Wednesday, November 7, 2012

What Does it Mean?

In the wake of yesterday's election, a few thoughts:

The American people have spoken and have chosen Mr. Obama to serve as our president for another four years. What does that portend for us as a people and as a nation? There's no way to know for sure, of course, but here are a few conclusions that I think we can draw, or probably draw, from Mr. Obama's reelection.

In my opinion, yesterday's vote tells us that:
  • we will continue to amass more and more debt and pay higher and higher taxes to service that debt and our children will find themselves crushed under its weight.
  • the value of our money will diminish as the fed prints currency to try to service the debt which means that we'll be able to buy less, perhaps much less, with our paychecks in the coming years.
  • the welfare state will grow apace. Those who pull the wagon will be expected to do more for the increasing number of people who'll be riding in it.
  • as part of Mr. Obama's vendetta against fossil fuel the coal, oil, and natural gas industries will be regulated out of business, or, at the least, will be forced to curtail production and undergo massive layoffs, and we will grow increasingly dependent upon foreign sources for our energy needs.
  • business in general is going to be more heavily regulated and taxed and will thus produce fewer jobs and more expensive products.
  • the Supreme Court will probably be dominated by far left progressives for at least a generation.
  • our military will be significantly weakened and rendered less effective.
  • Israel will probably have to face a nuclear Iran by themselves.
  • government assaults on both the first and second amendment of the Constitution will probably continue.
  • young people will find it increasingly hard to secure good jobs and the elderly will find it increasingly hard to get good medical care.
  • as a nation we have chosen to reelect perhaps the most divisive president we've ever had, a man who rewards his fat cat donors with billions in taxpayer money and who, in his own words, sees political opponents as "enemies" who need to be "punished" and upon whom his supporters should seek "revenge."
  • we are ourselves more divided than ever between people who are apparently indifferent to all of the above and people who are deeply concerned about it. We are also probably more polarized along racial lines than at any time since the 1970s and more polarized along ideological lines than at any time in our history.
All in all, it's a very sad day for America, or at least for those Americans who believe the course Mr. Obama has plotted for the country is taking us toward national senescence.