If you aren’t offended by it, you aren’t paying attention.
Finally, at least one small token gesture of respect for our Constitution. A Congressman actually had the guts and the sense of honor needed to walk out of Obama’s State of the Union address, where the President announced, in effect, that he was scorning the separation of powers in the government, and arrogating an absolute monarchy to himself.
Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) said Tuesday night that he left President Obama’s State of the Union speech early after “hearing how the president is further abusing his Constitutional powers.”
“I could not bear to watch as he continued to cross the clearly-defined boundaries of the Constitutional separation of powers,” Stockman said in a press release shortly after Obama’s speech ended. “Needless to say, I am deeply disappointed in the tone and content of tonight’s address.”
Stockman said Obama was promising to “break his oath of office and begin enacting his own brand of law through executive decree.”
“This is a wholesale violation of his oath of office and a disqualifying offense,” the Texas congressman said.
Stockman also criticized Obama for refusing to admit “his policies have failed,” and for advancing a plan for more taxes and spending that is a “blueprint for perpetual poverty.”
Other Republican members had similar reactions to Obama’s promise to do by executive order what he can’t get done legislatively in Congress.
“Unfortunately, what I heard from President Obama tonight was hostility toward our foundational principles, condescension toward a co-equal branch of government, and a general aversion to common sense and bipartisanship,” Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) said in a press release.
“The president’s attempt to intimidate Congress by abusing executive power demonstrates a serious unwillingness to work with the coequal legislative branch of government,” Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) said in a statement.
And here is a comment from the brilliant and cogent Matt Walsh:
Last week, if you tuned into the Grammys, you were treated to a gaudy spectacle of pretentious elitists, wealthy drug addicts and godless Satanists patting each other on the back and congratulating themselves for another year spent dumping toxic waste directly into America’s soul.
If you watched the State of the Union address tonight, you saw the exact same sort of thing all over again. Except with less dancing. And more clothing (thank God).
America, I know you are bored by the State of the Union Address. It’s long, pointless, bland, and utterly hollow. The rhetoric is stale and the pageantry overwrought. Yes, you ought to be bored. But do you realize how insulted you should be?
[…] Jefferson thought an oral speech had “kingly” undertones, and too closely resembled a monarch dictating from his throne. For the next century, every other president followed suit.
It’s only in recent times that the State of the Union has become this sickening pageant of Washingtonian self-worship.
If you aren’t offended by it, you aren’t paying attention.
I’ve felt this way for a while, but never have my feelings been more pronounced than tonight. President Obama — after a year chock full o’ scandals, corruption, ineptitude, and failure — made his WWE-style entrance into the House chamber. He shook hands with the sycophants crowding the aisle, and soaked in the glow of a thunderous, fantastically undeserved applause.
Then he stood before them and lied, and they applauded. And he cited dozens of clichéd and fabricated anecdotes, and they applauded. And he repeated promises he’s already broken 5 times (example: “this needs to be the year we… close Guantanamo Bay!”), and they applauded. And he made plainly absurd statements about imaginary “gender wage gaps,” and they applauded. And he constructed fallacious straw men, and they applauded.
The State of the Union Address was indistinguishable from something you’d hear at a DNC convention.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
