Our new maximum leader has nationalized the biggest car company in the USA. Thomas Sowell connects the dots to the thought of Edmund Burke (much more at the link)
When Burke wrote of his apprehension about “new power in new persons,” I could not help think of the new powers that have been created by which a new President of the United States — a man with zero experience in business — can fire the head of General Motors and tell banks how to run their businesses.
The mind boggles just a bit. What are the limits of the President’s power, if he can take over GM in this way?
National media conglomerates are struggling, as well as newspaper chains. What if NBC was going out of business? Would the US government, under Obama, step in and “rescue” it by taking ownership and appointing an “independent” board to run it, packed with Obama’s stooges? Talk about freedom of the press…
Just thinking out loud here…. what if all three major networks were on the rocks, like GM, Chrysler, and Ford (which may have trouble competing with a subsidized GM…)? Is there anything in current law that would prevent Obama from doing the same thing to all three, that is, simply taking them over? Does this thought make you nervous? I hope so. Imagine those hard-hitting exposes on the corruption of Republican senators, the violence of the NRA, the hatred of Christian fundamentalists, the selfishness of big corporations, and the tolerant forbearance of Muslims.
Of course, cynics might say that it would be hard to tell if the networks suddenly became more pro-Obama than they already are…. and now that I think of it, I’ve already seen the kinds of coverage I just listed, ad nauseam.
If McDonald’s starts to struggle, and the feds take over, will we start seeing nothing but tofu burgers and salads with no dressing (more or less the parallel to the kinds of cars it appears Obama plans for GM to make)?
I’m personally hoping for an Obama takeover of the movie industry. I expect that Hollywood would immediately begin making movies critical of George Bush, the Iraq War, and the War on Terror. They’d start holding lots of fundraisers for Obama endorsed candidates. Hmm… maybe no discernable change there, either.
OK, what if Obama took over the laptop computer industry? Would all the built in screen savers feature Barry and Michelle? Would the ability to link to conservative websites be blocked? Would Google-searches for “Obama and Wright and Ayers” always come up with zero hits? Would all new laptops feature an Obama button that immediately links the user to http://www.whitehouse.gov?
The scariest possibility for me is this. What if the National Archives went bankrupt? What if Obama took over? What if he changed the text in the original version of the 22nd Amendment? Now it could read, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, unless he is of Kenyan descent and used to live in Chicago, in which case he can be president for life.” It wouldn’t matter that it read differently everywhere else. Obama would have the ORIGINAL.
I’m trying hard to see the humor in this, but honestly, the idea of Government Motors terrifies me for what it means about our nation.
