the time -- even though he has no more elections to face himself.
Obama came to power saying that he was going to fundamentally
change the United States of America -- and he intends to do it,
even after he is gone, by giving lifetime appointments as federal
judges to people who share his view that this country's institutions
and values are fundamentally wrong, and need to be scrapped
and replaced by his far left vision.
If only Obama's critics and opponents understood this momentous
issue as clearly as he does!
The issue is whether "we the people," as designated by the
Constitution, continue free to live our own lives as we see fit, and
to determine what laws and policies we want to live under.
President Obama's vision is very different. In his vision, our
betters in Washington shall simply order us to live as they want
us to live -- telling us what medical insurance we can have, what
doctors we can go to, what political groups shall be favored by
the Internal Revenue Service, with more of the same coming in
the years ahead, long after Obama has left the White House.
Critics who deplore President Obama's foreign policies in
general, and his weak response to the ISIS threat in particular,
as showing incompetence -- and who see his incessant
fundraising as just a weird distraction -- fail to understand how
different his priorities are from theirs.
Barack Obama understands clearly that his ability to funda-
mentally remake what he has long seen as a deeply defective
and corrupt America in the image of his far left vision depends
crucially on having control of the Senate that has the power to
confirm his appointments of federal judges with lifetime tenure.
His fundraising is key to maintaining the Democrats' Senate
majority.
Foreign policy is subordinated to Obama's overriding ideological
vision. The president will not risk losing this year's Congress-
ional elections by taking military actions that will alienate his
political base. Token military actions can minimize the political
losses from other voters.
That people will die while he stalls on military action is a price
he is willing to pay. His ordering thousands of American troops
into Ebola-infested Liberia shows the same ideologically driven
callousness.
.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
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