Obama and the End of White Guilt

October 13, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Family, Government, Corruption, Jeff Lukens, Liberals, President, Race, Society/Culture, Taxes, Tea Party | No Comments

- By Jeff Lukens

Barack Obama portrayed himself as America’s first “post-racial” president, yet he and his supporters continue to play the race card against ordinary Americans who oppose him. Despite a big election victory, Obama is unable to understand that ordinary Americans do not like being bullied. Nor does he understand that they do not like being called racists for political disagreements.

The Obama agenda is desperate and out of ideas. In their desperation, they deal from the bottom of the deck. The race card has never failed them before, and when the logic of their position fails, evoking racism always ends the discussion. Unfortunately for them, this time the discussion will not end. The more they smear everyday Americans with the charge of racism, the more meaningless the accusation becomes.

In the wake of town halls, tea parties and 9/12 protests against Obama’s policies, many media pundits — Jimmy Carter, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, and Newsweek Magazine, to name a few — have branded these patriotic Americans as racists. It is appalling to think that the Left has played this game for decades. Americans of all backgrounds have fought for Civil Rights for too long to have accusations of racism used in such an offhand manner.

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Slouching Toward Orwell’s 1984

July 27, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Book Reviews, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Education, Free Speech, Freedom, Government, Corruption, Jeff Lukens, Liberals, Security/Safety, Society/Culture | 1 Comment

- By Jeff Lukens

George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” tells of an advanced world where there are no individual freedoms, and the state uses fear to manipulate and control people to conform to a prescribed belief. In the book, the Party maintains absolute power, and power has become an end to itself. His book is as relevant today as ever. In the age of Obama, the freedoms that define American life are slipping away and being replaced with ever more state control.

In Orwell’s book, the Party constantly rewrites history and rewrites the language to restrict the true meaning of words and the ideas behind them. They eliminate words to reduce vocabulary and thereby reduce uncontrolled thoughts. Doublespeak makes people believe what they would otherwise know to be false, and is encapsulated by the phrase: “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.” Orwell defined doublethink as, “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

In the book, the Party rewrites historical documents to match an evolving propaganda line, which changes daily. They amend newspaper articles, destroy evidence, and delete the existence of people identified as “unpersons.”
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When the Obama Backlash Comes

May 4, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Elections, Government, Corruption, Jeff Lukens, Liberals, Media Bias, President, Socialism, Society/Culture, Taxes | No Comments

- By Jeff Lukens

Public opinion can be very fickle. Barack Obama has ridden a positive wave of opinion all the way to the White House. The public has welcomed him into office in that same spirit of hope in which he ran. Since the inauguration, however, the president is showing he has different plans than the ones he spoke about during the campaign. It should come as no surprise when the public turns on him just as easily as he has turned on them.

The contradictions between Obama’s words and actions are many. He opposes big government, and then he vastly expands it. He says he favors bipartisanship, but doesn’t practice it. He says he is against earmarks, and then signs the largest pork package in history. And that is just to name a few.
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A Crisis Too Great to Waste

January 25, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Budget, Communism, Congress, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Government, Corruption, History, Jeff Lukens, Liberals, Media Bias, News, President, Publius Contributor, Socialism, Society/Culture, Taxes, Welfare | No Comments

- By Jeff Lukens

So Barack Obama proposes massive government spending like we have never seen before as our way back to economic prosperity. Yet wasn’t it a mountain of unpayable debt that got us into this financial crisis in the first place? The rivers of red ink he proposes would make FDR and LBJ blush. This approach may have worked politically for FDR and LBJ, but neither time did it work economically for the country. It may work politically for Obama too, but deficit spending will not work economically today either.

Banana republics are known for this kind of governance. It is a recipe for a treasury default or hyperinflation that no industrialized county has seen since Germany’s Weimar Republic in the 1920s. And that debacle sewed the seeds for the despotism of the Third Reich.

Obama is a smart guy. He can’t possibly be naive enough to think more debt piled on the existing $10.6 trillion national debt is the solution to the economic mess we are in. Recessions are a natural part of the economic cycle and only market forces can correct them. One can only wonder about his true motives.
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The Price of Political Correctness

October 18, 2008 | Filed Under Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Government, Corruption, Jeff Lukens, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Socialism, Society/Culture, Taxes | No Comments

-By By Jeff Lukens

“Silence is the virtue of fools,” Sir Francis Bacon once said. Instead of silence, today Bacon would be referring to a mindless politeness on what can and cannot be spoken in the public arena. We call it political correctness. Yet silence and political correctness may be luxury we cannot afford if we wish to maintain the way of life this country has known since the founding.

It is no secret Congress has been pushing subprime mortgages to disadvantaged people who could not pay for them. In the name of affordable housing, Congress has resisted all attempts at reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and effectively encouraged those organizations to become ever more reckless in their lending policies.

The government does not guarantee Fannie or Freddie, but the widespread assumption has been that they would step in to cover losses. In effect, Democrats were buying votes by giving their constituents a home. The result has been a world wide financial meltdown.
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NATO’s Uncertain Future

September 25, 2008 | Filed Under Foreign Policy, Jeff Lukens, Media Bias, Military, News, Patriotism, Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, War on Terror | No Comments

- By Jeff Lukens

Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August marked a return to their historic pattern of imperial conquest. Without confronting NATO directly, Vladimir Putin signaled he intends to keep Georgia and Ukraine in Russia’s sphere of influence, and keep them from joining NATO. Putin can now bully other Eastern European countries as well to sway their policies away from the West and toward Russia. If any of these countries fail to comply, the implied message is they can expect a fate similar to Georgia.

The European Union gets more that a quarter of its oil from Russia, and the pipeline through Georgia is the only oil from the Caspian oil fields not controlled by Russia or Iran. Putin now is able to shut it down anytime he wants to.

The attack on Georgia also exposed a dangerous overextension of NATO forces in Eastern Europe, and United States forces around the world. Power abhors a vacuum, and when there is any uncertainty about it in the Kremlin, instability follows. Putin has proven Russia will brutally fill any power void around them. NATO needs to reexamine its long-term strategic purpose, and determine what it should do about a newly aggressive and revitalized Russia.
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No More Vietnams

August 14, 2008 | Filed Under Congress, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Europe, Foreign Policy, Jeff Lukens, Media Bias, Military, News, Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, War on Terror | No Comments

-By Jeff Lukens

The war in Iraq may be ending in much the same way the war in Vietnam appeared to be ending in 1973 with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. We had finally won in Vietnam, but then lost the peace two years later. The outcome of the 2008 presidential election could determine whether Iraq becomes “another Vietnam” should there be a significant renewal of insurgent activity.

The Left would have us believe we were stuck in Iraq in an endless and unwinnable quagmire like they said we had in Vietnam. That comparison, however, has not held up. While much about the two wars is similar, a key difference was Lyndon Johnson’s muddled strategy in Vietnam compared with George W. Bush’s winning strategy in Iraq.
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