Posted by
Michael Goodell on Thursday, October 16, 2008 12:34:11 PM
Watching the final Presidential debate last night I was reminded of the Battle of Thermopylae. In 480 BC King Xerxes massed an army of some one million men to launch a final assault on Sparta and Athens. Woefully outnumbered, the Spartan King Leonidas led 300 of his Spartan King Elite guards to the passage at Thermopylae which they defended long enough for the Greeks to assemble their defenses. Their heroic act of self-sacrifice enabled their countrymen to defeat the invading Persians the following year. It also inspired a very gory, computer-generated movie, but that’s another story.
I called the debate a draw, which means Barack Obama won. This means, barring an implausible turn of events, such as the American people figuring out what “spreading the wealth around” actually means, President Obama will be inaugurated as our 44th President. He will enter office firmly convinced that our nation has been on the wrong track, that our system is broken. With the help of a Democrat Congress, he will begin to help restore the American Middle Class, and to end poverty and deprivation in our nation. He will do it by expanding the scope and breadth of the federal government. It will be the largest expansion of government since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.
In fact, the only difference between Obama and Roosevelt, other than that wheelchair thing, is that Obama doesn’t use his middle name in public.
The parallels between 1932 and 2008 are terrifyingly compelling. In both cases, the world economy teetered on the brink of collapse. In both cases the Democrat candidate promised a radical change in societal constructs. Obama is as much a proponent of the Progressive belief that government is best suited to directing people’s lives as Roosevelt was.
Roosevelt’s massive expansion helped prolong the Depression into the longest economic downturn in our nation’s history. The New Deal didn’t end The Great Depression. World War II did. One can’t help but wonder what will bring us out of the new Depression.
Aided and abetted by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, Obama’s “100 Days” will result in a burgeoning government, the likes of which our nation has never seen. Massive tax increases, coupled with massive new expenditures, will result in the construction of vast new bureaucracies. It will take decades to escape from their shadow, if at all.
We can only hope that the Republicans can hold onto 41 Senate seats. Arrayed against this governmental behemoth, these courageous men and women must fight with all their might, defending our individualist traditions to the (political) death. According to Senate rules, forty-one is the magic number the minority party needs to prevent the majority party from running roughshod over the public. It will be a lonely battle, and will require great courage and unstinting leadership for these 41 Senators to halt the Obama Express.
If the Republicans don’t manage to hold onto 41 seats, there is nothing to forestall statist ascendancy. Every Republican Senator who finds him- or herself in a close race, should adopt “41" as their mantra for the balance of their campaign. They should stress that government works best when there remains a possibility to check its excesses. Forty-one Senators is the last best hope to retain that restraint.