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Just as I Predicted
by Sean Gangol
[email protected]

Special to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise

Not too long after Obama's inauguration in 2009, I wrote an article titled "The Age of Obama" where I predicted that Obama's so-called stimulus plan would not only become an utter failure, but it would actually prolong the economic crisis that we were in. I also predicted that Obama would find another conflict to intervene with military force so that he could distract the public from all the economic problems that we would be facing. In that same article I also predicted that the subsidiaries given to so-called green companies would not create jobs like Obama promised, but instead become a series of black holes that would devour our tax dollars.

I think it's pretty safe to say that I have been right about the stimulus with unemployment staying close to ten percent (I think it's actually higher then that). I know that many Keysian economists would complain about the government not spending enough in the last stimulus. Since they can never give an exact number of what "enough" is, I have as much regard for Keysian economics as I do for creation science.

With Obama's intervention into the Libyan civil war, I was proven right about him finding a way to distract the public from our current economic problems. Even though the Lybian conflict wasn't on the same scale as FDR using the Second World War as a distraction from The Great Depression, I do believe that Obama had the same intentions. I also had a feeling that by now our Noble Peace Prize winning president would still have troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq. I know that many troops from those regions have been withdrawn, but until I see the rest of the troops on a one way transport back to America, I will consider this gesture as empty as anything else that Obama has promised.

I was also proven right about the so-called green jobs that would be created when more tax dollars would be invested in green energy after the Solyndra scandal broke. I also have a feeling that the Solyndra scandal is only the tip off the iceberg. It really shouldn't have come as a surprise to anybody, since the same green energy schemes were attempted during the Carter administration and had the same results.

Though I never wrote about it, I did have a sneaking suspicion that Obama was going to pull some stunt like capturing or killing Bin Laden in order to booster his sinking approval rating. Once again, I was proven right. When I heard that Bin Laden had been killed by a team of Navy Seals, I had mixed reactions to it. There was part of me that was glad to see that vile creature taken off the face of the earth. Then there was part of me that seemed bothered by the whole plot. The intention of the Seal Team was to assassinate Bin Laden instead of capturing him, which tramples on the American idea of Due Process. People roll their eyes whenever this is brought up, but I just don't like the idea of the president having the power to a have anybody assassinated at will.

Keep in mind that I used to support the idea of assassinating any enemy that was a threat to the United States. That was back during my Neo-libertarian days, when I also supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would later change my views about having enemies assassinated, when I realized that it requires somebody to have absolute power to make such a decision. As they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Once again it all boils down to that pesky slippery slope. If the president has the power to assassinate any individual that he feels is an enemy to the state, what makes you think he will stop with foreign enemies? He could just as easily declare the leaders of the Tea Parties or the ACLU as enemies of the state and have them assassinated. This actually brings me to my last prediction.

Not too long ago, Obama had ordered the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, an Al-Qaeda mastermind. What was even worse about this case is that al-Awlaki was an American citizen, so he should have been tried in US courts. For those who say that the man was a terrorist and didn't deserve any form of Due Process, I say this: don't come crying to me if you end up on the president's hit list because he thinks you have too many guns and spend too much time bad mouthing the government. I knew it was only a matter of time before an America citizen were assassinated in the name of fighting terror.

The sad part about my predictions is that I can't take much comfort in them coming true. All the worst things that I have predicted have come true. It makes me feel like Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, when he sees the T-Rex breaking out of its cage. He realizes that his earlier rants against the idea of holding dinosaurs in captivity were actually being supported by the current situation. He then says "I hate being right." That is exactly how I feel about our current situation. I just hope that I am proven wrong about my predictions that haven't yet come to pass.

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