Barack Hussein Obama Imitating King Henry VIII in Practice
Barack Hussein Obama Imitating King Henry VIII in Practice
The Alienator-in-Chief
By J.T. Hatter
October 16, 2012
Friends and Enemies
It is impossible to be the leader of any large enterprise and not
alienate someone, but Barack Obama has managed to alienate virtually
everyone who has had anything to do with him. Who has Barack Hussein
Obama not alienated in the last four years?
Barack Obama has alienated Great Britain, our closest military ally,
both with insults and official actions. He betrayed the Brits by
failing to support them over the Falklands and by revealing their
nuclear military secrets to the Russians. Obama has singlehandedly
destroyed our "special relationship" with the UK.
The United States had been Israel's staunchest ally since the founding
of that nation in 1948. No more. Obama sides with the Palestinians and
openly supports the Muslim Brotherhood. He sent two and a half billion
dollars to the new Muslim Brotherhood governrment in Egypt just
this year. Obama has repeatedly snubbed and insulted Israeli prime
minister Benjamin Netanyahu and has vetoed a preemptive attack on Iran
to halt their clandestine nuclear weapons program. The Israelis no
longer trust the Americans. Who can blame them?
As soon as Obama took office, he went on a whirlwind tour of the world.
It turned out to be a personal mission to insult America's traditional
allies and encourage and ingratiate himself to America's enemies --
especially to the radical Islamists. Obama has reversed the entire
course of American foreign policy, much to the detriment of freedom,
liberty, and stability in the world at large. After four years of inept
and counterproductive Obama foreign policy, the world is on the brink
of economic ruin, warfare, and chaos.
Got Racism?
No politician in American history has gotten more mileage out of racial
demagoguery than our "post-racial" president, Barack Obama. But it has
cost him. White Americans are sick and tired of being tagged as racist
for merely disagreeing with his progressive agenda. Ann Coulter's new
book, Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama details
Obama's efforts to push "...the Left's agenda to patronize blacks and
lie to everyone else." Obama is a master at both patronizing and lying.
Dinesh D'Souza also dealt with Obama's talent for successfully gaming
America's racial dynamic in his documentary Obama's America 2016: Love
Him. Hate Him. You Don't Know Him.
Obama has an uncanny ability to use the racial sensitivities of white
people to his advantage. He got himself elected president by preying on
white guilt and voicing an endless, mesmerizing stream of feel-good
hope and change rhetoric that promised a post-racial America under his
stewardship. Instead, he has done more damage to race relations since
George Wallace and Bull Connor, both segregationist Democrats. Glenn
Beck expressed the views of many Americans when he said on Fox News,
"This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over
again and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or
the white culture. I don't know what it is... I'm not saying he doesn't
like white people, I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe,
a racist."
It can be hard to figure out the chameleon-like Obama. He talks a good
game, but underneath you know he's up to something else entirely
different from what he's saying, and it's not good. Obama reveals
himself in his past speeches and associations, and in his twenty-year
attendance at the Trinity United Church, whose pastor Jeremiah Wright
espoused black liberation theology from the pulpit, telling his
congregation, "God Bless America? "Naw, naw, naw. Not God Bless
America. God Damn America! That's in the Bible." We know Obama from his
public embrace of racist law professor Derrick Bell at Harvard, his
refusal to prosecute baton-wielding Black Panthers who intimidated
white voters, and from the direction of his current policies.
Amid all this. he has alienated an awful lot of people, especially
those of us who believe that all men are created equal and stand equal
before God. Race relations in this country are worse now than they've
been since the 1960's. Instead of a nation governed by equality, mutual
respect, and brotherly love we are a nation torn apart.
Shoving Granny Off the Cliff
Obama has thoroughly alienated those seniors intelligent enough to
realize what he has done to them. He promised that the federal
government would respect and support them, but the veils have been
lifted from the abstruse, unread ObamaCare. Nancy Pelosi was right --
we did have to pass the law in order to find out what was in it. And
now we know that seniors were sacrificed as the first fruits on the
altar of ObamaCare. They are going to lose the most and suffer the most
because ObamaCare defunds Medicare, places special taxes on their
investment income, medications, medical devices, and premium insurance
plans; and debilitates and destroys the Medicare Advantage program.
Doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies will be driven out of
business. Those who serve the elderly will be among the first to go.
Obama is on record as personally arguing for less health care for
seniors and yes, the IPAB is a death panel.
Alienating the Entire Political Spectrum
Obama ran on a platform of bipartisan unity. That was never his
intention. There has been no bipartisan unity since he took office.
Even Vice President Joe Biden (Jackass Joe), in his recent debate with
Paul Ryan, made it quite clear there was going to be no bipartisan
cooperation between the Obama administration and the Republicans. Not
on the agenda. ObamaCare, for example, was rammed through Congress
without a single Republican vote. Obama created a historical landmark
of political alienation with that one.
Obama has alienated the nation's patriots. There is no question that
Obama's primary goal is to transform the United States of America into
a socialist state. He has said so many times and made his aims clear in
his speech to the nation at Osawatomie, Kansas on December 6, 2011. In
that speech he said that capitalism didn't work and had never worked,
and declared, "...it's not as if we haven't tried this theory."
Capitalism and free enterprise a theory? It is the economic dynamic
that made America the most prosperous nation in the world -- until it
was crushed under the weight of socialist government regulation, taxes
and spending. But capitalism is not the socialist economic model. It is
the antithesis of it. At Osawatomie, Obama shook his finger in
America's face and declared a radical new transformation of the
American socioeconomic system -- to a big government, statist, social
democracy, along the European model. Obama is the first anti-American
President.
Obama
has alienated everyone who believes that the USA had better get its
fiscal house in order while we still can. The U.S. Senate hasn't passed
a budget in three years, despite that being a Constitutional
requirement. The President's own annual budget sports a trillion-dollar
deficit -- the fourth in a row. He has no intention of delivering a
balanced budget or returning the USA to fiscal sanity. That much is
obvious to everyone.
Even libs in the entertainment industry are beginning to realize that
it's too dangerous to let Obama have another term. Lindsey Lohan has
endorsed Romney. Piers Morgan of CNN wrote about Romney that, "He's one
of the least principled politicians I've met. But I believe Mitt Romney
might just save America." About Obama he wrote,
"The
great messianic tidal wave of optimism Obama swept in on has been
replaced by harsh reality. He promised Americans tremendous 'hope' and
'change' and, frankly, they don't feel he's given them much hope, or
changed very much."
Throwing Christians Under the Bus
Obama has repeatedly slapped religious believers in the face with his
unconstitutional and reprehensible positions on the Defense of Marriage
Act, gays in the military, abortion, and the ObamaCare requirement that
religious hospitals and institutions provide birth control and
abortifacients to those enrolled in their health-care plans. He has
carefully excised references to God from his speeches and references to
our founding documents.
Bishop E.W. Jackson, a black pastor and bishop, is exhorting black
Christians to leave the Democratic Party, because they tossed God out
of the party platform in Charlotte, and because Barack Obama's personal
and political views are in direct opposition to Christian belief and
doctrine.
Obama has been called the most biblically hostile President in United
States history. His speeches are peppered with remarks disrespectful to
Christians, saying they "cling to guns or religion" or express
"antipathy to people who aren't like them." Obama has declined to host
services for National Prayer Day. Obama nominated three pro-abortion
ambassadors to the Vatican in 2009, all of whom were summarily
rejected. How offensive can you get? Obama and his Department of State
contemptuously impose the administrations' pro-homosexual agenda on
other countries whose religious beliefs define homosexuality as a sin
and abomination. Obama has enacted hundreds of public policies that are
anti-Christian. If Obama has a prayer for re-election, it isn't with
the Christians.
Hopenchange or Hype and Chains?
Obama has alienated his supporters, the people who voted for him, who
contributed to his campaign, and who feverishly worked to get him
elected. Obama has betrayed them all. Those who believed that he was
going to be a unifier and could improve their lot now realize that
Obama is nothing but an empty chair, a con man, a Marxist in disguise.
He offers them nothing but government dependency, the statist form of
slavery. No hope. No change. They're better off with Republicans, who
offer a chance for true equality, and a job.
Obama has alienated about half the members of the Democratic Party.
That once proud and responsible political party has degenerated under
Obama into America's de-facto socialist party. The Democratic Party's
policies are so radically anti-American, anti-white, anti-family, and
anti-God, that those hard-working, responsible Democrats left in the
party can only despair at what he has done to them. If you are a
Democrat, you are a socialist. That is disgraceful.
No patriotic American can support the Democratic Party. No Christian
can support the Democratic Party. That any Jews continue to support the
Democratic Party is no less than astonishing. Hindus and Buddhists
understand that they have no future in a socialist America. The only
major religion that has any reason to support the Democratic Party is
Islam.
Obama is going to lose the upcoming election because he has alienated
virtually every American who works hard, plays by the rules, and
believes in the American promise. All that are left to him a fev
like-minded progressives, atheists, socialists, and Democrats.
The rest of us look forward to November 6.
J.T. Hatter is the author of Lost in Zombieland: The Rise of President Zero, a political satire on the Obama administration.
Do the Church Fathers, the Founding Fathers, and Catholic Saints Really Go Together?
Thoughts on the roots of religious liberty as the Catholic Church's "Fortnight for Freedom" comes to a close.
Timothy Samuel Shah
Christianity Today
July 5, 2012
America's Roman Catholic bishops just completed the "Fortnight for
Freedom," a two-week period intended to "support a great national
campaign of teaching and witness for religious liberty." As evangelical
and Catholic leaders have spent the past year opposing the Obama
administration's so-called contraceptive mandate, the timing, motives,
and agenda driving the "Fortnight for Freedom" have prompted widespread
commentary. Rather than scrutinizing the Fortnight's agenda,
Protestants could examine deeper questions than what took place on the
surface.
It's important to consider the Fortnight's placement on the
calendar—the significance of the Fortnight's dates, June 21 to July
4—to understand the nature of religious freedom and the relationship
between what to some mixes like oil and water: the Christian tradition
and American liberty.
It's worth considering whether the church fathers and the founding
fathers enjoy a deeper conceptual affinity—precisely around the meaning
and foundations of religious freedom—than many people (including
perhaps the bishops) have noticed.
A feast of martyrs vs. the Fourth of July
The Fortnight for Freedom began on June 21, marking the vigil of the
feasts of Saint John Fisher and Saint Thomas More. Fisher and More were
both executed because they refused to endorse Henry VIII's claimed
supremacy over the English church. The vast majority of English nobles
and bishops endorsed the supremacy, while Fisher and More stood
virtually alone.
Though urged to use mental reservation to endorse the succession while
denying its legitimacy in their hearts, the men were convinced that
they could not do so without violating their consciences and
endangering their salvation. As More declared, I could not meet with
the Works of any one Doctor, approved by the Church, that avouch a
Layman was, or ever could be the Head of the Church.
Fisher was executed on June 22, 1535, and More was executed on July 6,
1535. In 1970, the Roman Catholic Church declared that they should
share the same feast day, so every June 22 More and Fisher are honored
as martyrs for the church. They are honored for standing up for a
simple idea, though one that has proven consistently controversial and
dangerous throughout history: the church cannot be true to itself if it
does not enjoy independence from the powers that be.
The other bookend of the Fortnight for Freedom is the Fourth of July,
for the obvious reason that this marks Independence Day—the birthday of
American liberty. On that date in 1776, of course, the American
Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of
Independence drafted by Thomas Jefferson. If June 22 stands for the
right of the church to be independent, July 4 stands for the right of
every people to be independent.
It stands for the right of political self-government, and of course the
Declaration of Independence roots the right of political
self-government in the permanent and universal rights of all human
beings.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
June 22 and July 4, then, would seem to have little to do with each
other. They represent paradoxes: liturgical vs. the civic, ecclesial
independence vs. political self-determination, martyrdom vs. life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Thomas More vs. Thomas Jefferson
The symbolic gulf between the two dates widens even further when one
considers the great men with which they are most closely associated.
June
22 is mostly remembered as the feast day of Thomas More, who stands for
a heroic commitment to the independence of the church. But his heroic
commitment to the church's independence can't help but look to modern
eyes like an unquestioning if not fanatical devotion to the church's
authority. While one expression of More's commitment was a willingness
to lay down his life as a martyr, another expression of his commitment
was a willingness to make martyrs of others. As Lord Chancellor of
England under Henry VIII, More presided over the execution of six
Protestants for heresy. Unlike his modern admirers, More was proud of
this feature of his biography, and he notes in his own epitaph that he
was "grievous" to "thieves, murderers, and heretics" alike.
There could hardly be a more perfect contrast with Thomas More than
Thomas Jefferson, the secular saint so closely associated with the
Fourth of July. After all, the Fourth of July became Jefferson's day
not only because he was the author of the Declaration of Independence.
It was providentially sealed as Jefferson's civic feast day because of
the coincidence of his death (along with John Adams's) on July 4,
1826—50 years to the day after the original signing of the Declaration
of Independence in 1776.
Yet Jefferson was a fierce opponent of the Christian traditionalism for
which Thomas More lived and died, famously going so far as to produce a
kind of "revised rationalist version" of the New Testament, with all
the supernatural bits (including Christ's resurrection) cut out. And he
was a proud proponent of a degree of religious freedom that More would
probably have found inconceivable. In contrast to More's epitaph,
Jefferson's authorship of Virginia's Act for Establishing Religious
Freedom is one of only three achievements he had inscribed on his
gravestone at Monticello.
What did June 22 have to do with the Fourth of July?
So what does Thomas Jefferson have to do with Thomas More? What does
the modern American founding have to do with the pre-modern Christian
tradition? What do the self-evident truths on which Jefferson staked
his life have to do with the Catholic truths for which More gave his
life?
If there is a gulf between June 22 and July 4, perhaps it is the
consequence of the radical divide described most memorably by
Tertullian, a founding father of Western Christianity: What has
Jerusalem to do with Athens, the Church with the Academy, the Christian
with the heretic? Our principles come from the Porch of Solomon, who
had himself taught that the Lord is to be sought in simplicity of
heart. … After Jesus Christ we have no need of speculation, after the
Gospel no need of research.
What should we make, then, of a "Fortnight for Freedom" campaign so
intent on conjoining Jerusalem and Athens, orthodoxy and liberty, the
feast day of the martyr and the Fourth of July?
What hath the heretic to do with the church father?
At least one "heretic" begged to differ with Tertullian's judgment that
a heretic and the church have nothing in common. Thomas Jefferson
thought he had more in common with Tertullian than Tertullian might
have thought conceivable.
In his Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson offers a series of
claims about religion and religious freedom that at first glance would
seem to underscore the gulf between pre-modern Christian orthodoxy and
modern liberalism: [O]ur rulers can have authority over such natural
rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we
never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our
God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as
are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to
say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor
breaks my leg.
With this passage, Jefferson not only breaks with the constitutive
premises of Christendom. He openly advocates a spirit we associate with
secular liberal modernity, in which religious orthodoxy takes a back
seat to untrammeled religious liberty. In religious matters, everything
is permitted, at least as far as civil authority is concerned. No
matter what your heresy may be, whether you believe in "twenty gods, or
no god," the "powers of government" must leave you unmolested. So long,
of course, as your religion "does me no injury"—with "injury" narrowed
to mean only the most tangible harms: "picks my pocket" or "breaks my
leg."
It seems clear, in other words, that the heretical spirit of Jefferson
could not be more distant from the dogmatic orthodoxy of Tertullian or
Thomas More.
Jefferson's debt to Tertullian's pre-modern liberalism
And yet, at the very point where the conceptual worlds of Jefferson and
Tertullian might seem a million miles apart and set on opposite
trajectories, they suddenly intersect and come into astonishing
alignment.
In his copy of his Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson placed a
single annotation next to the famous passage quoted above, just after
the sentence, "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts
only as are injurious to others."
Astoundingly, the annotation is a Latin quotation from Tertullian. In a
short letter to the Roman proconsul Scapula, probably written in 212
C.E., the North African church father had written in denunciation of a
new wave of Christian persecution.
As one widely used translation of the text quoted by Jefferson puts it:
However, it is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that
every man should worship according to his own convictions: one man's
religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part
of religion to compel religion—to which free-will and not force should
lead us—the sacrificial victims even being required of a willing mind.
Here the founding father quotes the church father. And he does so
because he recognized that more than 1,500 years earlier, the church
father had already articulated a radical case for religious liberty—a
case that was hardly less radical, hardly less liberal, and hardly less
modern than the case Jefferson articulated.
Is religious freedom a concession or indulgence that governments and
peoples grant when they are feeling generous? No, because Tertullian
insisted that it is a "fundamental human right."
Is religious freedom a matter of the majority tolerating the minority,
or a privilege restricted to Christians and true believers? No,
Tertullian argued it is "a privilege of nature" that every human being
"should worship according to his own convictions."
Does my neighbor's faith so affect me that I have the right and
responsibility to coercively interfere with his religious belief and
practice? No, Tertullian anticipated the liberal harm principle of John
Locke, Jefferson, and John Stuart Mill in arguing that "one man's
religion neither harms nor helps another man" and should be left alone.
But doesn't zeal for orthodoxy and love for lost souls require the
church to compel agreement with the true faith? No, as Tertullian
understood, "It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion—to
which free-will and not force should lead us."
Freedom is a higher obedience
In the end, a profound underlying kinship binds June 22 with July 4. Of
course, between the Christian tradition of Tertullian and More and the
Enlightenment rationalism of Jefferson, there will always be a vast
gulf concerning the nature, destiny, and highest good of human beings,
let alone the nature of God.
Yet they share something profound nonetheless: a higher loyalty sets
permanent limits to the powers of government. The truest test of the
justice and freedom of any society is how much its government and
people respect the fact that all of its members owe their highest
obedience to the truth about God as their consciences deliver it, not
to the powers that be, whether emperor, king, or democratic majority.
As Tertullian described the defiance of his fellow Christians in the
face of Roman persecution: [W]hen challenged to sacrifice, we stand
immovable in loyalty to our conscience. … [S]ome people think it
madness, that, though we could for the moment sacrifice and go away
unhurt, with a mental reservation, we prefer "obstinacy" to safety.
Our brothers and sisters in the Roman Catholic Churchwho conceived the
"Fortnight for Freedom" were wise to conjoin June 22 and July 4. Those
dates, and all the dates in between, are excellent occasions for
remembering that our churches and our nation will be truly free only if
we "stand immovable in loyalty to our conscience."
So let us not be afraid to prefer conscientious "obstinacy" to the
"safety" of the crowd. The rights and liberties we now defend under the
banner of religious freedom are fundamental truths the Christian
tradition has cherished from its earliest centuries. And as we persist
in defending them against what may well be increasingly unfriendly
currents of opinion, let us remember that we follow in the footsteps of
the venerable if improbable fraternity of Tertullian, Thomas More, and
Thomas Jefferson.
Timothy Samuel Shah isassociate director and scholar in residence of
the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University's Berkley Center
for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.
Obama's despotism takes switchblade to U.S. Constitution
June 21, 2012
By Kevin Fobbs
Independence Day will be soon upon the nation and the majority of
Americans will be celebrating the many freedoms, and tremendous
sacrifices our forefathers made to secure those cherished liberties.
Yet in less than three and a half years President Obama has not only
ransacked those freedoms with his deft Saul Alinsky socialist-minded
approach to American democracy, but the president has use all the
precision of a switchblade to cut into the very sinew of the American
Constitution.
Former Speakers Newt Gingrich who has been very forthright in calling
American's attention to the progression of this administration's
attempt at undermining the U.S. Constitution has recently stated quite
succinctly, that if this " dictatorial action by President Obama is
allowed to stand, historians may someday look back on June 15, 2012 as
the day the Constitution died."
Think about this for a long hard moment. This president has decided
that his "Obamarule" is above the U.S. Congress. He firmly believes
that his "Obamarule" should be sheepishly followed by the U.S. Supreme
Court. President Obama believes that his "Obamarule" is far more
legitimate that the U.S. Constitution, because his rule dictates that
whatever he feels, is what the American public must adopt and must
follow.
The fact that Obama would set parameters on what laws he feels like
following and what laws he feels like throwing under the bus is not new
to this president who acts like a despot. Yes, that's right despot, as
in despotism!
Look it up. Despotism is a form of government where an official like
Obama, feels that his form of government is correct and he "rules" it
as one single entity that uses absolute power. This rule or more
concisely, "Obamarule" cannot and must not stand. Congress has the
authority to overrule this despotic maneuver by the Obama
administration, and Ohio's John A. Boehner, Speaker of the United
States House of Representatives, must take the cue from former U.S.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich and move immediately to begin congressional
action to nullify this subversion of the U.S. Constitution.
The rule of law that safeguards all Americans is what our brave men and
women have fought and even died on the field of battle for, and in one
swift switchblade move, President Obama has decided that he will decide
nearly a million illegal criminals will not have to abide by federal
and state laws.
Obama also practiced this same despotic action when he decided in
February 2011to not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which
congress passed in 1996, that barred the federal government from
recognizing same-sex marriage. But the despotic Obamarule did not stop
there, because there is more. Last August, 2011, the Obama
administration also decided to violate federal law again, by not
enforcing deportation rules against non-citizen "spouses" of gay U.S.
citizens.
There is a very vile and very sinister pattern and practice afoot here
as practiced by this administration that cares far more about the rules
of Saul Alinsky's socialist-minded theocracy than the rule of American
U.S. Constitutional democracy. Examine several of the rules yourself
and you be the judge.
Socialist Saul Alinsky postulated that "The morality of means depends
upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat
or imminent victory." I.e...., Mitt Romney is pulling ahead in national
polls, the economy is still in the preverbal recessionary-like toilet
and the White House is in full panic mode.
So Obama pulls out of his despotic hat this "Rules for Radicals"
maneuver of Alinsky, "You do what you can with what you have and clothe
it in moral garments." Therefore Obama tells the American public that
it is alright to violate the American U.S. Constitution and allow
800,000 plus illegal aliens to evade the law, by imploring, "It's the
right thing to do!"
Americans, and congress must do the right thing to do, not just on
election day, but right here and right now in all corners of this
nation, and demand Articles of Impeachment be drawn up in the congress.
Request your state elected officials to adopt official resolutions to
support congressional action to set aside this flagrant display of
egotistical hubris.
Independence Day in America 2012, must be more than just a celebration
of what are country was able to accomplish, but equally important. It
must be about what we are willing to stand up for, to protect and
defend the U.S. Constitution for our nation's future. Now is the time
and July 4th is the date to make our inherent freedoms clear and voices
heard throughout this nation. Independence Day, 2012 breathe new life
into our U.S. Constitution!