Saturday, October 18, 2014

Republicans Set To Give Obama Unlimited Power In Wake Of Ebola

     On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to show the American people that they have no clue what to do about the spread of the Ebola virus, held hearings. After the hearing Republican Congressman Tim Murphy told the director of the Center for Disease Control that congress stands ready to give his bureaucracy all the money and authority he needs to battle the Ebola virus. Of course the CDC is part of the executive branch, so whatever is given them by congress is actually given to President Obama.
     There are other Republicans like Rand Paul who said that Ebola is easier to contract than the AIDS virus, further ginning up the hysteria and making it more likely that the CDC and Obama administration will gladly take up Congressman Murphy's generous offer. Senator Paul irresponsibly said that one can contract the Ebola virus at a cocktail party. I am not sure what kind of cocktail parties Mr. Paul attends, but I assume they are the kind where guests go around depositing Ebola infested loggies into each other's drinks. For the rest of us I think we are fairly safe.
     I have been a conservative most of my adult life, and have tried to be fair minded about giving those on my side of the aisle the scrutiny that I give those on the other side. With that spirit in mind I have to question the motivations, more specifically the political motivations, of those I respect in talk radio and elsewhere on the Right, spreading hysteria over the outbreak of Ebola in the United States. I challenge my side by asking if their response would be the same if there were a Republican administration in control and everything else remained static. I have to say in the cleansing light of intellectual honesty that I do not think it would be so.
     Do not mistake my supposition as letting Obama or anyone in his bumbling basket of buffoons off the hook for their very visible incompetence in the handling of this issue. It pains my heart to think that my friends on the Right have taken to politicizing something like Ebola to push an agenda, an agenda that does not need to be surrounded by political gimmickry. The Left must do such things because their ideas and policies do not withstand the winds of truth and reality. But I have always felt that conservative ideas did not need cheap political theatrics to recommend them.
     In the spirit of self-examination, because as Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living," those on the Right spreading panic over Ebola for political gain must then take partial responsibility for the increased government control that results from it. In my opinion those in congress like Mr. Murphy and Mr. Paul, as well as those in talk radio, have played into President Obama's hands.
     Barack Obama, being a votarient of Saul Alinsky, advances his agenda by creating and using crisis to "do things you think you could not do before," as his first Chief of Staff, Rohm Emanuel phrased it when speaking to a group of donors just after the 2008 election. I am sorry to say that many on the Right have become part and parcel to the crisis mentality needed by the president to further "Fundamentality transform America" and sublimate the individual Liberty of the American people.

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