Sorry Mr. President: 

It's More Than a Healthy Difference of Opinion!

Just the other day, our newly elected President Obama, made the bizarre statement that the anger he is hearing from individuals across America and the disapproving statements emanating from some in Congress against the recent "Economic Stimulus Bill" is not really an issue. According to our President, "It's only a healthy difference of opinion."

To that I say, hogwash. Healthy (but unimportant) differences of opinion? These are serious questions: Economic Stimulus or a Bankrupting de-Stimulus? Wise investment or disastrous debt? New Deal or Raw Deal? Prudent planning or central planning? Nationalization or free-enterprise? Socialism or capitalism? Transparency or Chicago politics? Promises kept or promises broken? Inspiring leadership or blatant power-grabbing? Shall I go on?

These contrasts are not just differences of opinion, but foundational distinctions between honesty and deception, between freedom and tyranny, between the rule of law and the law of raw power. Yes, between good and evil. I am embarrassed and angered at this naked expansion of government and the Obama promise that this "mammoth package is just the beginning"

No, my friends. We are beyond simple differences of opinion. We're into core values, to matters of conviction of principle and philosophy. We're into those things that force grown men to the point where they are compelled to say "Enough is enough" and to draw the line, to stand up or risk being untrue to themselves and their families.

I have longed and prayed that this President would indeed bring some good change, the kind that could bring us closer together as a nation. The kind that would produce leadership marked with reason, wisdom and prudence. The kind that would strengthen the candle of freedom and restore the moral strength that marks the America we all love. But, act after act, decision after decision, and arrogant comment after arrogant comment has erased all hope for any "good" change, and this in just a matter of weeks.

And what convinced me beyond all doubt of the change intended by our Commander in Chief were his carefully chosen comments this past Thursday. It was Lincoln's birthday – a day to celebrate the birth of a loved President. Obama used the occasion to appropriate the image of our 16th President to himself and to shamelessly compare his unconstitutional move into socialism to the ending of slavery and the uniting of a divided nation. As bad as this was, our President blatantly reached back to our Founding Fathers seeking to ascribe to himself the remembrance of those who were willing to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for our Constitution and for our freedom. When the Constitution was ratified, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what we now had. His comment: "you now have a republic, if you can keep it." Franklin's inspiring words of warning were surgically lifted by our President and fraudulently applied to himself in justification of the Stimulus Plan. As I heard him say, "my actions on this stimulus plan are necessary to preserve our republic!" I could just hear Franklin and Jefferson and the others scream out from the grave.

When I heard this statement I became utterly convinced that we are not watching a man who is still seeking truth with whom we should give the benefit of the doubt. No, I am left with the firm conclusion that we are watching an intelligent, strategic, and miss-directed man. A man focused on himself. A man who is willing to re-define the most holy and sacred concepts of freedom and liberty to justify the most unholy and most enslaving actions that marked the very tyranny that our Founders opposed. This shouts out to me, and I hope to you, the reasons we must look for opportunities to "draw the line" and to "stand up".   

More to you later on how.  Feel free to get back to me with how you feel we can best "Stand Up."

For the Cause of Liberty,

State Representative Sam Rohrer

District 128 – Berks County