A Jackboot at Home, an Olive Branch Abroad

imposing sharia upon our nation

by: thomas e. brewton | published: 04 21, 2009

President Obama seems intent upon cramming stifling socialist programs down our throats domestically, while he relies upon pretty- word diplomacy with foreign nations that have vowed to destroy us.

Reportedly the President's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel stated that an economic crisis is too good an opportunity to be wasted on economics, when it can be used, as Franklin Roosevelt did in the Depression, to revolutionize the nation's social and political structure, in effect to amend the Constitution without the bother of submitting amendments in accord with the Constitution's Article V.

This connotes a domestic jackboot approach evident in many recent Federal actions and policy initiatives. For example:

Firing General Motors' CEO and publicly threatening to fire corporate and bank executives who fail to do as the government wishes; refusing to permit banks to repay Federal loans that the Treasury and the Fed compelled them to accept, even when they did not need the loans; in pressuring General Motors to terminate its GMC truck brand; in forcing General Motors and Chrysler to abandon manufacture of the sorts of cars consumers want and to concentrate on manufacture of money-losing "green" cars that only a tiny fraction of the public want; in directing Chrysler to merge with Fiat, which will result in the demotion or firing of Chrysler's CEO; enacting an unconstitutional bill of attainder to punish AIG employees whose level of compensation displeased Congress and the President; imposition of controls to set the lending policies and interest rates charged by commercial banks; plans to create a socialized national health insurance scheme that will force private insurers out of business; and EPA regulations that prospectively will empower the government to determine what sort of automobile you will be permitted to own, how your home will be designed and built, how you will heat or cool your home, and what interior illumination methods you may employ. Not to mention efforts to eliminate secret ballots in labor union organizing campaigns, enabling labor union goons to intimidate workers who don't want to be represented by a union.

In the field of foreign policy, on the other hand, to the immense pleasure of his liberal-progressive-socialist cohort, the President turns to the purported magical power of the olive branch to win the approbation of foreign nations, as if that were an equal substitute for defending our national interests.

The President's most egregious formulation of the olive branch approach was his announced intention to meet face-to-face, without preconditions, in diplomatic discussions with our deadly enemies. Our enemies, liberal-progressives presume, will happily abandon their national interests and become our pals if we just talk sweetly to them and tell them that we respect them.

Judging from his recent overseas G20 meeting tour, respecting other nations means blaming the United States for the mischief of our enemies.

Iran has, since the commencement of the presidential primary campaigns, been a focus of this sweet-talk diplomatic theory. To date it has gained us nothing at all. Testing the President's strength of will, as it did under President Carter's similar style of foreign policy, Iran has seized an American citizen working as a newspaper reporter, jailed her, and sentenced her to eight years' imprisonment for alleged spying; in effect daring us to do something to protect our citizens.

Yes, Iran has said it welcomes talks with President Obama, but only on its conditions, which include imposing sharia upon our nation.

For results of the foreign policy olive branch, read What Iran Really Thinks About Talks.

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