Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that we live in sensitive times. Actually, I suppose, it is not the times that are sensitive, but the people that live in these times. It is difficult for a writer or a speaker to use colorful analogies without being accused of being insensitive to the object from which the analogy is drawn. If a starlet likens the involuntary invasion of privacy exercised by the paparazzi to the act of rape, she is accused of being insensitive to rape victims. If an actor uses an analogy comparing his work to war, he is accused of being insensitive to soldiers. While these may have been engaging in over the top hyperbole, it is doubtful they can be justly accused of the idiocy of actually equating their burdens with the hell of war or rape. If one “targets” an opponent in a political race, she is said to be promoting gun violence against that opponent. If I say someone is on the “warpath”, I suppose I am being insensitive to those whose ancestors were actually on the warpath, or those whose ancestors were victims of the same. I guess that’s just the cross we must bear… by which I am no doubt blaspheming the Christ.
And so this disclaimer: If I use an analogy to something horrible, please understand that I am by no means making light of atrocities. Evil exists on a continuum, and the same veins that have at their extremities the horrors of rape, murder, genocide, tyranny, and slavery, can be found in their more subtle and less developed forms. Comparing one to the other does not imply an equality of the two. Rather, it is in the most heinous of crimes that evil is unmasked and its nature revealed. Observing the extreme helps us to understand the same root of wickedness hidden in the subtlety of the less appalling.
And so that brings us by a circuitous route to President Obama’s latest scandal, the controversial bargain for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Opinion pieces on the appropriateness of trading five high level terrorists for one possible deserter are abundant, and there is no need to add my voice to these. Suffice to say that the President might not be the guy you want to send to market to sell the milk cow… unless you really believe in magic beans. Instead our focus here will be on the process of how the deal was made, and whether or not it was a good deal is really quite another matter.
We are reminded ad nauseam that the United States does not negotiate with terrorists. The reasoning behind that is clear; if we begin making deals with bad guys for kidnapped victims, we will only encourage more hostage taking in the future. The President was surprised when the public seemed nonplussed by the freeing of Bergdahl and the apparent negotiation with terrorists. So the first obstacle the administration faced was to explain how trading five terrorists to a terrorist organization was in fact not negotiating with terrorists.The answer they came up with was to do what they often do, call it something else. In this case, a trade with terrorists was renamed “a prisoner of war exchange”. No doubt the war the administration is referring to is the same one the President insisted was over and redefined as localized terrorism not so many months ago; I guess it’s a war again. What war has been declared? If a President is unwilling to put a matter before Congress and declare a war, then what right does he have to invoke the title of war for the action he has independently initiated? War should not come easy, and when did we decide that the lives of thousands should rest on the decision of one man?
The law signed by President Obama states that the President shall give a thirty day notice before transferring a prisoner from the Guantanamo facility. True to form though, he has treated the law as simply a courtesy to be ignored at his discretion. The excuse given was that Sgt. Bergdahl’s health did not permit the thirty day review period, nor apparently thirty minutes even. Clearly that was a ruse; Sgt. Bergdahl was hardly on death’s door. No, the reason for ignoring the law is something far more consistent with President Obama’s past performance, and that is his conviction that he is above the Law. There are many reasons to call this President the “entitlement” President, but chief among them is his misunderstanding that as President, he is entitled to exercise his will without the consent of Congress, or by extension, the people of the United States. Understand that we do not elect a king. We elect someone who we expect to remain in harmony with the system of checks and balances under which he was elected. To assume that once elected the President is free to rule independent of Congress or the American people is analogous to saying that a husband by definition cannot rape his wife, that upon marriage she has given up her body and her free will.
“UNION”. It is a marvelous and wonderful thing, whether it be the union of a man and a woman, or a people willing to be affiliated under one flag, as one people; but it can be made ugly, very ugly. Union without consent is an abomination. All the reasons in the world cannot substitute for consent. Even what might have been a welcomed advance becomes an assault when taken by violence, and without consent.
Since the early days of the Obama presidency, it has been characteristic of him to force himself and his agenda without regard to the will of the American people. Every poll showed Obamacare to be hugely unpopular, and yet he used every trick to impose it; all the while his hot breath in our ear saying, “C’mon baby, you know you want it…”, supposing as they always do that in the end we will appreciate being violated. Once is never enough, and the perpetrator’s success only leaves him lusting for more. The victim hopes the outrage is behind them, but the aggressor interprets passivity as submission. Not called to account for his transgression, the Obama presidency has become one unconcerned with consent. If Congress won’t cooperate, he will circumvent them. If the people protest, gag them, bind them… force them.
IMHO: The art of being united has nothing to do with conquest. When a relationship devolves to identifying a victor and a victim there is no union, just a sad and ugly state of affairs. Whether it be in individual relationships, or the governance of a nation, union is the goal, and all else is illegitimate if done without consent. Union is a dance. One may lead, but one may not force or drag, we cooperate. It’s a dance of give and take, we move together. Sometimes it is a waltz, sometimes a tango; but woe to the one whose partner, or President, cannot dance.
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