Obama may be dismantling all that was exceptional and stabilizing about America as the world's sole superpower, but fear not. Vermont, Texas or the right generals might save us yet. Though once billed as the great unifier, Obama is in fact breathing new life into a series of secession movements from the left and right, and sober discussions about benign military coups have begun to appear.
While sentiments from the right presumably reflect deep anxieties among traditional conservatives over the president's bulldozing of many principles expressed in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, what exactly are the left's gripes?
Vermont is famous mostly for maple syrup, Howard Dean and America's only Socialist Senator, Bernie Sanders. But the very liberal state also lays claim to a number of activists who want out of the union. This, even though there has never been seated a more radically leftist government in the history of the United States
For the secessionists of the Second Vermont Republic, America "has evolved into the wealthiest, most powerful, most materialistic, most racist, most militaristic, most violent empire of all times." Obama has been in office for eleven months and still we have a military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Patriot Act is still on the books, and Fox News remains an all-powerful
media presence. In this angry world, even Bernie Sanders is a
war-mongering imperialist in his support of Obama.
Texas, An Independent Republic
The right's secessionist malaise is based perhaps on purer principles: Texas is intent on preserving states' rights as epitomized by the 10
th Amendment. Governor Rick Perry caused a genuine stir in the Austin City Hall last April 15
th when he stated that his state's constitution has always preserved the solemn right of Texas to break off from the US and establish itself once again as an
independent republic. Perry said, "... if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that." And Texas is not alone; some 20 states have either enacted or plan to move on legislation granting
autonomy from the federal government.
Just a few weeks ago, Perry sounded a more urgent alarm focused on the issues of illegal immigration and cap and trade. "I believe it's [the Federal government] become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of its citizens, and its interference with the affairs of state...This is an administration hell-bent on taking America towards a
socialist country."
The launching of a military coup, as a method to cleanse our Marxist-veering democracy was calmly discussed in a column by John L. Perry at Newsmax.com in late September, though the article was quickly taken down from the website after broad protests, and posted
elsewhere.
John Perry, a traditional democrat, did not use language that was particularly inflammatory, asserting only that senior military officers who have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, not one to obey the Commander-in-Chief, might one day relieve him of real responsibility, as they determine that the military was being dangerously weakened and that many of our freedoms were being unconstitutionally usurped by the federal government.
Interestingly, in 2007 when George Bush was president, Thomas Sowell regrettably mused about the potential future necessity of a
military coup as well, suggesting that it might be the only cure for the Iranian nuclear threat and our general institutional degeneracy. Sowell was not as prescriptive as John Perry, and he is certainly no wild-eyed radical. Rather, he is a careful and venerable scholar, philosopher and economist. Sowell's comments caused hardly any uproar at the time, maybe because the left imagined, that if the coup were imminent, they would enjoy the spectacle of seeing Bush being led out of Washington in chains.
Pat Buchanan is a member of a related chorus, but he believes our problems are much deeper. Pat holds that America is
unraveling, with no common European-Christian core culture to
bind us together. But he never posted such columns during the Bush administration, though he often shed his populist fury against the neocons supposedly lurking there under every desk at in the White House.
If polls are to be believed, the American people, not just the tea partiers, are in no better mood than the Second Vermont Republic, the two Perry's or Buchanan. With the September trade deficit widening by the highest margin in a decade and unemployment at 10.2%-the highest level since 1983-
consumer confidence has dropped sharply to the lowest level in three months. And according to Rasmussen, 62% believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. Only 38% now support the congressional health care plan that has recently passed initial muster in both the House and Senate.
Commentators continue to search for the apt Obama metaphor. Who is this cipher, determined to radically transform our country, creating something unrecognizable to replace it? Some have noted his endless dithering in establishing a coherent strategy in Afghanistan, as akin to Hamlet's inability to decide and act. Perhaps then Obama is our Prince, not of Denmark, but of chaos.
For beyond an unpopular revamping of our medical system and confused war strategies, lies unemployment over 10%, tax surcharges, a tripling of our deficit, 9-11 murderers tried in civilian courts, a Muslim US Army captain committing a massacre over the words "Allahu Akbar" on an Army base, cap and tax, dismantling of our ballistic missile defense shield, the nationalization of major industries, rising commodity prices, and on and on.
Thus 2010 looms larger in proportion than ever. So quickly and on so many fronts is Obama disrupting our civilization, that unless his destabilizing program is stopped by a countervailing legislature soon, even the arrival in 2012 of a different president, even the arrival of a conservative one, could come too late.
Ultimately, the King of Denmark was more concerned with Hamlet's sanity than his indecisiveness: "Madness in great ones must not unwatched go."
