You heard it right. As shocking as it may sound, President Obama is not Hitler’s (black) clone, and may not even be the Antichrist. As popular as it has been on right-wing internet sites, there is no substantiation for the report of a DHS whistleblower exposing an Obama conspiracy to trigger a “Reichstag” event—in the form of a faked assassination attempt on the president, leading to a wave of national chaos that Obama will then ride to a position of tyrannical power.
Earlier reports of Obama paving the way for such a takeover with power-grabbing executive orders have, it turns out (again to the dismay and astonishment of many), proven vacuous. The so-called executive order that was identified as a reason to anticipate such a plot has proved to be nothing more than a routine update of an executive order that’s been on the books in one form or another for decades.
Although some Americans are stunned into silence by the news, it is becoming increasingly apparent that President Obama may, in fact, be the mild-mannered and somewhat wonky constitutional lawyer and left-leaning political moderate that he appears to be, with no ambitions of setting himself up as Fuhrer for life by deliberately triggering a massive explosion of national violence.
In related news, a philosophy professor at Oklahoma State University has come out in favor of a democratic political process focusing on civilized discourse about the relative merits of opposing candidates’ qualifications and platforms, without hyperbolic fear-mongering. In this spirit, the professor admits that he does not live in mortal terror of Mitt Romney being elected president and confesses that were Romney to be elected, the world would probably not come to an abrupt, apocalyptic end.
And here's what I want to say in more sober terms:
ReplyDeletePolitical extremists say some crazy things; and while few take their extreme claims seriously, they can have the effect of making less extreme forms of fear-mongering seem normal and moderated by comparison--thus polarizing the public discourse even if the specific claims are seen for what they are and so largely dismissed.
This is an effect we should guard against.
It's just as bad on the left-wing end of the blogosphere, unfortunately-- I seem to recall that I stopped looking at some of my favorite political blogs when they started claiming that George W. Bush was going to refuse to accept the result of the 2008 election if his party lost and set himself up as dictator...
ReplyDeleteI remember something along those lines, and I remember rolling my eyes in astonishment. I mean, I wasn't a fan of Bush's policies, but he was an earnest believer in the American political system. He wasn't about to overthrow it.
ReplyDeleteI know! People on both extremes lack basic critical thinking skills, or they willfully refuse to apply those skills to their own side. I know a lot of people on the left who are totally sure that 9-11 was an inside job because the collapse of the WTC buildings supposedly looked exactly like a controlled demolition, as if a the evil cabal that really controls Anmerica wouldn't be able to blow up a couple of buildings WITHOUT making it "obvious" that the official explanation was wrong. As if this vast conspiracy of evil could remain totally secret until it got discovered by a couple of college kids on the internet! There are enough real issues to debate, painting your opponents as comic book villians doesn't help. In fact, if some kind of radical restructuring of our system is really needed, these kind of crazy conspiracy theories FAIL to really challenge the system. They take it as a given that the SYSTEM is fine, it's just the demonic evildoers who are running things that are the problem, and all we need to do is change the players and freedom and justice will come pouring down like honey.
DeleteA little off-topic, but perhaps you might be interested in commenting about whether carrying guns around is a civilian civil right.
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