The Splintering of America

Jeffrey T. Kuhner
The Washington Times

President Obama is splintering America. The passage of Obamacare was a historic victory for liberal governance. Yet, its true cost may be that it triggers the eventual breakup of the country.

Mr. Obama has achieved what his liberal predecessors - Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Bill Clinton - could only dream of: nationalized health care. Obamacare signifies the government take-over of one-sixth of the U.S. economy. It has dealt a mortal blow to traditional America. We are now a European-style socialist welfare state. The inevitable permanent tax hikes, massive public bureaucracy and liberal ruling elites will stifle competition and initiative.

Socialism is the road to economic ruin and fiscal bankruptcy. It subverts democracy, threatening the very future of our constitutional republic. Socialist states degenerate into some form of autocracy or technocratic neo-feudalism, whereby the productive class is taxed and exploited to sustain a growing dependent class. Factions are pitted against each other; groups vie for handouts at the expense of their fellow citizens. The bonds of economic union and national solidarity slowly dissolve.

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not," warned Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson was right: Redistributionist welfare policies are undermining our democracy. The resentments in America are growing. Tea Partiers believe that their government no longer represents their interests or values. The heartland is becoming dangerously alienated from the political class, whom it feels has betrayed them.

Ultimately, a country is not simply its geographical borders with the people inside of it. It is something more - and deeper. A nation must share a common heritage, language, culture, faith and myths. Once upon a time, Americans celebrated the same heroes, sang the same patriotic songs, read the same history and literature, and gloried in its exceptional nature: a city upon a hill, with liberty and freedom for all. It was understood that, for all of our different ethnic and religious backgrounds, America is a product of English and Christian civilization. Those days are long gone.

Instead, we are going the way our Founding Fathers warned us against: increasing balkanization and sectionalism. A constitutional republic - unlike an empire - is only as strong as its national cohesion. It is based not on imperial coercion but civic consent. Mr. Obama is recklessly pulling at the strings of unity, further polarizing us.

Comment by Jaeger:

The nations is divided as never before. Ad hominem attacks against those who are trying to point out this reality don't change the facts of today. Many moderate, pragmatic, and independent people voted into office this President because they thought, somehow, that Barack Obama would be someone like them. Instead, America has gotten a hardline leftwing radical ideologue in the White House. When there is such a wide disparity between what was advertised by the Obama Campaign and the realities of 2009-2010, polarization and bitterness are bound to result. Telling the public that this is because they are befuddled and stupid may make the leftists feel good, but it doesn't change the realities that America IS divided and weakened as never before since the Civil War. Many Americans look for alternatives, and expect their state governments to do what they can to advocate for them in the way that their federal politicians and judges do not and will not. That's a road map for more sectionalism, but these fractures will continue so long as this White House and this Congress continue on their destructive hell bound course.