Consequences

Originally published in
The Bold Pursuit, March 2014

How many clichés are needed to express what we feel, as we witness the descent of America? A train wreck? The fall of Rome? The cowardice of Darius?

 

 

Darius' flight at the Battle of Gaugamela

 

It should now be clear to everyone that the emperor has no clothes. Obama’s string of policy failures is astonishingly obvious to all but the deniers. His domestic crown jewel, ObamaCare, is destroying a health care system that needed reform, not demolition. His economic policy is to spend money we do not have, to borrow more than we can repay, and to print fiat money that is less valuable with every new round of printing. (“Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value – zero.” [Voltaire, 1694-1778]).
 

Obama’s foreign policy has weakened America and its allies, while empowering and emboldening our enemies. Events in Libya, Iran, Syria, and now Ukraine (among a dismally long list of others) have revealed to the world that Obama is a craven coward, one who speaks loudly, but carries no stick. Like a loudmouth who makes bold threats, and then runs squealing at the first sign of his opponent’s clenched fist, Barack Obama is the modern version of the Persian emperor Darius, who “led from behind,” who ordered thousands of his soldiers to their deaths, and then fled the battlefield in terror when Alexander (the not yet Great) outflanked him.
 

As Putin the Terrible calculates his next flanking move on the global chess board, Obama continues to make empty threats about supposed “consequences,” evoking from our enemies neither respect nor fear, but only derision and laughter. Checkmate. Our former allies, disheartened by Obama’s treacheries against them, are quickly abandoning us.
 

The danger in all of this is that eventually, the middle-ground options will disappear, and only the extreme options will remain available. The middle ground, negotiations from weakness, will be pointless. The extreme options are surrender or war. Surrender will be unacceptable. War will be disastrous, but inevitable, and the only question will be, will we win that war, or lose everything?
 

How did such a dreary condition come about? How did the nation of The American Revolution, the Great Depression and the Greatest Generation become a nation ruled by drug-addled former hippies who promised to halt the rise of the oceans? One can well argue that more than half of Americans believe in political tooth fairies.
 

Astonishingly large numbers of us “hope” for “change.” Too many of us fall for vague promises of saving the planet, enforcing income equality and taxing the rich to pay for futile dreams. Too many of us believe that confiscating guns from law abiding citizens will protect us from criminals.

Obsessions with Hollywood celebrities have given them a platform to persuade voters that the unconstitutional freedom of same-sex marriage is more important than the constitutional freedoms of free speech, freedom of religion, and property rights.
 

Perhaps we have cursed ourselves. Perhaps it is too late to prevent the looming disaster. We are reduced to the faint hope that from the ruins of a once-great nation, there will emerge a brighter future.
 

As Obama might have warned us, there will be consequences.

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