Dakota Beacon

It is the time-honored custom, as one year takes its bows and the next peeks out from the wings, for gamblers, sages and pundits to attempt to augur the future. This December, 2009, it might be best to rather look back at our country – America as she was but a brief twelve months ago.

We were triumphant in Iraq; we’d become complacent after eight terror-free years. We still believed the Constitution was the law of the land, that we were still the sovereign nation founded by Jefferson, Adams, Madison and Washington. Although we weren’t perfect we’d arrived at a point where minorities enjoyed great opportunities.

Although banking institutions showed symptoms of injury dealt by Congress’ mandate to extend financing to unsound borrowers and some were facing restructuring, our economy wasn’t collapsing; unemployment was constrained to single digits. Such gaps as occurred in our health insurance coverage weren’t resulting in gaps in health care. We had problems. Irresponsible spending and illegal immigration were with us. But America still stood tall in its sovereignty as the world’s lone superpower and the U.S. Dollar was the standard world currency.

A sluggish Republican Party lulled by two terms of a weak Republican moderate president, nominated John McCain, who stood for compromise over a firm position that offered us a Conservative choice. Voters, disgusted with Bush’s ineffectual leadership and rash spending, were eager for “change”. As McCain crashed, we stood on the threshold of a starkly contrasting administration. The average American knew virtually nothing about the man chosen to lead. When pressed, the average supporter seems to have supported him because he felt a Black man should have a chance to be President – in other words a racist vote.

We feared the worst as Barack Obama declaimed to unhinged crowds that we were “days away from fundamentally changing America”. These chilling words were the most – perhaps the last - truthful words he has spoken. Within weeks the new president walked into General Motors and took it over. The new directors were now the UAW. The federal government, through a “pay czar” now makes the hiring, payroll and policy decisions. The banks were put through “stress tests”. Those which failed were given the same treatment.

Record-breaking spending was ushered in as “stimulus”, while the economy reeled and the dollar tumbled. Obama initiated and Congress passed “Cash for Clunkers”, rewarding the rich and punishing the poor, to sell cars while at the same time cut carbon dioxide emissions. A “wise Latina”, was appointed to the Supreme Court on the merits of race and gender with the consent of a pliable Senate. She readily opined that this harmless gas was a “pollutant”, so that it could now be regulated to our detriment.

In an end run around the First Amendment, an appropriations bill was amended to include “Hate Crimes” legislation punishing thought and speech, but only if a “special”, “protected” class of person is involved - homosexuals or abortionists . . . or Muslim terrorists. This now enables them to announce plans to commit atrocities against innocent Americans without risk of normal people taking action to prevent it. Fort Hood was one result. Terror has returned.

Obama has spent more days abroad and fewer at home than any other in our history in this short time. Given the mischief of which he is capable, we might rejoice in this, except whenever he sees a foreign despot, his reflex is to bow, then launch into disparagement of and apology for the country that chose him. This confuses our allies and emboldens our enemies. He has also pulled the rug from under Eastern Europe, cutting our missile defenses there. Meanwhile, Iran continues to expand its attack capability.

As we stand on the “precipice” to use Obama’s own term (strangely reminiscent of Ireland’s legendary Sir Boyle Roche) of losing our solvency and our liberty through passage of an insane health care bill, we see some other things. Congress has abdicated its power to legislate. The Executive Branch has taken over through intimidation - risking American defense by eliminating key military installations as “punishment” to members of Congress who stray, and bribery - using our tax dollars to buy their votes. Meanwhile, Congressmen hang up on our phone calls. Through corruption and sloth they’ve been rendered irrelevant to the process of lawmaking. Some were surprised that it’s now customary to waive the reading of bills. Two thousand pages are dropped on the table and voted upon. Who writes them? No one knows. We are being given law by nameless, unelected functionaries.

We have reason to doubt the fidelity of Obama, in Copenhagen to deliver America to foreigners who would have us controlled by world government, despite irrefutable evidence that the underlying “science” of the subject of this negotiation is but a conspiracy of fraud. As our soldiers are asked to die in Afghanistan he announces a departure schedule. Winston Churchill he’s not.

Perhaps we shouldn’t try to read the tea leaves. Who would have believed that we’d have abandoned our Constitution because it was “too restrictive”, that we would be using tax dollars to fund thugs and prostitution rings, that after two weeks in office the new boy would have been chosen to receive a Nobel Peace Prize, that euthanasia is on the table?

Nevertheless I offer my prediction: America will rise to the challenge. Our Constitution will be restored to its place of authority. We will not accept defeat at the hands of terrorists. We will reject Democrats and “moderate” Republicans, to stand instead upon a powerful, Conservative platform which will return us to our leadership among nations, to the principles that made us great and the freedom that has always inspired courage.

Sally Morris is a member of Americans for Constitutional Government