I have not written a blog post in regards to a national issue in many years. Certainly not on this blog and looking back in my archives, not on Harris County Almanac, Lose an Eye, It's a Sport or even NoUpgrades. As a matter of fact, the last national issue post that I may have written was probably in either 2004 or 2005 on my old LiveJournal or in the early days of Isolated Desolation. For those of you who have been kind enough to stick through all of the blog changes and continue reading during this time, you realize how much has changed (both in my writing and in the world) since then.
All that said, I'd like to spend just a minute today to opine on President Obama's executive action on immigration, and his speech last night. Before I start however I will admit that many prominent writers have done a much better job opining on this than will I. Most have done a much better job.
I also realize that those of you on the progressive side of the political spectrum are not gong to believe anything I write here. That's another reason I tend to shy away from National political writing, there's no room left for debate, only shouting across the table and mindless, baseless charges of racism, sexism....all kinds of isms. (Thank you Congress WOMAN! Sheila Jackson-Lee)
Because of all of this, what I'm writing today is not focused primarily on policy, but on delivery, reaction and why I think we're now witnessing the full-on end of the charge to American mediocrity.
I also apologize for going all Lisa Falkenberg (Who I consider to be on of the worst columnists in Houston) and liberally dotting the letter "I" all over this post. I only do so because these issues are some that, on a state-wide and local level, I've taken very personally for some time now.
With all of that navel-gazing out of the way, if you're still with me, let's discuss last night's Presidential diktat on immigration......
The first take-away from Obama's speech is that he genuinely feels that the American people are to dumb to make their own decisions. This is not something that's been foisted on him by his advisors, nor is it a crafted public persona. The Obamas truly feel that the only things America has gotten right over the past 50 years are electing them into office. (I say them because Michelle Obama is as much a part of his public persona as Hillary was to Bill Clinton's)
It is also very clear that President Obama possesses a visceral hatred of those who disagree with him politically. I'm unsure whether this hatred is spawned by an outsized ego or is due to the fact that he's (seemingly) been socially promoted his entire life but it's there. In all of my life I've never had the feeling that our President would rather I be taken out back and shot, but you get the feeling Obama would rather slide down a razor blade into a vat of rubbing alcohol rather than share a beer with someone of opposite political leanings.
It's also very clear that Obama's approved method of dealing with push-back is just about on par with that of a child. His response last night, and his treatment of the Republican controlled Congress was petty ("pass a bill") and arrogant ("congress won't act") it was also highly dismissive of both the Constitution and the Representative Republic that it established.
And, here's the rub. I'm not one of those "deport 'em all" screaming for blood types. In reality, I was in favor of the guest worker plan forwarded by Bush the Younger and I'm in favor of legislation that brings this large sliver of our economy out of the gray market and into the light. This might surprise a lot of progressives, but I believe that it's wrong to separate families and I think there are ways that this can be done without political grandstanding.
I would also like to see it done in another way than executive order, because I truly believe that this sets a dangerous precedent in terms of the Imperial Presidency and could (slippery slope fallacy alert!) lead to greater assertions of the power in the future.
We've already been told, after the Republican landslide a couple of weeks ago, that mid-term elections are not needed so what's to stop the next level of hubris that the electoral system is flawed and isn't needed at all? Certainly, we would still (ostensibly) have local and state elections but our representatives at the federal level could (theoretically) be appointed by those bodies. After all, with the influx of so-called "dark-money" and the general public's utter ignorance of complex federal issues it's not fair to ask them to select a President, Senate and Congressperson of whom they know little about anyway. It will not be lost on the Constitutional scholars of convenience that this was how the Founders intended it in the first place.
What this would do, supporters will note, is sever the august deliberative bodies in Congress from the mob-rule mentality of the proletariat which would allow this group of intellectual betters to enact policy for the greater good, rather than for special interests which currently dominate our elective will. Besides, a very small portion of the populace bothers to vote anyway, and many of them can't name the Vice President.
In the aftermath to the 2014 Mid-Term Republican wave President Obama claimed to have "heard" the voices of the two-thirds of registered voters who had chosen to tune out. This was a convenient ploy because it allowed him to project whatever message he wanted onto the backs of Millions of silent voices. In effect, they became his muse, except that they were created by him and fashioned in his image. This is a huge problem.
Throughout history, all great leaders, artists, heroes have been inspired by something outside, or bigger, than themselves. With Obama it seems that he is only inspired and driven by himself. By his legacy, by his petty political victories over the other party and by is vision of what America is not and what he thinks it needs to be. There is no sense of overriding concern for the bedrock foundations that have made America great. And, contrary to some, these bedrocks are not rooted in policy. They're rooted in freedom and the rule of law.
By throwing aside the rule of law and continuing to make moves to reduce the freedom of the American people Obama's desire to "fundamentally transform the country" is coming to fruition. I'm not sure if this type of transformation is what those who voted for him had in mind.
Sadly, even if it wasn't, I'm not sure the results would change had they known at the time.
This should worry you.
