INTERESTING REFLECTION

In late October 2008 I wrote the below article.  It is now two years and eleven months later.  The campaign season is underway for a second Obama term.  

            Why I Would Or Would Not Vote For Obama

            by 

            J. Scott Lyman

In a few days the nation will chose a new president.  This particular election comes at a time when the nation is engaged in a struggle for its very survival as a Great Power.  From Wall Street to Main Street and every avenue and ally in between, America and Americans are confronting unprecedented  financial, international, military and environmental challenges.  Two men, as different as...black and white?..., are vying for the opportunity to meet these most daunting challenges.  

One man, Barack Obama is the “change agent.” While Obama is very good at using rhetoric and generalities instead of talking about specific plans and details, I suspect that his idea of change is reflective of his radical egalitarian value system. The other man, John McCain, regardless of his maverick image or ability to reach across the isle, is much more closely aligned with the status quo and the inertia of the past, which is brought us to where we are today. The tension between change and inertia is as old as time and the correct course of action is seldom uncluttered. So let’s compare the alternate courses. 

Newton’s first law of motion states: An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.  Think of McCain as the body in motion–an extension of Dubya.  Think of Obama as the unbalanced force seeking an alternative of the past leading to the future. Applying Newton’s first law to the choice America will make next Tuesday, the question is, more of the same or hope and change?

The reasons to vote for Obama, for the unbalanced force, for his mantra “hope and change”, are, at this late hour, hopefully reasonably well understood.  Let’s do them by the numbers: 1) McCain is a Republican and associated with George Bush, who history will record as one of the most unpopular and misguided presidents in American history.  2) The economy is teetering on the edge of massive dislocations, somewhat similar to the dire circumstances that confronted the nation in the early 1930s.  And George W., like Herbert Hoover, has been in residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue most recently while the termites have been undermining the foundation of our economy.  3) The nation is bogged down in two asymmetrical wars that the American public is ill-prepared to understand and lacking in the patience to see through to victory, assuming that even possible.  4) The fossil fuel economy upon which the American economy is built is running on empty. 5.)  Intuitively recognizing reasons 1 - 4, the American people are deeply fearful of what lies ahead.  Note well that reasons 1 -  5 to vote for Obama have nothing to do with Obama, but reasons 6 and 7 do.  Reason 6) Obama is charismatic, intelligent, articulate, attractive and black. 7) He stands for change. He promises to be the unbalanced force, interrupting the inertia of the United States and creating a new course. Now let’s look at the reasons not to vote for Obama; to vote against  the unbalanced force of hope and change. 

First, let’s consider the context of this election.  The challenges  I describe in the opening paragraph of this article, I submit, are nothing short of a battle for the health, safety and well being of our nation, perhaps for decades, or longer.  The challenges facing the American people in the coming decades of the 21^st Century are economic, political, structural, and demographic.  As one of my undergraduate professor heros at Stanford pointed out decades ago, the issues of population, environment and resources threaten to overwhelm not only our country, but life on Earth.  So, arguably, the choice before in the 2008 election us amounts to nothing less than an historic battle not only for the very survival of the United States as a free society and Great Power, but for Earth itself. 

With this in mind, here are the reasons not to vote for Obama:  1) At best, he is a lieutenant junior grade, having never been tested in battle, nor even having even seen a battlefield. Think of your son or daughter being led into battle by an untested dilettante. 2) The greatest accomplishment in Obama’s  life is self-promotion, as manifested by two autobiographies and winning the Democratic nomination for president as a two year freshman Senator. 3) If there is any truth to the conventional wisdom that you can tell most about a man by the company he keeps, Barack Obama is, at his core, a committed radical egalitarian, if not a Marxist. 

He started life after college as a committed acolyte of the Saul Alinsky school of community organizing in Chicago.  As anybody familiar with Alinsky knows, there was far more to his community organizing activities than registering voters and helping little ‘ol ladies across the street.  Alinsky was a radical egalitarian and a revolutionary who unapologetically advocated revolution and the destruction of the existing social order. Next.

For 20 years Obama sat in the pews of Jeremiah Wright’s church internalizing the tenants of Black Liberation Theology.  BLT is openly ethnocentric, revolutionary and patently Marxist.  Among his political associates are a large cadre radical egalitarians like John Ayers, Alice Plamer, Carl Davidson, and Frank Marshall Davis; all avowed socialists/communists. 

4) Electing Obama president with progressives Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House and Harry Reid as Majority Leader of the Senate will be the equivalent of throwing away the checks and balances so carefully woven into our Constitution. 

5) If the 20^th Century taught us anything it is that nations turning to charismatic leaders in times of national crisis and upheaval soon learn to regret it while at the same time becoming powerless to do anything about it. 6) Obama’s radical egalitarian agenda will severely undermine confidence in the movers and shakers of the economy and the ability of the nation to cope with the epic problems we now confront.                

Long ago, Lord Acton counseled us that: “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  He also warned that “great men are almost always bad men.”  I recognize that Obama may be a great man.  I also fear he may be a bad man.   

A SHIP AT SEA

The Ames Iowa Straw Poll

by

The New Sons and Daughters of Liberty

The Background Setting: At a time when the most modern and powerful ship of state ever known to man is on a stormy passage on a dark and violent sea, a gifted handsome young junior officer with a gift of gab, good sense of humor and winsome smile assumes command.  He promises a command characterized by post partisan, post-racial pragmatism.  He talks of “hope and change” but fails to differentiate if it is the course and safety of the ship or the weather that he hopes to change. The storm rises in ferocity, including partisanship; the ship remains on course; the iceberg looms.    

The Contest: Combine an upscale carnival with the ship heading toward an iceberg and a crew most concerned with arranging the chairs on the promenade deck and you’ve got the 2011Ames Straw Poll. While the ship of state, under the current regime, like a bloated tick is sucking the life-blood out of the economy and its people, the passengers are listening as the band plays on, eating and drinking and more interested in what’s on the menu and the music fare than the ship’s intersection with destiny.  The captain is essentially asleep at the wheel, or more accurately, in his political boardroom still talking about hope and change. We all know the tragic ending of this scenario.  

The Results: 1) Bachmann: 4823 (28.55%).  2) Paul: 4671 (27.65%).  3) Pawlenty: 2293 (13.54%). 4) Santorum: 1657 (9.81%).  5) Cain: 1456 (8.62%).  6) Perry: 718 (3.62%).  7) Romney: 567 (3.36%).  8) Gingrich: 385 (2.28%).  9) Huntsman: 69 (0.41%) 10) McCotter: 35 (0.21%).  Total votes: 16,674.    

The Question: Who is most qualified and has the greatest probability of saving the ship from its fateful intersection with the iceberg?  A mystic?  A romantic? An ideologue? A pretender?  A sociopath? An egotist?  A neophyte? Or an experienced Master and Commander? Unite or Die, Again!   

WEAR YOUR SNAKE ON YOUR SLEEVE

Wear Your Snake On Your Sleeve!

by

The New Sons and Daughters of Liberty

As expressed in our Mission Statement and The Symbol Statement, the immediate goal of UniteOrDieCafe.com is to overcome the extreme difficulty of uniting so many different groups and assemblies as to the most speedy and effectual measures for the common defense of the values upon which our nation was founded.  While the challenges and threats facing the nation in the 21^st Century are many, ranging from fiscal and financial to national security, health care and unemployment, the most immediate challenge we face is uniting behind those candidates that are pragmatic problem solvers and at the same time committed to the defense of the core values expressed in the Founding Documents of our country.¹  As a part of this effort, we respectfully offer  Unite Or Die, Again!, as  a unifying symbol/battle flag, under which we will march to victory in 2012.    

UniteOrDieCafé.com believes that the current drift of the country toward collectivism, arbitrariness and the arrogance of big government is the primary drag on our economy and poses one of the greatest threats to individual liberty in the history of our country. We believe that the vast majority of the citizens of the United States are ready to unite under a banner that symbolizes what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the opening lines in the Declaration of Independence: 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  

       Can anyone, other than a radical collectivist ideologue deny that centralized planning by an omnipotent omniscient government is utterly inconsistent and out of keeping with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?  Can anyone other than a radical collectivist ideologue deny that the unchecked, coercive and invasive power of the State over how we live and work is the greatest threat to liberty, creativity and enterprise every devised by the mind of man?  The collectivists movements of the 20^th Century prove beyond any reasonable doubt this is true.²   

There is only one thing that can synthesize the complexity and diversity of human experience into a unified vision; and that is, an ability to see a shared vision of destiny in a symbol.  Unity behind symbolism can be the difference between the success or failure of a movement.  The Unite Or Die, Again! symbol, derived from Dr. Benjamin Franklin, is as apt today as it was symbolic of the words he wrote in 1775: 

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.” 

Wear your snake on your sleeve!  Unite or Die, Again!³ 

WHO WE ARE

Who We Are

by

The New Sons and Daughters of Liberty

Our Mission Statement speaks more to our present goal than to our identity.  Our signature, “New Sons and Daughters of Liberty” does say a lot about who we are. There is no more revered and important word in our political lexicon than liberty. Personalities and individual identities are irrelevant.  What counts for present purposes are values and votes.  

We’re a non-partisan amorphous group of voters who share certain values and beliefs and are vehemently opposed  to others.  In terms of our shared values, we believe in limited government, checks and balances, the individual as the final arbiter of value in society, Federalism, the Constitution, the rule of law and Bill of Rights, the free market and personal responsibility. 

We are opposed to collectivism, centralized planning, coercion, lack of accountability,  opaqueness, arbitrariness and unchecked power of government.  We are opposed to the subterfuge, pretense and duplicity all too common to politics in general but the unapologetic hallmark of the progressive collectivist movement and its fellow travelers.      

In terms of demographics, we’re professionals and working class, old and young, gay and straight, employed and unemployed, blue collar and white collar, students and parents, academics and artists; black, white, brown and variegated. We’re Democrats, Republicans and Independents.  We believe in the primacy of the family as the bedrock foundation of society.  We believe the vitality and durability of democracy is dependent on an enlightened and involved electorate. We believe, indeed that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

Perhaps our identity is best summed up in the Federalist Papers, where it is written: “...it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.”  We will plant our Unite or Die, Again!, standard on the high ground of reflection and choice. We are the New Sons and Daughters of Liberty.  

A MESSAGE FOR THE IOWA STRAW POLL

We are sending a cup with our Unite of Die Cafe logo to each member of the Iowa Straw Poll, we call this the "Cup Message".

AS WE STAND on the precipice of history: 

May you have the Vision to see clearly, even through the 

shrouds of darkness, 

The Wisdom to separate truth from illusion, even when 

those about you are deluded, 

The Strength to stand strong against conjurers and false prophets, 

The Courage to recognize and speak the truth, regardless of the consequences,

May you have the Patience and Understanding to deal with tribulation,

The Knowledge and Skill to distinguish fact from fiction, even when the latter sings a sweeter song, 

The Honesty to acknowledge your own weaknesses and recognize the strengths in others, 

The Passion and Commitment to serve the common end, 

even while false means beckon, 

May you have the Good Humor to laugh at yourself,

The Grace and Humility to accept the world as it is and 

not as you wish it to be,

The Love in your heart to know that it is often better to give than to receive, and finally, 

May you have the Patriotism, Character and Sincerity to, 

"Ask not what your country can do for you - 

             ask what you can do for your country"

AMERICA AT THE TIPPING POINT

America at the Tipping Point

by

The New Sons and Daughters of Liberty

In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation.  The old principle: who does not work shall not eat has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.  

    Leon Trotsky (1937) 

       Before the 2010 elections Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) was famously quoted saying, 

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”  We’re not sure exactly what motivation lay at the heart of McConnell’s exhortation but, as is obvious from the Mission Statement of the UniteOrDieCafe and the commitment of the New Sons and Daughters of Liberty, we agree, wholeheartedly, and want be clear as to the reasons why we agree with Senator McConnell (and dispel what are not the reasons).  

The reason we are committed to the defeat of Barack Obama is because the United States is at an historic tipping point and we believe the president is a prime mover in pushing America into the abyss of central planning and the destruction of individual liberty and Federalism. Notwithstanding the stock and trade class warfare vilification of opponents of the progressive movement, our commitment to the defeat of Barack Obama has nothing to do with, oppression, greed or racism. Such charges are blatant huckstering and nothing more. 

The term “tipping point” has been bandied about a lot lately, particularly in reference to the state of the American economy.  The scientific meaning of “tipping point” is “...that point at which a system in equilibrium (a stable state) becomes unstable and is displaced with a new and/or different system.” Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia University School of Business, for example, warns that the United States, a Great Power and the world’s number one economic engine, is at risk of falling into an irreversible and catastrophic decline unless major structural changes are implemented, an soon. From Dr. Hubbard’s perspective the needed changes relate to the profligate fiscal irresponsibility of government.     

There is widespread recognition and agreement  across the political spectrum with the tipping point proposition as applied to the U.S. economy. But there is another directly related, uniquely political, intensely partisan and immediate tipping point we face.  Namely, the 2012 presidential election and who will challenge Obama.  Some/many believe that another four years of drift toward collectivism and centralized planning will signal an irreversible tipping point for the American political economy.  Others, believe that Obama represents little more than a point to the left of center on the historic swing of the political pendulum, and little in the way of “fundamental change” has or will occur under his watch.  We disagree with the latter perspective.  

UniteOrDieCafe sees the Obama Administration as of the point of the spear for a radical “progressive” agenda actively seeking and promoting fundamental change in the American political economy.  Obama himself has been crystal clear on this proposition.  The substance of that fundamental change is the accelerated movement toward a planned centralized political economy and away from individual liberty, free enterprise and Federalism. ObamaCare impacting one-sixth of the U.S. economy is Exhibit A.  Reactionary, paranoid, alarmist?  We don’t think so.  But we expect that kind of demagoguery and worse.

But for the confluence of long simmering environmental, economic, demographic, technological and political factors culminating and manifesting themselves in the presidency of George W. Bush, and the unique and indeed, extraordinary array of gifts found in the persona of Barack Obama, we might agree with the pendulum theory.  The present economic crisis is not new or unique. The trajectory of history is never static.  The Great Depression was significantly more intense and challenging.  But the Great Depression occurred at a different time in history; a time when the nation was smaller, more united, dispersed and self-reliant.  And it must be remembered that the disequilibrium that was the Great Depression was ended only by a World War.  For a number of reasons, we believe the political tipping point we now are confronting is much more likely to bare the same enduring qualities as did other cataclysms in history.    

Today we are concentrated in huge megalopolises.   Partisanship is at a fever pitch. Large blocs of the population are entirely dependant on government for their livelihood and/or subsistence. We are economically, socially, racially and ethnically fragmented.  These fragmented segments include public employee unions (e.g., SEIU, NEA, AFT), homogeneous racial, ethnic (e.g., NAACP, MAPA, La Raza), sexual orientation voting blocs (e.g., LBTG.org), welfare rights groups (e.g., ACORN) and the elite media including most of Hollywood.  Combined, while still a voting minority, these blocs represent the core constituency/base of the progressive movement. To become a dominant enduring voting majority only requires capturing a fraction of voters at the margins. And there is almost nothing that confines their efforts to accomplish this.   

Add the charismatic, tall, dark and handsome, glib and teleprompter enabled Obama to the mix for another four years and  the progressive agenda of central planning and control by a Washington D.C. elite almost certainly will become an institutionalized, even irreversible fact of our body politic. Then, as warned by Hyack, “The whole system will tend toward that plebiscitarian dictatorship in which the head of the government is from time to time confirmed in his position by popular vote, but where he has all the powers at this command to make certain that the vote will go in the direction he desires.”  Think Fidel Castro,  Hugo Chevez et al. Thus the critical need for unity among those who recognize and understand there are wolves at our gates.

UniteOrDieCafe and the Sons and Daughters of Liberty reject the “fundamental change” being pushed by Obama and his fellow travelers and believe that the salvation of our country will only be achieved through a people united in their belief in and commitment to a society based on independence, self-reliance, personal responsibility, shared sacrifice, voluntary association and moral commitments.  Regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, if you believe in these traditional American values, please join us. Unite or Die, Again!