Obama Giveth, and Obama Taketh Away

There is a terrible price to accepting the yoke of Senator Government. All Americans should think about that before they go to the polls.

On October 31 the riverboat Delta Queen faced her end. The fabled passenger ship that has roamed the great watery highway of  the Mississippi river system has reached an ignominious end, her calliope silenced forever by safety regulations and Democratic Congressman James Oberstar, head of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The old Queen, lovingly built out of wood, is deemed a fire hazard and her exemption to safety regulations expired fittingly enough on Halloween, holiday for ghouls and evil spirits. She was devoured by a demonic entity.

In Belleville, Illinois, the City Council passed an ordinance that restricted trick-or-treating to children under the age of 13 and between the hours of 4-11 p.m.  That trick-or-treating is an entirely voluntary recreational activity (for both parties) is immaterial; the Council decided that the Law must intervene. Apparently turning out the porchlight is no longer adequate to end the night.

Welcome to the future with Barack Obama!

Much has rightly been made about Obama's many failings as potential Il Duce of the United States, from his complete lack of experience to his Dorothy-wishing-her-way-out-of-Oz foreign policy notions (at a time of a two-front war and a worldwide contract on America by terrorists) and his tax-till-you-drop economic plans. All true, all accurate, but what hasn't been addressed is the cultural issues, those things that Obama will taketh away. Zealous regulators such as Barack Obama act as political Nosferatu, sucking the cultural lifeblood out of an already anemic America. The resulting politicosclerosis will result in the loss of many wonderful institutions and customs we hold near and dear. Obama and his left-wing friends may truly believe that theirs is the road to cultural diversity, but the sad fact is that regulation upon regulation end in a terrible stasis, a homogenization of the richness and pageantry that is America. How much are Americans prepared to surrender in the interest of "change" and "hope"?

The story of the Delta Queen, once the palace of the Mississippi, is a case in point; she is being docked for no reason except that some busybodies believe it is a good idea. There has never been a problem with the old lady of the river, and serious steps have been taken to guarantee the safety of the passengers. This ship is not the Titanic, after all, and has been in operation since 1926, but regulations must be followed! That is the way of a paternalistic society; something put in place as someone's good idea hardens into an absolute, into a moral imperative that cannot be circumvented. It's interesting that a Democrat is the culprit in the murder of a great American institution; Democrats are generally the ones who believe that they have to protect people from themselves.

The same paternalism is at work in Belleville, where the government has decided they know better than the citizenry, and have co-opted a cultural tradition. This tradition came from the unregulated, unplanned chaos of a vibrant culture, and to many of the paternalists it is unacceptable, because it is uncontrolled. These Aldermen are illustrative of a mindset held by liberals, that nothing must be left to chance or to the good sense of the People. The notion that this is a fun tradition which the individual can choose to participate in — or not — is immaterial; it must be regulated because it must be regulated!  We cannot allow a world without the guiding hand of the self-styled wise.

There are innumerable other examples; remember Lawn Darts? Banned because they are dangerous (I would still rather face a Dart aimed at my family jewels than a session of Congress with Nancy Pelosi — the San Francisco Bleat — at the helm.) Remember the Volkswagen Beetle? Banned because it sometimes flipped over, although people were rarely injured (my own mother rolled her beetle, and walked away without a scratch). Of course, with the new CAFE standards automakers will be forced to make vehicles even more likely to flip — and be obliterated in fender benders.  Remember wing windows on cars? Gone because of CAFE standards and anti-smoking efforts. How about station wagons? These were the most popular family cars, yet they are gone, again because of CAFE standards. Remember returnable soda bottles? Much tastier than aluminum cans, but not acceptable to government anti-litter policies. Ditto pull-tab cans.

For that matter, there is very little mention of many of our traditional holidays, and it can be traced to people like Barack Obama and his ACLU buddies. Easter is largely forgotten, and it is well documented that Christmas is being scrubbed from our collective psyche — at least as a religious holiday. The ACLU and leftist judges have seen to it that manger scenes and angels are hidden as if pornographic, while a crucifix in a bucket of urine is respected as high art. We have to respect the free speech of pornographers and those who hate our way of life (isn't that right, PROFESSOR Ayers), but our very cultural heritage is an affront and must be removed, lest cultural brigands be offended.

Consider the decline in artistic standards, and the coarsening of music and literature; these have resulted from government funding of the arts and efforts to delegitimatize our cultural heritage. Political correctness and multiculturalism are enforced by government financing, and to our national peril. With little left to discuss, the only way for an artist or musician to get noticed is to shock. We have expunged our shared culture and values, and the vacuum is being filled by offal. 

THAT is the fruit which Liberalism has given, and it will accelerate under a President Obama. Leftism has always destroyed the local culture in favor of a New Man, a statist, static existence, bland and without savor. Do Americans really want to change their silver for tin foil? Obama talks about change, about a bright, shiny new world, but what he will bring is an erasure of everything we hold near and dear, to be filled with the emptiness that gnaws on the liberal soul. He is Nosferatu, bringer of plague.

Just look at societies that have adopted an Obamian vision; Mao jackets required!  Statist societies where human initiative is channeled and regulated for the well being of the proletariat end as empty tuxedos.  What did the Bolsheviks do to Russian civilization? They had no art, no letters except protest writers such as Solzhenitsyn, no cultural vibrancy of any kind. Look at what Saddam did in Iraq, or what Castro has done to Cuba, etc. The desire to use government may be well-intended or ill, but the end result is invariably the same; people must be controlled, lest they act on their own and ruin the carefully laid plans of the well-intentioned and wise overlords. The best that can be done is to freeze the society, to harden it into a fossil. We are seeing that in the Social Democracies of Europe today to a fair degree. Canada, too; ask Mark Steyn — he reviewed a novel and was hauled before a tribunal for telling his readers the plot!

Barack Obama wants to move America away from oil by driving the price up. Obama wants to reduce carbon emissions, and our way of life in the process. Obama wants to raise taxes. He wants restrictions on free market healthcare, on free market mortgages, retirement accounts. He wants card-check union voting. He wants the Fairness Doctrine. He wants to take from the rich to give to the poor. He wants an internal security apparatus similar to the KGB.

He wants to run your life.

Obama will take much from each of us; it is hard to tell exactly what that will be, but he will require the pound of flesh. He believes in restricting for the sake of restriction, and we will see that implemented with a codification of environmentalism, of charity into a compulsion, with higher taxes, health restrictions, safety restrictions. Restricting things becomes habit, and when we lose something like the Delta Queen to draconian safety regulations we shouldn't be surprised. Government banned the 5-gallon toilet because of drought in California, even though Missouri is always trying to get RID of water, being prone to flooding! My sewer line is always backing up because the low-flow toilets installed in our house fail to push the sewage out to the main. Government is in the process of banning the incandescent lightbulb, forcing us to use the expensive and dangerous compact fluorescence. What will be next? Restrictions on fast food? Restrictions on Beef? Restrictions on how you use your land (remember during the Clinton years when government was declaring every puddle of water on private land a wetland, making it impossible for the owner to use as he or she wished?). Restrictions on what you wear, how you wear it, what music you listen to, what you say or think? Remember, the Democrats are promising a return to the "Fairness Doctrine" and want to apply it to the Internet as well. Once the People have grown accustomed to regulation, to being told what to do, when to do it, and how it must be done, hope is lost. The nanny has the final say.

Obama wants to be YOUR nanny!  He'll take something away from you for your own good at some point. What will that be? What do you love? Do you love horseback riding? A fine cigar? Camping on the trail? Riding your motorcycle without a helmet? Driving a snowmobile on public land? Doubtless it will be something you treasure, close to your heart. The Obama may giveth, but he also taketh away. There is a terrible price to accepting the yoke of Senator Government. All Americans should think about that before they go to the polls.