Americans overwhelmingly rejected bizarre threats from an increasingly unpopular Obama to rule by decree, surveys revealed after his State of the Union speech. Despite trying to artificially divide America into different collectivist classes in need of his supposedly benevolent protection and assistance — an age-old ploy used by statists sometimes referred to as “divide and conquer” — women, black leaders, Hispanic activists, small-business owners, and other members of collectivist categories rejected the narrative, too.
Instead, Americans at large and leaders among Obama’s victim castes broadly lambasted the draconian and divisive schemes outlined in the president’s speech. Many called for the administration to be restrained and reined in before it unleashes even more economic damage on the nation. The real solutions to the problems plaguing America are respect for the Constitution and individual liberty, not class warfare and lawless government, critics said.
More than a few analysts and experts also noted that Obama’s unconstitutional agenda — much of which he promised to foist on America by executive decree — would cause major harm to the very same supposed victim groups defined by the president. Virtually every credible economist knows that raising the minimum wage, for example, would further reduce employment opportunities and result in far fewer jobs available to the poor.
Schemes to federally mandate “pay equality” between men and women will also be harmful, women’s groups and female leaders explained — and not just because the premise and statistics Obama touted are incorrect to begin with. Small business owners, meanwhile, despite Obama’s claims, are demanding less government intervention in the economy and their lives, not more. Some military leaders also blasted the president for using a wounded veteran as a “prop” to advance his agenda.
The general public was not impressed with Obama’s outline of assaults on liberty and the Constitution either. In fact, polls showed that the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose the president’s machinations to bypass Congress and impose his will by “executive action.” Rasmussen, for instance, found that some 70 percent of likely voters think it is better for Obama to work with lawmakers on issues he considers important. More Americans than not think Congress more closely represents the will of the American people than the president, too, the Rasmussen survey found.
Just 21 percent of respondents in the post-State of the Union poll believed the federal government still has the consent of the governed, echoing other recent surveys showing that more than two thirds of Americans now consider the federal government to be “out of control” and a threat to basic liberties. A separate CNN poll of people who watched Obama’s speech, meanwhile, also found that two thirds opposed allowing him to advance his controversial agenda by executive decree.
Even the largely pro-Obama establishment media called out some of the lies and untruths told by Obama during his speech. FactCheck.org made a mockery of multiple bogus presidential claims, saying it found “overstatements and cherry-picked numbers among the applause lines and proposals in President Obama’s State of the Union address.” Some of the claims were so outrageous — the debate on increasingly discredited global-warming theories is “settled,” for example — that they have been ridiculed around the world.
Beyond making preposterous claims and laying out an agenda for economic fascism and rule by decree, Obama also offered some insight into the tactics employed by his administration to “fundamentally transform” America. Throughout the State of the Union speech, he repeatedly sought to divide Americans into broad collectivist categories — each supposedly requiring his lawless executive actions to get ahead. In other words, Americans are not unique individuals entitled to human rights and equality under the law. Instead, they are defined by superficial collective characteristics.
The speech was steeped in stale class-warfare rhetoric, with “opportunity” as the supposed justification for rule by decree. Low-income workers, Obama claimed, need federal minimum-wage hikes, which economists almost all acknowledge will destroy jobs, harming the poor the most. Government, the president suggested, must take on the role of savior for small businesses. Women, too, need Obama’s protection against alleged discrimination in pay. Veterans were used as props, senior military leaders argued. Members of all the bogus victim groups singled out during the speech, though, firmly rejected the divisive pandering.
“President Obama’s State of the Union once again advanced the narrative that women are a victim class in need of greater government protection,” explained Independent Women’s Forum Executive Director Sabrina Schaeffer, co-author of Liberty Is No War on Women. “And he ignores how laws like the Paycheck Fairness Act or the newly proposed FAMILY Act would impact existing leave programs, discourage flexible work arrangements, reduce employment opportunities for women, and have severe consequences to their pocketbooks.”
Obama also relied on fraudulent statistics — the supposed 77-cent wage gap, for example — that even “liberal feminist” outfits admit is “grossly overstated,” Schaeffer explained in a statement. “Whether he was talking about the so-called wage gap, student loan debt, health care, or workplace regulations, the president continues to act as provider-in-chief, discouraging traditional institutions like marriage, community, and civic organizations that can truly help those in need,” she said.
The real solution to the problems, Schaeffer explained, is more liberty — not more government. “Ultimately, a growing economy free of regulatory burden and a heavy government hand is the real key in helping American workers,” she said. “A freer economy, not more burdensome mandates on business, is the surest way to replenish job opportunities in our communities.”
Multiple black American leaders with the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Project 21 also blasted the “class warfare and contempt for the Constitution” expressed throughout the president’s speech. “Instead of pressing the accelerator on plans to expand government, the president could do taxpayers and the American economy a favor by reversing course,” said Project 21 Co-Chairman Horace Cooper, a former professor of constitutional law and former leadership staff member in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“Starting with tax relief, a one-year freeze on new regulation and sitting down with Republicans and Democrats in Congress to develop a real solution to the entitlement crisis, the President could set a new course — one that focuses on the real problems that America faces with solutions that have been proven to work,” Cooper added. Numerous other leaders with the free-market oriented Project 21 also rejected Obama’s scheming, wondering whether the president truly understood his job description.
Conservative Hispanics of America founder Andy Ramirez, meanwhile, sharply criticized the president’s amnesty agenda outlined in his speech. “There is no immigration reform, other than Obama’s abolishing by executive order our long-established immigration laws,” he explained. “This violates the basic tenet of why we have long had three branches of government and in reality reads like something out of Hitler’s Germany or even George Lucas’ Star Wars series where ‘democracy dies with thunderous applause’.”
During his speech, Obama urged Congress to advance his “comprehensive immigration reform” schemes, but Ramirez and his organization lambasted the plan. “You can’t reform something you don’t enforce and what is absolutely scary is knowing how fraud filled the last amnesty was — knowing the documented corruption inside the Department of Homeland Security — and coming to the realization of how this next amnesty will be vastly more fraud filled than 1987 was,” said Ramirez, an expert on border issues who has testified before Congress on multiple occasions. “This is of a magnitude that is unimaginable.”
Obama also touted small businesses repeatedly, boasting that his administration “has made more loans to small business owners than any other.” Of course, despite the fact that the ruthless communist regime ruling over China is deeply involved in the allocation of credit, U.S. government loans to business are neither constitutional nor wise.
Even with unconstitutional Obama loans to small business — many of which are struggling under a perpetually ballooning regulatory regime and oppressive taxation — multiple organizations and associations for small and independent firms also criticized the president’s address. Especially troubling were the president’s executive orders and more demands for job-killing minimum-wage hikes, small-business groups said.
Obama’s wild dreams of a supreme executive branch reorganizing the economy and America must be rejected. Aside from such reorganization being anti-constitutional to the core, history is replete with examples of the failure and danger of big government and unconstrained, centralized power. The real solutions to fixing the economy are simple: Restore honest money, constitutional governance, and free markets.
Outraged Republican lawmakers have taken some tepid initial steps to rein in the out-of-control administration. However, if liberty, prosperity, and self-government are to survive in America over the long term, Congress and the American people must act with urgency.
Photo: AP Images
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached at [email protected].
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