Fear-mongering Continues... and not Just for the Economy

Check out this article from NewsBusters.com by Warner Todd Huston as he dissects an anti-gun editorial from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. And while you're at it try this other NewsBusters.com article also by Huston about the reemerging phantom menace of crazy, gun-toting militias.

Is anybody seeing a pattern here? Obama's far-left views are becoming more and more evident to an increasingly disappointed public. He has a track record in Illinois of anti-gun rights legislation. Pelosi is from San Francisco which has tried to ban handguns within its city limits. Now elements within the media are starting to stir up fear about crazy gun owners paying "outrageous prices" to arm themselves, as well as bringing back the 1990s fear of far-right militias infesting the red states. I'm already hiding under the bed... beseeching the great Obama to spare me from the wrath of "hordes of overwhelmingly white, middle-aged men from suburban and rural areas." After all Obama is "an exotic other occupying the White House." Both quotes are from Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com.

It's only been about five weeks into the Obama administration, but I wonder if we are starting to see a strategy here: create fear, declare a "crisis," pass sweeping left-wing legislation very quickly and then move on with obligatory lip-service to "patriotism" and vague promises of better days ahead.

This strategy is a familiar one. A Ukrainian and a Czechoslovakian friend of mine have both remarked that "they know what comes next" with Obama. Repressive socialist governments such as the Soviets, Yugoslavia and other Eastern Bloc countries, Mao's China, and even (though I am hesitant to breach the ultimate evil in a blog entry) the Nazis used similar inward-looking fear tactics to sell oppressive policies and unpopular laws to the general public.

Please, understand that I'm not suggesting that Obama is another Hitler, Lenin, Mao, or anything like that. Nor am I concerned about a repressive Socialist regime being instituted even as we speak. What does concern me is using tyrannical but proven methods to push across leftist agendas into law and bring about a more intrusive, wasteful and inefficient federal government. It bothers me to use unjustified and manufactured fear to bring about quick political change.

It should be interesting to see how Obama's administration handles itself in the future. While espousing bipartisanship, Obama has been anything but bipartisan in its handling of the "stimulus" bill. Will he stay in de facto silence as the far-left continues to fear-monger the right's opposition-- continues to paint them as enemies rather than opponents? Will he utilize the left portion of the media's fear-mongering to adavance political "unity?" Will he continue to exaggerate, spread fear and declare "crises" (as he has done with the economy) to advance his agendas? Will he continue to blame others' "worn out dogmas" for continued economic unrest and instability? If so, he is among very poor company.