Sneaky Agendas

I was hoping to publish a warm-hearted Christmas article and get ready for the celebratory season of year-end family activity. I will still publish my gratitude for Advent soon - probably before week's end.

Events compel me to comment on the sneaky and subversive actions going on during our transition to an Obama Presidency. Here are some warning signs that our 220-year experiment with representative government is threatened by ideologues who think it is their prerogative to rewrite our Constitution.

Thomas Sowell, the august Hoover Institute scholar, wrote a book a few years ago entitled, "the Vision of the Anointed." In this work Sowell exposes the superiority complex afflicting the Left. Those coming to power really believe they have the obligation and opportunity to improve the Constitution.

Obama's intellectual and moral mentors are part of a radical, revisionist elite who see our Founders as slave-owning oppressors, our history as one of unimpeded colonialism and our future as a humbled participant in a world government. They are collectivists who believe that a qualified oligarchy should redistribute personal rights and accumulated wealth.

I know this group, because I went to university and grad school during the 1970s to 1990s as our educational establishments fell into the hands of former SDS members, with even Angela Davis getting tenure! As a University of California at Santa Cruz "Banana Slug" alumni, I am proud to say that my history professors were women and men of the highest integrity and their work reflected honest assessment of facts. Yes, they had liberal opinions and enjoyed using some of the tools of social history to evaluate the past. They respected my findings and ideas and none of them believed in creating an artificial narrative to serve political ends.

Alas, the current power-brokers and Obama himself have no problem manipulating history to serve their aggrandizing ends. I am still stunned by the audacity of Barak Hussein Obama's deceit. He insists that he did not hear Rev. Wright's racism and anti-Americanism. His campaign complained when his middle name was used in speech or print. Now it will be part of the Oath of Office on January 20.

Here is a sampling of the demagoguery passing for serious thinking:

For five years, leftist political writers have suggested that the "natural born" citizenship requirement for President be eliminated as outdated and unfair to our "nation of immigrants." This is a brazen attempt to undermine the intent of the Founders and possibly cover for the dubious records underpinning Obama's past.

The call for a Constitutional Convention simmers just below the surface. The agenda for such an unprecedented event is very clear: abortion, euthanasia, wealth redistribution and the redefining of First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Amendment rights. A Convention in the hands of those educated over the past 30 years is a frightful prospect. By the way, we DO have a legitimate Amendment process!

Every four years the Electoral College comes up for review. If we want to destroy the American experiment in representative government, let's go to a straight popular vote for President. The role of states will be further diminished and the potential for all elections to end up in the House of Representative because of the intrusion of third and fourth parties looms large. Our current system is the fairest and most stable guarantee of balance and liberty.

The most egregious agenda item of the new elite is the geometric rise in government intrusion into the economy. It is a good thing to spend money on private-public partnerships for our infrastructure. It is not helpful to prop up companies that refuse to modernize. It is not right to pander to either Wall Street barons or UAW officials. No Honda or Toyota workers in the USA are complaining about their lot!

As citizens we need to be vigilant and not allow the sneaky political class to steer us away from liberty. We must

Learn our history - the good (The Constitution, the Civil War elimination of slavery and Republicans who started environmental protections), the bad (slavery, "Manifest Destiny" and Latin American interventions) and the simply factual (we have the most stable government in history and we rescued Europe twice in the 20th century).

Know our Constitution. It is a brilliant, sparing document that vests ultimate authority in the people. It also assumes a self-regulating, virtuous citizenry.

Defend for all others the rights we want for ourselves. Apart from direct threats to our nation, we have a system that allows us to debate and live with our deepest differences.

Conservatives lost out in this election season because of their failure to articulate a compassionate and cohesive philosophy. The utter lack of spending discipline, sane immigration policy, the delayed surge, the economic meltdown. and the inability of President Bush to communicate, opened a door to victory that any Democrat could walk through.

2010 is coming.