How to Cope with the Re-Election of President Obama

The election is settled.  Barack Obama's tenure as president of the United States is to continue.  America's race off the edge of the cliff will continue unabated.

With the failure of the Republicans to capture either the White House or the Senate, it is clear to see that America is ruled by a majority that believes that the pillars that once made us great, Freedom, Strength, Prosperity, and Morality, are instead problems to be solved.  And the Democrats have shown, in their legislation, their policies, and their words, that they have the will to solve those problems.

Remembering the words of Ronald Reagan, we see that government of the people, by the people, for the people, is now to become government AT the people.  Or, to paraphrase a video from this year's Democratic National Convention, we all belong to the government now.

Republicans, meanwhile, will momentarily be in full blame mode.  It's what they do instead of winning -- they blame.  Some will blame Romney, as a poor nominee.  Some will blame his advisors or his poor campaign.  Some will blame his choice of running mate.  Many, of course, will blame social conservatives, those who want to protect the unborn, or defend traditional marriage, or religious liberty, or the right to bear arms.  Some will blame "birthers", as though a desire to assure that the president actually meets the Constitutional qualifications for his office is a fault.  Some will blame "the religious right", and others, more up-to-date, will blame the Tea Party, those racists!  Some will blame the media, but they are too modest to accept credit for their triumph.  Let me cut this short:  nobody's off the hook.  There's plenty of blame to go around, and the GOP will spend the next several months on little else.

Meanwhile, what can we little people do?  we ordinary folks, who've been out working our jobs or running our businesses, saving our money, raising our kids, paying our bills and our taxes and our debts, and living our lives?  Us ordinary people who have never voted for our own pay raise, or considered moving our yacht to another state where it will be taxed less?  We've been playing the game by the rules.  And now, for once and all, we've been shown to be fools.  We've been playing a fools' game, and now the playing field and the rules have officially and permanently changed.  If we don't change with it, we'll be the ones ground into dust when the economy comes grinding to a halt.

And grind to a halt it will.  The economy, and probably our entire social and governmental structure is going to collapse dramatically.  Nothing can stop it now.  We are in the predicament of a woman in labor:  the only way out, is through.  Therefore, the best thing to do is to bring it about as quickly as possible, in order to reduce the pain to everyone involved.  Otherwise, the political, social and economic collapse of the United States could stretch out for the rest of this century.

Republicans, and much less conservatives, will never govern nationally in the United States again.  The relationship between the government and the governed has changed, and this election has cemented the change in place.  It will never be possible to go back.  Under the old rules, this would be a time to congratulate on their victory the people who are about to complete the final subjugation of the decent, hardworking people  who still play by those rules.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, goes the old saying.  We couldn't beat 'em.  It's time to join 'em.

We have to recognize that the rules have changed, the playing field is different, the goals have been moved.  Things that were once considered honorable or shameful no longer are.  Honor and shame have both been eliminated.  Pride is no longer the reward of virtue, but the celebration of what we used to call sin.

All the advice that follows should be read with the following two imperatives in mind:

I.   Don't break the law.
II.  Don't do more than you must.

Nothing of what follows should be taken to contradict either of these things.  Now, if you are what we used to call a decent person, some of this advice may shock, dismay, or offend you.    Hang on anyway, because I have a special message for you at the end.

And obviously, I can't tell anyone what to do.  You must act as you think best, and avoid responsibility as best you can -- but you can't put the responsibility off on me.  Here's my advice, you might want to think about whether it's right for you:

1.  If you own a business, sell or liquidate it.  America is now ruled by people who believe that they are entitled to as much of your business as they may want, and that you are entitled to no more than they deign to allow.  You're working for them now, and many new taxes, regulations, licensing requirements, zoning restrictions, etc., will be heaped upon the old, with no consideration of or respect for your rights.

2.  If you are an employee, especially a public sector employee, don't do more than you must to keep your job.  Take your full entitlement of sick days, vacation days, personal days, etc.  Take full advantage of all your benefits.  Ask for more.  If you are in a union, go on strike as often as possible.  If you're not in a union, unionize if you can.  Don't stretch, don't work overtime without being paid for it, don't (if you're a supervisor) require overtime or extra effort from the people under you.

3.  If you are unemployed, don't try to look for a job.  Apply for every public and private handout you can.  Don't let your pride stop you, if you've any left.  Pride is for the rich.  Get as much as you can.

4.  If you have a mortgage, default on it.  If you have a loan, default on it.  If you have credit card debt, stop paying on it.  If you can, file bankruptcy.  If you have student loan debt, put it in forbearance or default on it.  Get out of debt if you can, avoid debt as much as possible, but don't pay it off unless you have no other choice.  (You would be amazed at how long you can stay in a house you've stopped paying the mortgage on.)

5.  If you donate to a church or religious organization, stop.  If the churches had been doing their jobs the past sixty years instead of hopping into bed with the sexual revolution and the Democratic Party, we wouldn't be in this mess.

6.  If you pray, stop.  God could have raised up better leaders for our nation, could have given us the grace we needed to elect someone better.  God could have preserved our freedoms, ended abortion, saved traditional marriage and ended war and corruption.  You've been praying for these things for years.  It's time to face up to the fact that the answer to your prayers is "no".  How many people have prayed "deliver us from evil," of the God who has now delivered our nation into evil?

7.  If you donate to charity, stop.  Help your friends and family if you can, but don't give to charitable organizations of any kind.  Under the new rules, that's the government's job.

8.  If you are a college student, stay in school as long as you can.  Get another degree.  Take out another federal student loan, apply for another grant.  And if you're unemployed, try to go back to school.

9.  If you are serving in the military, don't re-enlist, unless you are gaining some benefit from serving.  The American values you signed up to defend are no longer honored in America.  Are you really so willing to lay down your life for Obamacare, abortion, gay "marriage", and the auto-industry bailout?  If you are considering military service, only join if you are assured of a benefit you can't get another way.

10.  Adopt a new moral code, better adapted to the new realities we face.  Part of that new reality is that all morality is relative, and no one may force their moral code on anyone else.  Divine revelation has been overthrown as a moral authority.  That leaves you to be your own moral authority.  (The fact that all law enforces someone's morality is to be disregarded in the New America.)  If someone objects to your new moral code, just tell them they can't force their morality down your throat.  You're no longer allowed to cite God as an objective moral authority equally binding on everyone.  So why should you allow anyone else to cite any lesser authority to be binding on you?

11.  If you have children in private or parochial school, or if you homeschool, put them in public school instead.  They will need to learn how to survive in the new world, which will require skills you cannot teach.

12.  Don't buy anything new that you can buy used.  Don't spend a lot on anything you can buy cheap.  Don't dine out at Morton's or Ruth's Chris, go to Applebees, or better yet McDonald's.  Reuse anything you can, but don't recycle unless you have to.  Don't see movies at the theater.  Don't buy DVDs or download movies, either, rent them.  Netflix, not iTunes.  Hit the thrift store, not the furniture store, CarMax, not the dealership.  Wal-Mart, not Saks.  Give up or curtail expensive hobbies.  Don't buy new golf clubs, and if you must play a round, do it at the municipal course; drop your country club membership.  And as much as you can, avoid activities that are attended by fees or taxes.

13.  Don't speak up, don't stand out.  Don't write letters to the editor; in fact, cancel your subscription to the newspaper and any news magazines you may take.  Don't post your opinions to Twitter, Facebook or your blog.  Don't comment on political, religious, or social issues.  Cultivate interests in sports, pop music, arts & crafts, cooking, home improvement, and reality television.  Don't vote.

14.  Consistent with #4 above, don't build or buy a house!  Rent your home.  If you own a home you can't get rid of, rent it out if you can, and live somewhere cheaper.  But do treat your tenants well, I might be one.

15.  If you are an alien, legal or illegal, return to your country of origin if you can.  Things are about to get bad here.  If you are a naturalized citizen, or an alien who cannot go home again for whatever reason, then I'm sorry.  The American Dream you probably came here for has now been officially abandoned.

16.  If you are an orthodox Christian minister of any denomination, start making plans to go into hiding, unless you nurture an ambition to become a martyr.  Orthodox preachers will be martyred in America in the near future for the "hate crime" of preaching traditional Christian morality.  It happened in Mexico less than a century ago.  It can happen here, now.

17.  If there's something you've always wanted to do but haven't because it was immoral, indulge yourself.  We now live in a degraded culture, where anything goes.

18.  Buy a gun.  Buy ammunition for your gun.  Buy more ammunition for your gun.  Learn to shoot it and take care of it.  Buy more ammunition.  Soon there will be a complete breakdown of law and order.  But in the meantime, know and follow the laws regarding guns in your area.  And buy more ammunition.

19.  If you are in the stock market, get out.  If you have cash, buy gold.  Soon, stocks, bonds, financial instruments of every kind, and even cash, will lose most or all of their value.

20.  Demand as your due anything you can possibly get from the government.  Under the new rules, you have a "right" to anything you want to argue for.  And unlike the old rules, if it's a "right" then you're entitled to have the government provide it for free, or make someone else provide it free to you at their expense.

21.  Do not have any more children.  Children are a great blessing and source of much wealth, economic and otherwise.  They are also a short term financial burden comparable to little else. 

22.  The time for "tolerance" is over.  Those who disagree with you or disapprove of you will not extend tolerance to you, and you should get out of the habit of showing tolerance for them.  Call them names, make them mad, do to them what they do to you.  Reject their morality just as forcefully as they reject yours.  We're in the minority now, let's take a lesson on how to effectively be in the minority.

The America of the future has three classes:  A ruling class, a productive class, and a dependent class.  The ruling class will tax and regulate the productive class in order to give largesse to the dependent class, who will then continue to vote to keep the ruling class in power.  One class is to be hosed for the benefit of the other two.  The election of 2012 was our last chance to forestall this from coming about, and we blew it.  We all belong to the government, remember.  The only concern now is not to be in that productive class who will be forced, like the Horse in Orwell's Animal Farm, to work ever harder, even until he drops, for the benefit of others.  If you're pulling the wagon, it's time to take a break, climb aboard, and let the other fools pull you.

Now, if you are a "decent person" as we used to say, you're probably not very happy about this advice.  I promised you a special message, but I didn't promise it would make you happy:  Most people -- all the people who just voted to re-elect Obama -- are already doing most of this.  If you're not, you're a fool.  Maybe a proud fool, or a godly fool, or a holy fool, but a fool, and you will soon be parted not only from your money, but also your freedom.

For myself, I don't believe that there will long remain many who can afford such pride or righteousness.

Now, you may well ask, "what if everyone did this?"  Of course, "everyone" won't.  But if enough people do enough of this program, then the entire national structure, the economy, the banking system, the monetary system, the investment system, the political structure, everything, will come crashing to the ground, sometime around next July, I think.

And then, if we haven't completely forgotten what real virtue is, we can rebuild America from scratch, and maybe this time we won't listen to that minority that wants to force us to call good evil, and evil good.  In the meantime, whether you take my advice or not, we're all in for some rough times.

The Question

George Weigel is beginning to get it:

What's coming won't be this pretty.

If everything in the human condition is plastic and malleable—if there are no givens—then claims to “my truth” on which you cannot legitimately impose “your truth” make sense. If, on the other hand, some things simply are—such as the human dignity of the unborn child or the nature of marriage—then we can learn what is right and wrong, what is true and false, what is conducive to human happiness or conducive to human misery, by pondering those givens and trying to discern the deep truths they teach us about ourselves and how we should live: truths that have been illuminated for centuries by biblical religion.

America began with the assertion of deep truths written into the human condition by “Nature, and Nature’s God” (as the Declaration of Independence put it). In an election season likely to be dominated by very practical (and important) questions about the economy, it will be well to keep a deeper, more searching set of questions in mind: Are we still a nation dedicated to certain moral truths? If so, how do we recover an ability to talk about those truths together?

And if not, what have we become?

Weigel doesn't offer an answer.  I would argue that to ask the question is to answer it.  No, we're not still such a nation, and what we've become is something that will quickly devolve into something horrible.  Orwell's character Winston Smith wrote in his diary that "freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two is five.  Once that is granted, all else follows."  That freedom is fundamentally at risk.  

(Pretty girl H/T: Stormbringer)

How Hatred Became a Liberal Value

Paul Rahe explains (H/T:  Dyspepsia Generation):

Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl in "Batman & Robin"

I remember when liberals sported on their automobiles bumper stickers reading, “Hatred is not a Family Value.” Then, back in 2003, in The New Republic, Jonathan Chait wrote an essay explaining why it was legitimate to hate George W. Bush, and the dam burst. Civility is no longer a liberal ideal. And now – as yesterday’s armed attack on the Family Research Council in Washington, the five-hour delay in President Obama’s condemnation of the act as he calculated whether it was in his interest to comment or not, and the mainstream media’s initial reluctance to report on the event, much less highlight the activist LGBT connections of the shooter suggest – left liberals are willing to wink at violence. It may be regrettable, they think, but, like stealing elections, it is all in a good cause – and before figuring out how to respond to an outbreak of violence on the part of their allies, they pause to calculate the political consequences. You will not hear liberals arguing for a crackdown on the use of force by animal-rights activists, environmental activists, union thugs, and the Occupy movement.  [Emphasis added.]

Read it all.   Liberals have been about hating what is good for a very, very long time.  They hate babies and children, they hate authentic religious faith, they hate traditional marriage, they hate economic prosperity.  And they hate, they hate, they hate the people who stand in their way as they try to destroy these things.

There Must be a Winner, and a Loser

In the contest between traditional Christian morality, and the new homosexual morality that seeks to supplant it, there will be no detente, no truce, no tolerance.  Either Christianity in America will win, or it will be destroyed. 

Lest you doubt this, here is an example.  There are countless more such, both subtle and obvious, to be found:

More on Why The Catholic Church will Deserve what it Gets

Regarding the invitation from New York Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan to President Obama to speak at the annual Al Smith Dinner, Matthew at Creative Minority Report writes:

Why is this invitation different than Notre Dame or Georgetown's invitations? You can say that it has nothing to do with politics and that it's a fundraiser for children but didn't Georgetown and Notre Dame say that it wasn't about politics and that it was all about the students?

I've been to two religious freedom rallies with my kids in Philadelphia. I traveled down to Baltimore for the kickoff Mass of The Fortnight for Freedom with Archbishop Lori. And yeah, this ticks me off.

When millions of Catholics who prayed and protested for religious freedom see the pictures that will surely surface from the event with Cardinal Dolan and Obama how will they feel? Pray tell what will that do to the morale of millions of Catholics? What will that do to the pit of their stomachs?

It's just unserious. We can say it's all for a good cause. But its just unserious. Either those 50 million babies count as human beings or they don't. Either marriage is worth fighting for or it's not. Either religious freedom must be preserved or not. To say we're taking a "time out" from politics a few weeks before election day is just unserious. And it says to millions of Catholics that we can take a time out from those important issues to yuck it up.

 President Obama is the enemy of orthodox Christianity.  And, to the extent that the Catholic Church represents orthodox Christianity, President Obama is the enemy of the Catholic Church.  I had thought that Cardinal Dolan had a clue about what was at stake.  Evidently, he hasn't.

Why the Catholic Church Will Deserve What It Gets

Robert Klein Engler writes at American Thinker:

If you want to know what the Catholic bishops are going to do about the contraceptive mandate in Obamacare that went into effect August 1st, then you may first have to know what they are going to do about illegal immigration to the United States from Mexico.This is so because the same theology and Bible that teaches the Catholic Church to oppose contraception also teaches the Church to oppose illegal immigration. In short, the US Bishops can't oppose one without opposing the other.

Nevertheless, reality and politics in the United States have put Church leaders in a situation where they must confront a contradiction: How can they oppose ObamaCare while at the same time filling aging US parishes with illegal Mexicans?