The 2010 State of the Union address was amazing. Hearing Obama speak made me realize that every single criticism of the president, from both left and right, is absolutely, positively justified. I was amazed by how he could lie, distort, and lie some more throughout the entire speech. The content was pure garbage, but its deeper significance, evident in how his tone changed from ultra-lefty to faux-populist and how he tried to pander to nearly every group out there, was that the American people’s call for sanity has finally shaken him up. I was amazed about how deftly he betrayed his leftist comrades by calling for spending freezes and offshore drilling (I thought McCain and Palin lost the election?) and, with equal agility, fired shots at the Constitution (the Supreme Court’s recent first amendment ruling) and called for more government intervention. It was a speech whose content only pleased the mindless minions whose mouths water whenever they see the first non-fully-white president in American history flanked by teleprompters deliver a speech punctuated with his trademark halting pauses. It is these non-color-blind liberals who would apply the death penalty on anyone who criticizes their Dear Leader if they could. In the words of MLK, Jr. I, and most other sane Americans, judge him by the content of his character not the color of his skin… and, I will also add, by the merits of his actions: more government, more debt, more unemployment, higher taxes, and less security. Only true sheep can honestly believe that a one-year record like this constitutes change, hope, or progress in any way. Even his supporters must admit that he has a lot of work to do if he is to live up the standards that he set for himself.

For everyone else, this speech was an insult. It reminded me of the orchestrated speeches given by dictators throughout history, the Lenins and Castros, whose every word was applauded by their one-party government officials/lackeys while their nations fell apart. For the Left, Obama promised little on his signature policy initiative, health care reform, and his promises to halt government spending and emphasis on lowering taxes only infuriated the big-state-lefties. For the Right, Obama’s pandering was seen as just that, calling his redistributionist policies “tax cuts” was like twisting the knife, the promise to be more bipartisan after breaking that promise multiple times fell on deaf ears, and attack after attack on the free market system, disguised as populist rhetoric against banks, revealed that distinctive Marxist underbelly of this administration. For centrists, who tend to be more fiscally conservative and socially “liberal,” do not know what to believe, the actions of the past year, with unprecedented government growth, bailouts (things they disliked about W. Bush), and broken promises about public finance for his campaign, about the “closure” of Gitmo within the year, about changing the culture of Washington, or his words now, similar to his words back then. The magic of words only last so long, just ask Hitler, Chavez, and Mao, who, after having immense popular support, secured their power through the brutal repression of their respective populations. The right knew this from the beginning and so the resistance to the mass-hypnosis of the presidential campaign was rooted in an understanding of history and gave rise to comparisons to the Nazis and the Soviets… the Left tried to spin this as being a manifestation of racism, but their logic is faulty, if racists glorify racism then why would they compare the Obamania to the Nazi regime, the epitome of racism of the last century? Regardless, the Left likes to use racism as a political attack instead of addressing why people are unhappy, the redistributionist rhetoric/actions, the anti-Americanism (yes, anti-Americanism) of going on worldwide apologizing-and-bowing tours, etc. etc. Today, America is more vigilant than ever, because we see that the administration has finally realized that Obama’s words have failed and, historically, repression is the next step. I personally doubt that he will take such drastic action, he is a weak leader, he is sly, he is calculating, he is profoundly cold, and he does not have the mettle to be a revolutionary… but there are forces and influences around him that believe that this is the moment to make America a socialist utopia and that this opportunity cannot be squandered.

I loved the State of the Union because it further emboldened me (to civic participation). The speech was a rhetorical retreat, a concession that he cannot act so socialistic in the open, and an affirmation of the fact that the Democrats’ string of defeats is sending Washington a message. So far, this year has been quite positive for independent-minded Americans but we are still under the thumb of an Imperial Democrat government in Washington that is trying to disregard the will of regular Americans. We Americans still have at our disposal a powerful weapon, our vote, and while they can try to ignore us, they cannot ignore the fact that we can throw them out of power… forever.

-AG