President Obama's Power Grab

So I'm sitting here thinking about President Obama's latest move to the socialist left and wondering, "Just how much farther is this guy going to go?" His latest action, as I write this, is "firing" the CEO of General Motors, Rick Wagoner. Even though the administration "forced out" Wagoner and threatened General Motors and Chrysler with bankruptcy, Obama said that the government did not want to run General Motors. See a Comcast article for this information and other insights.

I have heard two people today already refer to "the extraordinary power grab" on the part of the administration. Where does this all stop? In what sense is the administration not running GM? How much longer are we going to be able to call the United States a democratic nation? At what point do we wake up to the threat to personal freedom?

Just to put a little perspective on the issue of government, private business, and personal freedom, we can begin with Abraham Lincoln (one of the President Obama's idols) who suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War. According to Wikipedia, habeas corpus is intended to suspend individual freedom against arbitrary state action. An online article by Craig R. Smith says that Lincoln's problem was, on the one hand, trying to conduct the course of the war while, on the other hand, dealing with civilian protests against the war. As he noted, he had the agonizing choice of shooting a "simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert." He felt that he must restrain the agitator in order to save the soldier. As a result, he suspended habeas corpus three different times during the war.

The Wikipedia article cited above notes that President Ulysses S. Grant took the same action in the early 1870s as part of a federal action against the Ku Klux Klan. His action, however, was limited to nine counties in South Carolina.

The examples of Lincoln and Grant cannot be said to be power grabs with the purpose of changing the basic economic and political landscape of the nation. The same cannot be said about Franklin D. Roosevelt. Using the opportunity of the Great Depression, FDR put policies and principles in place that have moved the United States from a nation of rugged individuals to a nation of "children" looking to a "nanny" to take care of their every need. In the guise of good intentions, FDR injected government into areas of life and to an extent unknown in the history of our nation.

Obama is following the path trod by FDR. Using the current economic situation, Obama is not only moving the nation in principle to a more socialistic stance, but is putting our money where his mouth is. We as a nation now have stakes in several major industries. We as a nation now have invested our leaders with the power to determine how businesses should operate and who should lead them. Whether or not FDR contemplated the power that Obama has now assumed, we'll never really know. In the case of Obama, we no longer have to wonder; we can see. What lies ahead for other businesses? For rich people? For all people?

What is puzzling is how history is being ignored. When has socialism ever worked? Where is the proof that putting government in charge of the economy has meant anything other than higher taxes and less freedom?

When we place politicians in charge of business and health care and insurance, what can we expect in terms of good decisions? The answer, I think, is obvious. Think of Sweden. Think of Canada.

The really frightening aspect of the current situation is that the President has been in office for less than three months. What else can we expect in the remaining three years and nine months of his administration? I remember the celebrities who threatened to leave the U. S. if George W. Bush were reelected. Having seen what the current administration is up to, I can understand someone wanting to go somewhere else.

Sources:

www.comcast.net/articles/finance/20081017/BUSINESS-US-AUTOS/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus
www.csulb.edu/~crsmith/lincoln.html