Words to Cause Fear

Pardon me, but I must first say that I cannot watch President Obama give a speech. The man’s attitude when speaking seems to convey to me an overriding arrogance that the rest of us cannot “really understand” as much as he does. So, to give him the benefit of the doubt, I never watch his speeches but I do get the transcripts of his speeches so I can be better focused on the words.

The State of the Union speech last night was little more than a rehash of previous ones, with no definable “vision” for America, but just a long list of “I wants” from the President so he can best “rule” over us. The latest speech included an “I want” that instills fear in the heart of this conservative.

Let me first “copy and paste” a few paragraphs into the text here so that you, the reader, can see his words in full context. Should you go searching for your own transcript, these words were uttered about three-fourths of the way towards the end. The part below that is bolded and underlined are the key words.

“Some of this has to do with the corrosive influence of money in politics. So together, let's take some steps to fix that. Send me a bill that bans insider trading by Members of Congress, and I will sign it tomorrow. Let's limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact. Let's make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can't lobby Congress, and vice versa - an idea that has bipartisan support, at least outside of Washington.

Some of what's broken has to do with the way Congress does its business these days. A simple majority is no longer enough to get anything - even routine business - passed through the Senate. Neither party has been blameless in these tactics. Now both parties should put an end to it. For starters, I ask the Senate to pass a rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days.

The executive branch also needs to change. Too often, it's inefficient, outdated and remote. That's why I've asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy so that our Government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people.

Finally, none of these reforms can happen unless we also lower the temperature in this town. We need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction; that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common sense ideas.”

It is the bureaucracy that gives us Americans the most in the way of regulations. Congress and the president will create an agency and then turn over the “rule making” to that agency with nothing more than a “vision” of what they want that agency to become. Then, the bureaucrats begin to insert their own agendas or the agendas of those that “lobby” them.

Those regulations are then used to control the populace. There have been nightmare stories of folks buying land and digging a footing for a foundation, only to have rainfall fill that excavated portion for the footings and then the EPA to come along and designate it as a “wetland.” Thus, a citizen has purchased land but cannot use it towards his intended plan.

Even rules that have been in place for years are attacked by the environmentalists. One in particular is that a mud puddle in the vicinity of a saw mill is subject to EPA regulations, but one along a logging road has not been. Well, at least not for the last 35 years it hasn’t. However, now the environmentalists have petitioned the courts to force the EPA to treat a logging road mud puddle the same as that in a saw mill.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (otherwise known as the Ninth Circus Court of Appeal among those in the know) has ruled in favor of the environmentalists. Rather than provide a lot of detail regarding the case, I’ll give you a link instead.

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/where-will-obama-side-mud-puddles/334836

Now, let me get back to Obama’s words in his speech. He is calling for the Congress to grant him powers that the Executive branch should not have, certainly not in a period of time when there are no real “national emergencies” such as a war or cataclysmic event.

His call for this power on the pretense of making things “leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people” is nothing more than a ploy to hide his real intentions.  If you doubt his intentions, ask the bondholders of GM and Chrysler how the auto industry “bailout” worked for them.

Given that Obama and the rest of the Democrats regularly engage in class warfare against anyone that they feel they need to regulate, it is imperative that the Congress ignore him completely in this matter, and they might even consider issuing him a reprimand for asking for broader powers.

With a President who regularly attacks “millionaires and billionaires” (which are now defined as anyone making over $250,000 a year), giving him more regulatory power over bureaucracies would harm Americans over the long haul. Consider the following.

Those of us in the RV’ing world would be appalled if the President were to come down and say that any RV over 18’ in length would be classified as a luxury RV and thus subject to higher taxes both at the purchasing end and in fuel costs for driving/towing said RV over 18’ in length. I mean, they are changing the meaning of millionaire, so why not change the status of RV’s?

As for me, I’ve already written to both of our state’s Senators in Washington and to our Representative in the House of Representatives. I highly suggest that everyone should write their representatives to express any concerns you might have with the President getting powers to which he is not entitled.

Oh, by the way, here is a link to the transcript which I read and copied.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/24/transcript-obamas-2012-state-union/

You know, I’d put a funny photo of Obama here, but he is no longer funny.