Don’t hit the snooze button!
By Eniko Jordan
Brring! Brring! Wake up! The alarm clock is going off!
Wake up, America! Our collective alarm clock is going off! Don’t you hear it? Brrinng! Brrinng!
No one wants to hear the alarm clock go off early on a Monday morning, making us get up out of a nice comfy bed and get back to work. We’d much rather hit the snooze button, and lay back. It would be so much easier if other people could go to work for us, so we can just have another 15 or 20 minutes snoozing in the sack.
But the Brrinng! Brrinng! of the alarm clock is hard to ignore.
Or allow me to illustrate it another way, using one of my most favorite fictional characters of all time, Captain Kirk. In the Star Trek episode “The Ultimate Computer,” a computer is being tested aboard the Enterprise to see if it can take over all the functions of the starship, leaving only a minimal crew of humans to maintain the machinery. Sensing that there is something inherently wrong with abdicating control of people’s lives to an unthinking, unfeeling mass of circuits and relays, Captain Kirk says: “I’m getting a red alert right here,” as he touches the back of his neck.
Kirk’s intuition proves right and the computer soon begins to misbehave, even killing off the crew of another starship. Despite the hope of change that a new computer system might bring, the computer ran amok and had to be disconnected from its power source before it caused even more harm.
Well, you can see where I am going with this.
Many people believed in the hope and change that Barack Obama promised he would bring. Hope that life in this country would be improved, and that change would bring a new way of doing things.
Well, we have a new way of doing things, all right. And in the past two weeks, we have seen several specific examples of the new way of doing things in the White House.
If you don’t like what the Legislative Branch is voting, just override it by an Executive Order, as Obama did in the case of his recent directive on illegal immigration. From the early days of his administration, many of us have said that this president would attempt to govern by executive fiat. In essence, we had a red alert going off in the back of our necks. And we were right, and here is the proof for anyone open-minded enough to see it. Never mind about the Constitution; just rule like a king making decrees from the throne.
Before the country could even take a breath from dealing with that abuse of power, President Obama delivered another stunner by declaring Executive Privilege to try to cover the lies and deceit of Eric Holder, his friend and Attorney General. Executive Privilege, as a power granted by the Constitution, is extremely limited and must be verified. The valid right of Executive Privilege is being exploited in this case so the president can keep very inconvenient truths secret.
I have no intention of going into a long commentary about these various issues right now, there’s too much to say. The point is that these issues, and many others, reveal a pattern of philosophical ideology and behavior of the current president, supported by members of his administration, of complete disregard for limitations on his executive power. He, and others that hold the same ideology, are acting like that computer on the Enterprise, thinking that it would be better for the ship of state if they just took complete control.
Many voters in the last election cycle believed in “hope and change,” and now many of those folks have been sorely disappointed. A lot of former Obama supporters are seeing that their hopes for improvement have not materialized, and that this is not the kind of change they were expecting. If you are one of those people, and you have been making every excuse in the book for this administration, or have not been willing to take an honest look at what is going on, it’s time to pay attention to that red alert going off in the back of your neck.
I have heard many people say, “Well, I just don’t like politics.” Well, guess what, I don’t like it either. But “not liking politics” is no reason to abdicate one’s personal responsibility to be informed about the facts on various issues and national questions. Our survival as a nation that is worth living in, depends upon an informed citizenry, upon people who bother to inform themselves, even if they “don’t like politics.”
I know that just as it is easier to hit the snooze button on Monday morning, and wish other people could go to work for us, it is also easier to hit the snooze button and let other people do our thinking for us. It may be easier to let others tell us what to think, or how to vote, or to just respond as a mass of circuits and relays to the talking points of our chosen party, but no voting citizen should be that uncaring or lazy.
This election really will determine the direction of our country for years to come. It is your responsibility as a citizen to be informed, think for yourself, vote in every race and local issue because you have deliberately considered the questions at hand, and make your judgments based upon the over-arching principles our Constitution has laid out.
You’ve heard the saying that it’s time to wake and smell the coffee? Well, it’s time to wake up smell the reality; reality as it really is, and not clouded by what you may have hoped for. Be brave enough to understand the reality and depth of the problems this administration has caused, financially and internationally.
It’s Red Alert time, America. Don’t hit the snooze button! Wake up!
Award-winning columnist Eniko Jordan is a Pocatello resident and freelance writer for the Idaho State Journal.
Yes America wake up! There is a rich white male mormon who wants to convert you!
Yet another stellar award winning article…
Tom-Tom
What are you saying?? Will you offer something intelligent to dispute this article or will you just run your mouth with nothing to say other than your buffoon talking points? “a rich white male mormon who wants to convert you” is that all you got? Please give us facts that are not fabricated because you don’t understand what the writer is talking about.
Don’t think your fantasized writing will be winning the stellar award blog this week.
Tom,
The good lady is not LDS but admired very much as one fine Christian lady by a bunch of us that are. Her and her “foible” laden fine Christian husband too. God Bless them both. Have no intention of converting them to anything, they’re great as is or is that as are?
You’re right about the “stellar award winning article”, oh are you ever. 1 out of 2 ain’t bad.
Two thumbs down for you. You scored in negative territory on this one. You’ve been doing that a lot as of late. Sniffing the hair spray again?
It’s really too bad, when someone like Eniko gets to the heart of the matter as delicately as possible, only to have the troll/clones chime in and start their racist/mormon
crap, and think anyone with any sense will pay attention. I’m with Joe! For once, go have another beer, or bottle of your cheap wine, and let the intelligent folks alone. None of you have the foggiest notion what is going on with America. If you did, you would get on your knees and pray to God that Obama get’s voted out, before he finishes tearing America to the ground. It’s bad enough we have to put up with him for another 5 months, but it is even worse to have to listen to you idiot troll/clones defending him with your nonsense and filthy vitriol!
Those of us that are ‘in-the-know’, are very much aware what Obama is doing, and will keep doing as long as America allows it. No matter who is running against him, they will be better than he could ever be.
Very astute, and well said, Eniko! Ignore the idiots!
To all (except Tom): Tom’s rant is so wildly stupid that he is only begging for your attention. Mission accomplished.
Ms. Jordan,
As the Bush administration invoked executive privilege six times, do you hold his actions to the same level of contempt as you do Obama?
How can a public journal publish such nonsense? Does the journal have no respect for its readers?
Non Believer,
Your evidence to support your contention is?
Ike:
I did say in the piece that Executive Privelege is a liegitimate right of the Executive; but like most rights, it isn’t universal. It has to be taken on a case by case basis.
In this case, I believe the administration has admitted it isn’t a case of National Security.
So what’s left that Exec Priv can cover? Conversations that involve the President and his advisors, which should normally stay confidential.
But since it has already been testified under oath that there have been no presidentail conversations on this subject, then to what conversations would Exec Priv apply?
No conversations, no privilege.
On the other hand if there have been conversations, then someone, probably multiple someones, have been lying.
Therefore, in this case, Exec Priv cannot apply because you can’t use Exec Priv to cover up coverups.
This is a logical conclusion, and only tortured rationalizations can get around it. By claiming Exec Priv, President Obama has as good as admitted he did have conversations about it. Why would he want to hide conversation he never had?
Add to that logic the fact, fact, that an errounous and untrue document was submitted to the oversight committee; that is tantamount to lying under oath. (Just ask Martha Stewart, who was not allowed to simply retract her testimony months later.)
Therefore, in the face of this crime of perjury, the assertion of Exec Priv is suspect, at best.
So really, it’s the President’s contempt for the Constitution that’s at issue here. He does not have the right to use it, abuse it, and then hide behind it.
oops, presidential.
Self-evident nonsense speaks for itself. The piece belongs in a Republican booster pamphlet at a convention. It does not belong in a serious public forum. So the question remains: Does the journal respect its readers or does it publish political booster ads disguised as editorials?
Non Believer,
So a dyed in the wool loser liberal democrat that only reads Huffpo and Dail Kos, the only non-political whatever going?
Normally I’d go after the ISJ as being biased toward democratic causes but you think otherwise? And that’s illegal in your world? No, they manage to sneak in a “few” things from the other side but do manage to keep it down to a “few”.
Nothing is self evident in your world, you learn everything by running into walls you put up. Your federal tax just doubled and you’ve haven’t got a clue.
Some people prefer to argue ad hominem rather than ad factum.