Obama: Wannabe Big Brother

The News Virginian’s editorial page of March 4 offered a sharp contrast with respect to the political, economic and cultural choices that confront us as a nation of supposedly free individuals.

One of the columnists featured, Martha Carr, cited the Great Depression and valued lessons learned from that experience (“Fear name of party operatives’ game”), lessons that she said were then forgotten by recent generations. However, rather than explain or focus on those forgotten lessons, she proceeded to deplore those who are trying to remind us of the history of the Depression and the failure of massive (for that time) spending and coercive policies of the federal government.

Suggesting that consequences are likely to follow from adopting the same or similar policies on a scale that dwarfs that of the Great Depression will lead to even more dire results is, in Ms. Carr’s view, indulging in doom and gloom, naysaying and fear mongering.

She seemed positively giddy that the nation, in her words, chose not to “react in fear and vote for the guy [Sen. John McCain?] who was offering more Big Brother and less bailouts.” Instead, we “chose optimism over cynicism and decided we wanted to try to fix things as a group.”

Not only does Carr apparently fail to understand the history of the Great Depression, she doesn’t seem aware of current history. President Barack Obama’s message is more about fear and criticism of individual initiative and principles of free-market capitalism as was cited in the editorial (“McDonnell: Middle man?”) and the other column featured March 4 by Bill Steigerwald (“Huckabee reborn on Fox News”).

President Obama is a wannabe Big Brother. His political and economic views will result in a socialist nation, one which will no longer be recognized as a democratic republic populated by free individuals vested with God-given rights, who pursue happiness as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and incorporated into the Constitution.

Despite our concerns and the economic difficulties many are experiencing, are we ready to hand over our lives to the federal government?

Alvin B. Marks

Waynesboro