My Recent Rants Explained

I saw BAR the other day, an he noted that I've been pretty down on Obama's campaign slogan/chant, "Yes we can!"

This I acknowledged but explained my reasons.

For one, it's purely a psychological/crowd pandering tool. It's like the "wave" at a football game.

Also, it's too general. We can what?

Let's push the clock back seventy years and head on over to Germany. Imagine Hitler asking his pumped-up crowd: "Und can vee solve der problem mit der Juden?" (This is my half-German, half-phonetically English-with-a-German-accent way of saying, "And can we solve the Jewish problem?"

Or Osama bin Laden asks his Al-Qaeda lieutenants, "Can we hurt the Americans?"

Both the Nazi masses and Islamo-fascists would respond, "Yes we can."

This is not to say that Obama supporters are Nazis or Islamo-fascists. It's to say that Obama's slogan is as useful to the evil as it is to the good.

I've never liked simple slogans. What if I lived according to Nike's "Just do it"? I'd have a dozen sexual harassment suits against me; I'd be in jail for punching out several jerks; and more likely than not I'd have shoplifting charges against me.

When the founding fathers waged war against the British empire, many chose the slogan "Don't tread on me."

This is a great slogan, for it cannot be misconstrued. Simply put, it means that the bearers of the slogan are not to be trampled upon. They are free men who will exercise and defend their liberties.

Patrick Henry created the motto, "Liberty or death." Again, this is short but chaste. It cannot be chanted sincerely by evil men.

"Yes we can," however is, at its essence, the motto of every tyrant who ever lived. Tyrants are also called dictators, from the Latin dictare, the infinitive of the verb "say." Whatever a dictator says is what goes. Therefore, if a tyrant/dictator says, "Yes we can," then damn it he intends that it will be done, no matter how many bodies need to fall in his wake.

When Obama has his minions chant, "Yes we can!" the real questions being asked are as follows:

1.) Can we utilize government's coercive powers beyond their constitutional limits?

(Yes we can!)

2.) Can we end the system of property rights as we know it?

(Yes we can!)

3.) Can we turn what was once a simple republic into a socialist republic?

(Yes we can!)

4.) Can we take steps to make things worse and, at the same time, make the masses excited about it?

(Yes we can!)