OPINION – The key to understanding politicians’ motives is likened to understanding how a magician does his tricks.
Always, always, always watch the other hand.
In the last week, President Obama and the Democratic Party, as stated in Rolling Stone Magazine, “was the face of a repressive new global security state which improbably had forced Vladimir Putin’s Russia into the role of earth’s symbolic defender of individual liberty ….”
Hard to believe it but the onetime poster child for oppression of human liberty, second only to perhaps China, was taking a stand to defend the actions of whistle blower Edward Snowden; Snowden who, had Russia not stepped up, would likely be sitting next to now-convicted and -sentenced Bradley (Chelsea) Manning.
Just another day at the office for this administration it seems.
An administration that sold itself to the American public as one for change is not changing much but instead administering with exacting impunity more of what the previous administration set into motion: the eradication of American civil liberties.
Some examples of this are: the federal bailout that the Bush administration set up and the Obama administration knocked out of the park, the Bush Patriot Act followed up with the Obama signing of the National Defense Authorization Act; the Bush cover-up of preemptive war on a sovereign nation under guise of threat of weapons of mass destruction and the Obama implementation of drones, and illegal surveillance of American citizens as well as other citizens of the world.
This is not a conspiracy theory here. These things have actually happened on our watch and I would maintain it is because we are too busy watching the hand in front of us, not the one behind the performer’s back.
To illustrate this further, and to really showcase how masterful our current leader is at this craft, watch him now as he not only distracts us with something, but within the very distraction has more controlling policies in play. It’s like double jeopardy here.
In the wake of the National Security Agency scandals and the outright witch hunts for those who risked their lives and their citizenship to expose them, the president is engaging in what could be purely coincidental activity, or, in activity designed to turn the collective American public’s attention away from it.
Obama has hit the road on a college campus campaign to reform tuition costs.
As if to say: “Look everyone, I am not a bad president, I am helping our kids get educated.” Everyone loves education, right?
But within the president’s plan is an interesting facet that ties student financial aid to federal performance standards.
Do you see it?
The magician is doing a trick by being a well-spoken and eloquent orator and diverting our attention from his outright machinations to remove our liberties in the privacy sector. And that magician does not even care if we do in fact watch the other hand – the hand that seeks to assuage us of our fears that we are headed for oligarchy by being the supposed defender of education.
Defending education by placing it under the control of the feds? The feds who are taking our liberty?
Both hands are pulling tricks. Surely, there is a third hand.
Think about this: Do we really want our citizens, from college-age forward, to be monitored by the federal government at yet another level?
What exactly is the connection between lowering costs of school, and a performance standard?
It is already reasonably in place that a certain GPA must be kept to qualify for financial assistance. Will there be a change in this? Will more requirements be added?
Nevertheless, what is most frustrating to most Americans and what the same Rolling Stone article went on to say about the president is:
He can give quite a speech. He says just enough of the right things to give pause, and sometimes genuinely seems to be in touch with the pain of the vanishing middle class. He has the appearance, on occasion, of the politician of your dreams – intelligent, forward-thinking, even-keeled, just. You want to believe in him, you really do.
But there is an old saying that says what someone does speaks louder than what they say.
And given that this campaign for tuition-cost reform a) is a distraction from a clear mandate of this administration to eradicate American liberties and squash anyone who impedes the mandate, and b) has the possibility that even within the distraction is more removal of freedoms, it could be concluded that what this administration is aiming to change is the collective existence of a once constitutionally-mandated and -governed people. A free people.
I for one do not believe him. Not for one minute.
See you out there.
Dallas Hyland is an opinion columnist. The opinions stated in this article are his and not representative of St. George News.
Related posts
- ON Kilter: Acting against conscience is not right, not safe
- Perspectives: Governments should fear their people
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Twitter: @dallashyland
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