When Barak Obama was elected President of the United States, I had very mixed feelings. I hadn’t voted for the man and didn’t agree with his politics, but I had to admit to liking him on a more personal level. Charismatic is the only word to describe him. His smile is disarming. He has a great sense of humor. He’s a good family man. He’s obviously brilliant. He’s a black guy who can’t dance, and who can’t like a guy like that?

Politically, he’s a nightmare to those of us who believe in a Republic Democracy. His ideals are good ones, but we don’t live in a http://johnnyholland.org/wp-content/uploads/utopia11.jpgutopian world where we can afford to try to live by utopian ideals. We have to face reality. For example, I, too, would like to befriend Islamic countries who hate Westerners and hate the U.S. even more. But I’m not so idealistic and niave to believe that they will listen to my friendly words or even pay a bit of attention to my friendly actions. It is not in them to believe that those words or actions are honest and forthright. They have been brianwashed to hate us and distrust us, and hate us and distrust us they will, no matter what we do. So, with that in mind, I think Obama weakens our country by reaching out to them with an open hand and depreciating our country through his rhetoric.

I do not agreehttp://www.getliberty.org/content_images/Cartoon%20-%20Obama%20Wrecking%20Ball%20(600).jpg with his socialization of our economy nor do I agree with his desire to have a public option health care system. I distrust his administration, because they have pushed both these efforts (the economic bail out and health care) through (health care should be decided within weeks) without giving the American people or our representatives ample time to educate ourselves, so we can provide an honest response.

I don’t like the lies. Let’s face it, the Obama administration has been http://www.freespeechstickers.com/images/you_lie.pngcaught in several lies. For example, Obama says prior to his election that he is avidly for the public option, and then two months ago says he never said he was for the public option. I’ve heard the contradicting recordings myself. It’s almost as if this administration tries to revise history, simply by stating a lie that whatever subject they want to suppress is the opposite of what really happened. It’s ludicrous!

Now, the Obama administration is attacking Fox News, threatening to remove http://www.americasheadlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/foxnews.jpgWhite House credentials for everyone affiliated with them. What happened to free speech? Why is it okay for CNN and NBC (including all its iterations) to be so incredibly partisan but not the Fox News channel? At least Fox News itself (the news not the commentary) is non-partisan. You can’t say the same for the CNN news team. This kind of thing is frightening to me, and if the other news organizations don’t start standing up and saying they won’t put up with this type of behavior, it’s even more frightening, because it means the end of truth in the news. All that will be left is partisanship and opinion will reign.

The result of all of this is that our country has been cleaved in two. http://blogs.phillyburbs.com/news/bct/wp-content/blogs.dir/3/files/2008/08/wk_of_0817/0820_democrat_republican.gifPeople are taking hard sides against one another politically, and some of the rhetoric I’m now hearing on the various radio political talk shows is really scary. The attacks against the other side are becoming more viscious, people are even talking about ceeding from the union and conversation is seeded with hatered. This civil war of words is anything but civil, and it makes me fear for the future of our country.

T.S. Eliot wrote, “This is the way the world ends…this is the way the world ends…this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.” And I’m beginning to fear the truth behind that. I always thought the opposite was true — that our biggest danger was from outside our borders — but now I feel we are being eaten alive from the inside. That instead of succumbing some day to a huge bomb, our country will simply eat at itself until there is nothing left, and we are so weak that we become easy pickin’s for whatever world power wants to take us over.

Heck, as much of our commodities as we have sold to China, it might already http://trendsupdates.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/china-us1.jpgbe happening. We have stupidly allowed our economy to become so tied into theirs, that they could destroy us economically.

My point is, no matter how partisan we’ve become as a populace, we have to stick together. We cannot allow ourselves to be slowly eaten away; we cannot allow ourselves to let politics erode our union; we cannot allow our society to be weakened by the dumbing down of education or by extreme partisan rhetoric. We must remain strong and uphold the ideals upon which this grhttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/_rqH4fUbko2U/Sh1KGtC2pnI/AAAAAAAANjs/Dq52Ievg5m4/s320/We_The_People.jpgeat country was based. We must put this civil war of words aside and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Only then can we sustain and grow as we have for over 200 years. If we fail to do this, I fear we will fall just as the Romans fell. Surely we’re smart enough to learn from their mistakes and stop repeating them.