What if President Obama Succeeds?

The following was posted on The Huffington Post on 12/24/09. Before you read it? This is what Benjamin Franklin had to offer us regarding his dear friend John Adams:

"He means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise man, but sometimes and in some things, absolutely out of his senses." -- Ben Franklin, 1783, about John Adams (in a letter to Robert Livingston)

Without knowing Dr. Breggin it is difficult to say if he means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise man, or how many hours each day he spends watching FOX "News", but, please, read on.

Comments regarding Dr. Breggin's thoughts will be found in bold text.

What if President Obama Succeeds?

Dr. Peter Breggin

Psychiatrist
Posted: December 24, 2009 10:41 AM


What if President Obama succeeds in giving enemy combatants -- terrorists -- the same rights as American citizens? Will terrorists be won over by our superior values? To the contrary, terrorists demean our values as weak and ungodly. They will, if anything, feel empowered by our weakness. Instead of dying in Afghanistan or Iraq to get to all those virgins in heaven, they will be motivated to come to America to enjoy the protections of our Constitution. Actually, our decision to treat them like U. S. citizens will probably have little or no effect on terrorists, other than to make it harder to seize them, hold them, and render them harmless through incarceration.

Any rights afforded to terrorists by the Obama administration are intended to communicate to this nation and to the international community that the United States has once again become a nation of laws and that torture, rendition and secret prisons have been abolished.

What if President Obama gets to put the Guantanamo terrorists on trial in an American court in New York City while imprisoning others in American jails in places like Illinois? Will the terrorists come to respect our system of justice, as Obama supporters claim? Don't be naïve. They hate our system of justice and plan to replace it with their own atavistic system of Sharia Law. But the terrorists do yearn for high profile soft targets -- and we're busy creating them on our own soil. We're placing giant "kick me" signs on our own behinds.

Putting the terrorists charged with the 9/11 attacks on trial in New York, where the attacks took place, out of the jurisdiction of the United States Military ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act } was a decision made by the Attorney General, not by President Obama, contrary to FOX "News" and Dr. Breggin.

It can also be argued that, since the attacks of 9/11 took place prior to Congress authorizing President Bush to conduct war on a concept rather than on another nation, treating the 9/11 suspects as military combatants by having their cases heard before a Military Tribunal would occur ex post facto and that such action would violate Article 1 Section 9 of The Constitution.

What if President Obama succeeds in reducing the power of our military, including our capacity to fight conventional wars with superior army, navy and air power and superior atomic weaponry? Sure, Afghanistan and Iraq are different kinds of war. But have Russia and China gone away? Will they make equal reductions in their military capacity to fight a large-scale war? To the contrary, China is building submarines and aircraft carriers, and a huge conventional army. Do we imagine they will not take advantage of their coming military superiority?

It is safe to assume that President Obama and the Joint Chiefs can all see Russia and China from Dr. Breggin's front yard. What is debatable is whether China has any intention of launching a ground war against the United States with submarines and aircraft carriers. Stay tuned to FOX "News" for more of this sort of inflammatory rhetoric.

What if President Obama succeeds in passing cap-and-trade or, as he currently plans, what if he succeeds in directly imposing new bureaucratic regulations on emissions such as CO2 without even troubling Congress? Will it save the planet? Hardly. China, India, Brazil, Russia and the lesser emerging nations will soon outdo our entire history of potentially toxic emissions with no end in sight. Will they be moved by our moral example to inhibit their own industrialization? Hardly. Much like promising the terrorists that we will be nice to them, our self-inflicted economic wounds will only make the emerging nations realize how weak we have become. The Chinese will celebrate the acceleration of their economic eventual triumph over us.

Not to mention the Canadians.

What if President Obama is allowed to continue to run America through dozens of henchmen aptly called "czars" -- leftist political enforcers accountable only to him? Political enforcers whose job descriptions are left to the imagination and whose salaries are often kept secret. Since the inception of this nation, Congress has prized and exercised its constitutional authority over the selection and monitoring of cabinet members. Huge battles have been fought between the Senate and the president over these presidential appointments. Without firing a gun, our president has won a revolution that has successfully undermined the U. S. Constitution and shifted power dramatically to the Executive Branch, essentially obliterating the treasured checks and balances created by our Founders.

Henchmen. Who are called "czars". Leftist "czars" who are henchmen.

According to Dr. Breggin the President of the United States has won a revolution without firing a gun. By appointing advisers, like every other President.

The Senate continues to advise and consent regarding cabinet appointments. Just like in the days of our Founders.

What if President Obama's Congress manages to pass health care "reform" legislation? Will it expand coverage of currently uninsured people? Of course it will. But it will do so by government force, spreading thin existing resources and leading to rationing. Will it save money? Don't be ridiculous; it's the government. Think Post Office. Think Medicare. Think Welfare. Will the costs be contained? That's never happened in the history of government. Will it improve medical care? No, it will reduce innovation, making American medicine more like British or Indian medicine. The whole world will be deprived of our pioneering research and medical science. The ongoing rush to approve health care coverage sight unseen has only one real intention behind it -- plunging America deeper into socialism. In that it will surely succeed.

Insurance companies ration care today. And insurance companies kill Americans. But, according to Dr. Breggin, if all Americans become eligible to receive affordable Health Care, America will be unable to continue to provide Health Care to those who deserve it.

Dr. Breggin doesn't mention that all Americans today are eligible to receive unaffordable health care. At the expense of those Americans who have Health Care Insurance and who pay their bills. Anyone without Health Care Insurance or the means to see a doctor can walk, stagger or be delivered by ambulance to any Emergency Room and receive expensive life sustaining medical care that would not have been necessary if everyone could afford less expensive well care.

The Founders provided for the Postal Service and for Post Roads. They provided for no rights whatsoever for Native Americans, Blacks, women or the unborn. The Founders were not perfect, they never had any idea how our population would grow, or how medical costs incurred by the poor and the uninsured would burden the population of the United States in 2009. Imperfect Disinterested Liberal Gentlemen founded this nation. They did the best that they could. However, it is up to Americans who live in this century to use the living document they created to care of our citizens and not abandon them because of the selfish, the ignorant or the invested.

The Preamble to The Constitution of the United States establishes that, among other things, we the people, will promote the general welfare.

While the Founders may not have intended for the least among us to benefit from those words, perhaps they should have. There is no reason that we today can not rise above the intentions of the Founders as past generations have.

What if...? It's already happening. We are in the midst of one of the most threatening assaults ever on our most cherished Founding institutions and values including the U. S. Constitution and our basic political and personal freedoms. All of us most mobilize.

A majority of Americans mobilized in November of 2008 when they elected Barack Obama. It was time for change. That change is taking place today. In spite of an obstructionist Republican Party, the ignorance and fear of the lunatic fringe and FOX "News".

Dr. Breggin's posts on The Huffington Post are closed for comments. That is understandable.