There is no doubt now that Barack Obama is deliberately trying to weaken America and turn the country into a second or third-rate European power. Actually, there never was any doubt about it, from the time he came upon the national scene and ran for President. He campaigned around the world, bashing his own country and denigrating America's historical greatness. But all Obama has done is simply make manifest the "progressive", liberal ideology. Liberals have always viewed America as racist, sexist, homophobic, elitist, and imperialistic (read any college history textbook; I've read plenty), and thus the United States gained its ascendancy in the world, not by hard work and industry, but by robbing, cheating, and exploiting other peoples, including a huge number of its own citizens. A country like that needs to be punished for its historic sins and brought down to a level with the nations it has forthrightly abused.
Barack Obama is the personification of that hate-America philosophy.
Now he has announced a plan to cut the United States military by some hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. Actually, I'm not necessarily opposed to that. I've long been an advocate that the United States, once it finishes in Afghanistan, should bring all its troops home (from Korea, Japan, Europe, and wherever else they are stationed) and mind its own business--"no entangling alliances," as George Washington so succinctly expressed it. The country needs to remain strong enough that, if threatened, it can go kick whoever's butt needs to be kicked--and then return home and let the rest of the world take care of its own affairs, too. The United States is being invaded right now, and the troops who are brought home should be guarding our own borders. But, of course, that's the last thing Obama is going to do.
So, again, trimming the military budget, if done for the right reasons, is not necessarily a bad thing. It isn't surprising, in the least, that the American military has a higher confidence rating among the American people (78%) than Congress (12%). The reason is inherent--protecting property is the one thing that government can do well, and the only thing it should do. As John Locke put it, "Government has no other end than the preservation of property." Thus, given the fact that government is the nationalization of force, military and police action are always the most successful ventures of any government.
But, of course, governments--led by self-anointed leftist, godless "progressives"--have been trying, in the 20th century, to socially engineer, and with very little success (and hundreds of millions of deaths). Oh, government can do some of these things (welfare, urban renewal, education, etc.), but always wastefully, fraudulently, and in ways that engender sloth and vice (and--lo and behold--dependence upon government!). When government redistributes property rather than protects it, it does two things--it discourages people from becoming productive property owners, and it provides no incentive for lazy, covetous people to become productive. The American Founders set it up exactly right--government will protect the property of the industrious, frugal, and virtuous, and give nothing (welfare) to the slovenly and lazy (churches, families, and charitable organizations were to take care of the truly needy poor). We want industrious people in a society, not lazy, immoral bums. Productive, virtuous people become wealthy, or at least able to take care of themselves, and thus with little need for government. These productive people thus become the envy of those who don't have the same ability, drive, and talent as they do. It's easier to complain about the "rich" than to go through the hard work necessary to become one, and it's a whole lot easier to vote for a politician who will steal from the rich and give their money to the lazy and indolent. And the latter is what gives "progressive" politicians power. The person who recently commented on this site about the feminist movement being the worst thing that ever happened to America was a little bit off. As bad as feminism is, the worst mistake the country ever made was giving the vote to non-property owners, because they have used that vote to take money from the productive and redistribute it to the non-productive. The Democratic Party today is, of course, the party of the non-productive wealth stealers (along with immoral haters of Christianity, and the two go hand-in-hand). And the Democrats--the "progressives"--have done a marvelous job in convincing people that the rich have gotten rich by stealing from the poor and thus to redistribute that income is only giving it back to its rigthtful owners. The "widening income gap" is always presented negatively; "oh, no, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer." That's Marxism 101 because it implies that the rich are robbing the poor.
Well, I say that if the rich are getting richer because they are working hard and providing goods and services that people want (which is the only way, ultimately, to get rich), and the poor are getting poorer because they are sitting around on their lazy butts not doing anything, then the rich ought to be getting richer, and the poor ought to be getting poorer.
Float that truth around the country and watch the reaction.
Barack Obama is almost sure to win re-election. I'm not convinced there are enough decent people left in America to elect a decent person. Plus, it is now clear that, barring a major gaffe by Mitt Romney, he will be the Republican presidential nominee, and there's not enough contrast between he and Obama to warrant a change in leadership (to most Americans). Any Republican who could win a statewide election in the People's Republic of Massachusetts isn't going to have the fortitude or ideology necessary to do what the country needs. But then--and again--I don't know if there are enough virtuous people left in the United States to elect the kind of leader who can do what needs to be done. California is becoming us. It may be over for America. Obama and the Democrats will have America looking like Europe before long. That's their goal.
After all, America needs punishing for its historic sins.