What a difference a Marxist makes.

By Russ Cote

The hypocrisy isn’t new. The equation of terrorism to talk radio isn’t new. What seems new is an increasingly disturbing sense of entitlement amongst, mostly, Democratic lawmakers. The genesis of this sense of entitlement is beyond the scope of this article, but it seems to me to be a combination of the general leftward shift in political class thinking toward soft tyranny and the election of Barack Obama. I’m not saying Obama is to blame-lord knows Harry Reid, Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank would assume the throne if given the chance-but his election provides the cover, even if largely imaginary, for leftist politicians at every level to more freely assert their deeply held contempt for the American proletariat and belief that their elected offices shroud them with an aura of imperviousness.

This is not America. Our predecessors fought two wars against the British throne so the people of America would never again toil under the anvil of despots. Within Speaker Bass’ comments lies a total denunciation of this principle. Contrary to the western ideal of transitory, elected citizen-legislators, Ms. Bass believes that her job is sacred; if not by reasons of heredity or the divine, hers and hers alone nonetheless. Never mind the obvious and egregiously dishonest attempt by Ms. Bass to mischaracterize California’s desperate attempts to reverse decades of liberal policy that resulted in its economic collapse as a “vote for revenue”, her words exhibit a belief that opposing viewpoints amount to terrorism against her office.

It wasn’t too long ago that dissent was considered, by liberals who equated George Bush with Hitler, to be the highest form of patriotism. Bumper stickers telling us so were proudly displayed on the Priuses and Smart cars of future Obama voters. Liberals channeled the soul of Patrick Henry while literally cheering for our enemies and vilifying our military as they fought and died for their right to do so. What a difference a Marxist in the White House makes.

Too harsh? If anyone out there has even a plausible alternative explanation as to why, now, just eight or so months removed from the Bush administration, democratic lawmakers and liberals consider talk-radio and the general disgust with trillions in wasteful spending and proposed government takeovers to be, not patriotic, but “rooting against the country”,I’d love to hear it.

The sad fact is that it is now nearly beyond reproach that a small but powerful group of leftists have a completely different conception in mind for the America of the future than that which was contemplated by the Founding generation. Their America is one run almost entirely from a central bureaucracy, many miles away from you and your family. It is single-payer health care, where choice and competition no longer exist and care deteriorates. It is a regulatory state so complete as to make “capitalism” a quaint economic theory of a bygone age, despite two hundred years of unbridled success and hundreds of millions of the most desperate among us elevated from poverty. It is a soft tyranny wherein dissenters to the official agenda are branded “terrorists” and wherein a disgraced judge can introduce legislation allocating hundreds of millions of dollars to the executive to “categorize political opponents as hate groups and even send Americans to detention centers on abandoned military bases.”

What a difference, indeed.