The Post-Freedom Presidency

As I transported my daughter aboard a gas guzzling sedan to middle school Wednesday morning, even one the of the local FM rock stations was getting in on the Veterans’ Day spirit. We sang along to the Lee Greenwood classic, “Proud to be an American”.

The central lyric is so familiar it just rolls off the tongue: “And I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.”

As we coasted through suburbia on a sun-washed autumn morning that line hit me like a brick wall. At least I know I’m free? Do I? Am I?

In the age of Obama, we were promised the post-racial Presidency. Looks like we were handed the post-Constitutional, post-Declaration of Independence Presidency. For now, we’re still essentially “free” but the scope of that freedom no longer feels like it has infinite boundaries.

It begins with speech. With words. With meaning. And with manipulation of meaning in the name of political correctness and the crushing Socialist agenda sweeping across Washington, D.C.

Consider the following list I drew up in just a matter of minutes. It could be much lengthier for sure, but I fear it demonstrates where we are in the post-Lee Greenwood era.

Not Islamic radicalism … religious diversity.

Not terrorism … alleged shooting incident (Ft. Hood).

Not free-market capitalism … unregulated wealth building.

Not death counseling … an affordable health care option.

Not politically correct … tolerant and fair-minded.

Not Socialist … transformational.

Not a War on Terror … routine law enforcement.

Not freedom of speech … hate-crime speech.

Not productivity … greed.

Not Communism … redistributive justice.

Not Tea Party patriotism … angry white people.

Not Commander in Chief … Campaigner in Chief Barack Hussein Obama.

As Veterans’ Day 2009 slips into history, I am proud to be an American because our brave men and women who wear the uniform make me proud. And because civilians who rise up in the face of violent Jihadist insanity make me proud. I’m thinking about the NYFD and NYPD on 9/11, and about the brave Ft. Hood police officer, Kim Munley, who last week gunned down the terrorist Nidal Hasan.

I’m proud, but I no longer know I’m free. In 2009, my fellow Americans and I are left to pray that we are.

The Awakening Has Begun

Remember when Americans wishing to ignore the necessity of defending the United States would slither off to Canada and stay? President Barack Hussein Obama, the Great Emancipator of Gitmo and Great Antagonist of Counterterrorism, looked to be dodging another day of ridicule toward the UnStimulus Wealth Distribution Package when he flew north of the border Thursday to visit Ottawa.

But, alas, he came back. And, Friday, he assembled the nation's mayors to repeat his baseless assertions that the $787 billion spend-a-thon will result in jobs and economic growth. As he spoke in Washington, Wall Street traders continued to sell.

When will the smitten mainstream media notice that Wall Street, and by extension investors of all stripes (aka, American citizens), have awakened? When will the Kool-Aid buzz wear off?

In this post-Watergate America, the left wing media will continue to fixate on the Presidency because it either wants to destroy the President (Nixon, Reagan, Bush) or deify him (Clinton, Obama). But the fact is our nation was not created to revolve around the Oval Office exclusively. The conduct of elected officials at all levels matters greatly (did someone say Gov. Blagojevich, or Sen. Roland Burris?), and, as citizens, we have the power -- stimulative power -- to control who those elected individuals are and what decisions they make.

(When we fail at this, politicians move up through the ranks unchallenged and untested and become ... B. Hussein Obama).

Responsible citizens need to turn our ears from the drumbeat of doom, which is the crack cocaine of the Obama generation, and focus on what we can do to effect actual change, reverse the tide of despair and restore the economic strength that the United States is fully capable of possessing again in the near future and for generations to come.

The tide of resistance is swelling. On the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade on Thursday, the baggy eyed traders, in their ill-fitting poly-cotton jackets, cheered as CNBC's floor correspondent Rick Santelli assailed the audacity of foreclosure bailouts for unqualified homeowners.

Bill Clinton, whose bloated 1990s "stimulus package" (Monica) got him into trouble repeatedly, became virtually irrelevant during his second term as President. Obama is just another politician who won the Oval Office lottery due to the perfect alignment of a tanking economy and the success of George W. Bush's efforts to quell the threat of terrorism (which, sadly and dangerously, leaves many doubting that the threat remains real).

Socialism is about wearing people down. The calculated risk Obama takes by declaring calamity at every turn -- and ignoring federal debt -- is that Americans eventually will get tired of being tired. Democracy and Capitalism is about rising up and lifting up. The power of America is not the Presidency. It is you and me.