America at the Tipping Point?

He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32).

This week Senator Harry Reid got the 60 votes he needs to pass the Democrat health care legislation in the Senate along partisan lines. While final passage is not assured, what is certain is that America has as of this hour ceased being a republican democracy. The country has fallen into the hands of a corrupt and unaccountable kleptocracy, aided and abetted by Republicans but chiefly operated by Democrats.

This is evidenced not by the fact that only Democrats will vote for this legislation. It is evidenced by the way the legislation—like all such legislation these past 11 months-- was managed from start to finish in both houses: secret deals cut behind closed doors; the opposition party shut out of the process; drafting done out of sight of all members save a chosen few; weekend and midnight roll-calls; bribes and extortion using taxpayer money (that we don’t have); handouts to favored businesses, unions and assorted cronies; deceitful accounting tricks, and total disregard of either body’s rules, minority rights or the will of the people.

Only in a kleptocracy do elected officials attack citizens who dare to oppose this shameful exercise of Chicago-style thuggery. This week Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehead suggested that opponents are dominated by “birthers and fanatics in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups.” Does Senator Whitehead assume that those on the Left who have risen to oppose the Senate bill are also in thrall to right-wing racists? Perhaps demagoguing his fellow citizens is the only way that Senator Whitehead can call attention to himself in the World’s Most Egotistical Deliberative Body.

The assaults on our civic sensibilities and common sense come fast and furious. That is the intent of the ruling class. One day unelected “czars” determine pay limits for private businesses; the next the EPA usurps Congress by “finding” it can regulate water vapor. Barney Frank seeks power to shut down private businesses while giving Fannie and Freddie free reign. Government payrolls swell by 12% while private sector jobs shrink. President Obama promises fiscal discipline while presiding over the second budget in a row with $1.4 trillion deficits.

Not to worry; according to the President the trillion- dollar- plus health care bill will reduce the deficit by a couple of billion dollars over 10 years. (That is, of course, if Congress allows the bill’s $400 billion in cuts in Medicare take effect, which is the fiscal trick at the core of this bill: Congress has no intention of cutting Medicare).

Meanwhile a bunch of unelected bureaucrats and despots from crappy little countries gather in Copenhagen to extort billions from the “rich” countries to fund their “carbon-reduction programs” (i.e., to fund their lavish parties in Paris and their brutal tyranny of women, homosexuals and dissenters at home). The worst part is that the rich countries—who are “rich” only to the extent of their indebtedness to foreign powers-- -- happily offer up the wealth and prosperity of their citizens as guilt-offerings to the most radical Leftist and irredentist regimes on the planet. Our own country is only too willing to lead the way.

Global warming may or not be occurring, but the science is beside the point. “Cap-and-trade” is a global Ponzi scheme designed to lighten your wallet, restrict your freedoms and shovel billions, maybe trillions, into a global bottomless pit where it will be administered (for a small fee) by the same folks who did such a good job running the Oil for Food program a while back.

Iran is allowed to pursue its nuclear program unchecked while Israel is monitored for infractions of its building codes. Casualties mount in Iraq and lip service is given to the “necessary” war in Afghanistan while timetables for retreat are articulated, then denied. The one clear constitutional responsibility of government—to defend and protect the United States—is treated as a footnote to the really important work of bowing to foreign leaders and apologizing for our very existence.

If we had a reasonably fair and professional media, even a biased one, one might feel better about all this. With a press dedicated to truth and its role as government watchdog, we would know that in time the secrets, lies, fraud and corruption would be exposed to the light of day. But in truth we have not just a biased media but a corrupt one, gleefully urging on the agenda of the elites and providing cover for their schemes. It is all very disheartening.

Yet, we citizens—patriots—do have access to information, primarily through the “alternative media” of talk radio, the internet, cable news, email communication, Twitter, Facebook, and the like. And we have the ability to share it at lightning speed with dozens, indeed hundreds or thousands of others. Might our wise and good masters attempt to commandeer these electronic wonderments for their own purposes, denying access to those with whom they disagree? With this crowd anything is possible. But recall that in an earlier age, in an hour darker than this one, Americans with the benefit of only the printing press and a determination to live as free people found a way to spread the truth and rally their fellow citizens to the cause of independence.

I don’t suggest that we are faced today with the dire circumstances that confronted our founders in 1776. But we are at the start of an unprecedented era where, left unchecked, government is bound to tighten restrictions on political liberty and economic freedom, much like the period that began in 1763 with the Stamp Act. And like British Parliament of the 18th century, our own Congress grows more contemptuous of its subjects with each passing day.

It is said that Americans are slow to anger, but mighty when provoked. As I will detail in a subsequent post, Americans suffered under increasingly despotic British rule for a decade and a half before finally acting to sever the bonds that existed between American and England. Forbearance is a virtue, but like all virtues it has its limits. Our political masters should not conclude that because Americans have yet to rise up as one in anger that they never will.

We would do well to recall that in America power ultimately resides with the people, not the media, the bureaucrats or even with Senators and Representatives. Americans may be loathe to give up their comforts and conveniences, but they still hate tyranny and love freedom. As long as that continues, we can be assured that they will rise to whatever demands are made of them to preserve their rights and liberties.

It’s just a matter of time.