President Obama was kind enough to take time out of his demanding schedule — including luxury vacations, celebrity soirees, and 90 rounds of golf — to give the State of the Union address. Expecting to hear his usual fluffed rhetoric on hope and change, I was surprised when the speech quickly turned into a berating of Congress for excessive job outsourcing, unemployment, and a $15 trillion national debt. Lucky for us, the president offered his solution to America’s problems — more federal rules.
The president explained that his mission is to “restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules,” but he’s making up rules in the form of executive orders as he goes along. It’s scary that the president has set himself up as the referee over America’s companies, communities, and households, ready to blow the whistle when we exercise our rights and freedoms (and can he really do that from the back nine?).
The worst display of overreaching into our private lives came when the president said, “I am proposing that every state — every state — requires that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18.” This proposal would require an executive mandate that would override state attendance compulsory laws and deny parents the right to decide for themselves how and where their children are educated. You can bet that homeschool families are going to fight back. The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has already issued an official statement opposing the president’s plan.
President Obama spent the bulk of his address telling Congress to pass rules that initiate clean energy. I have no qualms with developing alternative energy. However, when the president promises to make clean energy bills the federal government’s top priority — while 13 million of Americans are out of work, 50 million are on food stamps, and the federal government owes China more money than any of us will ever see — then I believe there is reason for concern.
President Obama vowed to save money by ending taxpayer funding of oil companies — the same companies that prevent government monopolies, create competition and lead to lower gas prices. Yet just this week, he squashed the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, an endeavor estimated to create 250,000 permanent American jobs. Additionally, President Obama promised he will “not step down from protecting our children from mercury poison.” But what about the soul-poisoning effects of pedophilia, which proponents are working to normalize by recasting as a mere issue of “minor attraction”? Apparently, that’s okay.
And ever the tree-hugger, the commander-in-chief ordered the U.S. Department of Defense to turn its attention from satellite and human intelligence gathering to climate research and development. Likewise, the Navy has been ordered to purchase “enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year.” In other words, he is instructing our brave military men and women to cease defending our borders and fight the new terrorist threat — global warming. In all fairness to the president, maybe his reasoning is that the more trees we have, the more structures we have to hide behind should terrorists attack. … Yeah. That’s it.
Frankly, I think it’s long past time for us to remind President Obama that he is an elected representative, and not a dictator, before he redefines liberties and democracy and rebuilds an America that is destined to fail.