Obama Is Not King

Townhall.com ^ | January 30, 2013 | John Ransom

[Kaslin]

Watching President Obama's inaugural, I was confused. It looked like a new king was being crowned. Thousands cheered, like subjects worshipping nobility. At a time when America faces unsustainable debt and terrible economic troubles, why such pomp?

Maybe it's because so many people tell themselves presidents can solve any problem, like fairy-tale kings -- or gods.

Before America's first inauguration, John Adams suggested George Washington be called "His Most Benign Highness." Fortunately, Congress insisted on the more modest title, "President."

At his inaugural, President Obama himself said, "The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few."

But then Obama went on to say that his privileged few should force the rest of us to do a zillion things.

He said, "We must do these things, together." But what "together" means to big-government folks is that they have a vision -- and all of us, together, must go deeper into debt to pay for their vision, even if we disagree.

We can afford this, as the president apparently told John Boehner, because America does not have a spending problem.

But, of course, we do have a spending problem, and a debt problem, and the president knows this.

Just a few years ago, when George W. Bush was president, the Congressional Record shows that Senator Obama said this: "I rise, today, to talk about America's debt problem. The fact that we are here to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure and our government's reckless fiscal policies."

Right!

Sen. Obama went on: "Over the past five years, our federal debt has increased from $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion -- and yes, I said trillion with a 'T'!"

Again, he was right to worry about the debt and right to call it "a hidden domestic enemy ... robbing our families and our children and seniors of the retirement and health security they've counted on. ... It took 42 presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just five years."

It's hard to believe that Obama chose those words just seven years ago, because now his administration has racked up another $6 trillion in debt.

It's also a shock that Barack Obama believed this: "America has a debt problem. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit."

Yet this year, he demanded Congress raise the debt limit without conditions.

I want the old Barack Obama back. He made sense. The new guy, he scares the heck out of me. Like a king, he assumes that the realm will be better if he can spend as he pleases.

He also issues executive orders when Congress doesn't immediately do what he wants. To be fair, he isn't the first president to do that. Or the worst.

That was Teddy Roosevelt. He issued 1,000 executive orders, including one that demanded phonetic spelling. On all government documents, "kissed" should be K-I-S-T and "enough" E-N-U-F. At least Congress mustered the two-thirds vote needed to override that one.

I might not mind presidents behaving like kings -- if they at least made the tough decisions that the government needs to make, like balancing the budget. But no president has tried to use an executive order to eliminate whole programs or cut spending. They almost always act only to increase their own power.

Yet they pretend they make bold choices -- even when refusing to make choices. Obama said, "We reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the elderly and investing in the next generation."

That's Washington-speak for, "We will spend government money on young and old alike and refuse to think about when this will bankrupt America."

But it sounds exciting when he says it. He's not just a king -- he's Santa Claus, too. Except that Santa spends his own money. The president spends yours.

Kings don't like to be constrained. But all government should be.

[SampleMan]

As the Roman’s were prone to do, frightened people in a mob mentality seek out a dictator.

I would say that 70% of the Left in this country would willingly sign away all checks and balances tomorrow in order to make Obama a life-time leader.

I’m not certain exactly what Obama is willing to do to make that happen.

[Diogenesis]

King George was nothing compared to the undocumented Tyrant.

"There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not,
if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh
- get first all the people's money,
then their lands,
and then make them and their children servants forever.
It will be said that we do not propose to establish kings.
I know it. But there is a natural inclination in mankind
to kingly government. ....
I am apprehensive - therefore - perhaps too apprehensive -
that the government of these States may in future times
end in a monarchy [not called a monarchy
but an executive with monarchial powers].

But this catastrophe, I think, may long be delayed,
if in our proposed system we do not sow the seeds
of contention, faction and tumult, by making
our posts of honor places of profit.
If we do, I fear that, though we employ at first a number
and not a single person, the number will in time
be set aside, it will only nourish the fetus of a king
... and a king will the sooner be set over us."

Benjamin Franklin

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.
We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream.
It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same,
or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children
and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."
President Ronald Reagan

[frogjerk]

Owebama Is Not King!

OINK!

[Chode]

try telling him that...

[Pearls Before Swine]

Re Post 3:

Your quote from Ben Franklin is wonderful. I’d never heard it before.

[himno hero]

Obama is replete with the personality of Islam... to lie, cheat, steal and destroy.

He is the great destroyer.

In the meanwhile, islam sits back and laughs at the American fools.

[Terry Mross]

Half the people would have done that before he was sworn in the first time. I swear to God an idiot I know was posting on FB about how a group should be started to work on his re-election.

[Ax]

The headline in this morning’s Palm Beach Post: “Obama on immigration: I’ll act if Congress doesn’t” Apparently the one-time lecturer on constitutional law slept through some of his own classes. The road to dictatorship...

[kosciusko51]

Obama Is Not King

Unless he is successfully prevented from doing what he wants, he is a de facto king. No one in Congress wants to challenge him, and the courts seems unwilling as well. What is left?