Dakota Beacon

As early as October 2009 columnist and commentator Charles Krauthammer charged President Obama with embracing America’s decline. Writing in the Weekly Standard, he said, “For America today, decline is not a condition. Decline is a choice.”

Think about it. The American economy is on the skids. Unemployment remains a persistently harmful and the national debt continues to escalate at an alarming rate. We’ve surrendered our place as economic leader in the world. Three years into his presidency, Obama can no longer blame Bush.

Fuel prices remain high with the prospect of going higher. In a warped sense of paternalism, Obama would save us from ourselves. Feigning concern for the environment and for public health and safety, he placed a moratorium on off shore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico despite two federal court orders to the contrary. Multi-million dollar drilling rigs have left the Gulf for more gainful employment in the waters off Brazil and Nigeria.

Furthermore, Obama’s administration postponed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline which would move oil from Alberta, Canada, to Texas oil refineries. Result? Canadian politicians seeking an alternative market are courting China for their product.

Suspicion is rife. The plot thickens. Is President Obama really that incompetent, or is he intentionally bringing on the demise of America? If he is doing it intentionally, why?

We actually have a president of the United States who, according to his words in his own books, believes the greatness of America was achieved inappropriately and it is high time America -- especially white America -- pay for it. Doubt it? Watch Obama push class warfare.

Some would go so far as to say America is held hostage by a band of radicals led by Obama who hold America and her economic system in contempt.

Decline apparently is what President Obama wants. How else can you explain one bad policy decision after another? The man is not stupid nor is he incompetent nor has he surrounded himself with incompetent people. Yet, everything he touches fails by any other standard. Or does it?

If his intention is to cut America down to size, with the help of the US Senate, he is right on target. He is succeeding. For the first time in history our national debt has been downgraded. We have the lowest percentage of people employed in decades (58.1%). We have the highest poverty rate in many, many years ( conservatively put at 15.1%). Fifty percent of the working population support the other fifty percent. Real income has fallen for the third straight year. Home ownership is the lowest since 1965. The American economy is now ranked fifth in global competitiveness whereas we used to rank number one. With his re-election in the balance, Obama doesn’t dare run on his record.

“In Mr. Obama, America gained a President with ambivalence, if not some antipathy, toward the singular greatness of the nation he had been elected to lead.” So said Dr. Shelby Steele, black writer and Senior Fellow from Stanford University’s Hoover Institute in a September 1, 2011 column he wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

Dr. Steele goes on to say “To civilize America, to redeem the nation from its supposed avarice and hubris, the American left effectively makes a virtue of decline -- as if we can redeem America only by making her indistinguishable from lesser nations.”

Dr. Steele intimates that we have a president who was raised and educated with the belief that this country’s greatness was illegitimate, that it was built on the backs of the poor with resources stolen from everywhere else on earth.

Three years of Barack Obama’s war on prosperity gave a lot of disappointed Americans a clear picture. They see a president whose ideology and track record is the very opposite of what made this country great. The US dollar was once the strongest currency upon which other currencies were based. Obama destroyed it. The American health care system was the envy of the world. Obama is destroying it. The US debt is the largest in our history and Obama asks for more power and money.

Is President Obama intentionally presiding over the decline of America? Is he actively dismantling the America you and I once knew? Does anyone really want him to succeed?

You make the call.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).