Will time show Obama to be the most divisive and damaging president in history?

President Jefferson had a vision of expanding America, President Lincoln fought to preserve the union and end slavery, President Kennedy took us to the moon. President Obama takes us to the drug store for free pills.

Even as he enters his second term with a small majority of popular votes our President continues his rhetoric of blame the other guy, they are wrong, I’m right and if you disagree you are an obstructionist. At every opportunity he adds to the toxic partisanship that has plagued us for years. His inaugural speech left no opening for compromise or consideration of another point of view.

Whatever happened to

“an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

from Barack Obama’s first inauguration?

False promises are those politicians make that pander to segments of society, but fail to materialize because they are underfunded, fundamentally flawed or take from others in society. False promises seem to be on the rise.

Can every position of the opposition be wrong just because it does not fit a single-minded ideology? Have we redefined compromise to mean, I’ll agree to doing it my way?

His refusal to seriously recognize the long-term fiscal issues we face in favor of targeting the “wealthy” is telling. Mr Obama likes to play on the popular, inaccurate beliefs held by average Americans in his efforts to change society. That change appears to include more government programs that lead to more dependence, more spending and more taxes. All this is a curious goal at a time when we are realizing that programs put in place decades ago are underfunded and adversely affected by demographics and Congressional tinkering over the years; programs that were intended to supplement, to provide a safety net, but have become a “right,” a necessity, an entitlement.

We are made to feel not uplifted and ready to meet the challenges of the times, but victimized by one villain or another; insurance companies, Wall Street, banks, Republicans, some governors, health care providers and let us not forget the wealthy or more accurately any financially successful American.

The cruel hoax is that while claiming to fight for the middle class, poor and elderly Mr Obama gives more and more reasons for not helping ones self and in the process shutting the door on new opportunity. Americans wait anxiously for the next “free” benefit or undefined “affordable” promise, but are conditioned to avoid asking how this is paid for; what are the true costs.

Whatever happened to hard work, sacrifice, initiative, drive and all the values that past generations used to better themselves and their families and in the process their country?

The inconvenient truth (to borrow a phrase) is that many individuals find solace in a subsistence based on a subsidized lifestyle. To some people (and perhaps a growing number) rising above mediocrity is not worth the effort. The risk is that government programs have the unintended consequence of increasing the number of individuals willing to take this road.

“I am for doing good to the poor, but…I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed…that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.” Benjamin Franklin

Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you.

Do I have that right? Even Jack Kennedy the liberal would not recognize where America is headed.

Noble goals of ending poverty and assuring a robust middle class with unbridled opportunity cannot be legislated. You must bounce off the bounds of a safety net, not become entangled within. Our President talks about a web of programs and promises that cannot help but lower personal responsibility and initiative. Opportunity is not dead, it is there as it always has been for those who rise to meet the challenge, take the risk and welcome the effort. The challenge, risk and effort may be vastly different from the previous century, but that only means we must change, not give up or look for scapegoats to explain our condition.

Fifty-one years ago another president set us on a path for major achievement. He tested our will, our skills and imagination. Today our major goals are free abortions, gay marriage and mandated health coverage as “dependents” for children who are married, employed and self-sufficient.

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. – JFK Rice Speech 1962

I refuse to believe that the American dream is dead. We need a President who also believes that and is willing to work to prove it rather than move us toward a society where the majority is dependent on the success of the minority.

July 4, 1894