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Handshake raises troubling questions By Michael C. Guilmette Jr. Originally published on April 23, 2009, in the Connersville News-Examiner. Two leaders met and shook hands — one, leading the world’s most powerful and influential democracy, and the other, an emerging dictator incrementally enslaving his people and threatening his neighbors.
In fact, this meeting has happened twice — last weekend, between President Barack Obama and Venezuela’s budding socialist dictator Hugo Chavez, and in September 1938, between British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the murderous Adolf Hitler. Granted, these leaders met for different reasons and under different circumstances. Chavez introduced himself to Obama in an opportunistic meeting at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad while Chamberlain met with Hitler — as well as Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini — for the express purpose of carving up Czechoslovakia. Chavez eagerly took the occasion to shake the new president’s hand in front of the camera, resulting in a propaganda coup he can use to imply Obama’s support for the sweeping changes he is imposing in his Latin American country. Obama was predictably dismissive of the criticism of the meeting. “Its defense budget is probably 1/600th of the U.S.,” he said on Monday. "They own Citgo. It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States." Mr. President, you missed the point altogether. Chavez may not represent a strategic or security risk to the people of the United States, but he certainly represents a risk to the people of Venezuela — a risk to their freedom. Chavez has systematically dismantled his country’s democracy in order to install his model of a socialist government. He has jailed political opponents, shut down opposition media and he has even been accused of tampering with elections to get the results he wants. For all of Obama’s talk about fixing the world economic crisis or fighting global warming for the good of the planet, he doesn’t seem to be all that interested in protecting the freedom of anyone outside the U.S. It makes me wonder just how much Obama cares for the freedoms of people in the U.S. Let’s consider what is happening under his watch: • First, the move on the banks. Even as more and more banks attempt to pay back bailout funds in an attempt to get out from under government control, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is resisting this move, instead telling Congress a “stress test” will need to be applied to each bank to allow government regulators to determine if a bank can survive on its own. The logic may be sound on the surface, but this may be a convenient way to continue to keep government’s meddling fingers in the banks’ business — and by extension, ours as well. • Next, Obama’s “cap and trade” proposal to combat alleged climate change would result in further regulation on business, higher taxes on the most productive and plentiful sources of energy in favor of unproven or inefficient “green” energy sources and, most importantly, significantly higher energy bills and possibly even government-mandated energy rationing via the so-called “smart” power meters. • More recently, the Department of Homeland Security under Janet Napolitano produced a report broadly defining right-wing extremists to include anyone who opposes the federal government. The report, which also impugned returning war veterans as potential threats, was released on April 7, a week before the wildly successful Tea parties and could be construed anyone who attended the rallies to peaceably protest rising taxes and federal bailouts. • Just this week on March 21, FoxNews.com reported Congress has introduced the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, a bill that would “give the U.S. government authority over all networks considered part of the nation’s critical infrastructure” and would allow the president to shut down the Internet in the event of a cyber attack. Again, measures like this may sound reasonable on the surface, but given the intricacies of the Internet and the unpredictable way users find things popular and flood portions of the Web with traffic, the government may use a broad parameters to define a cyber attack. Obama’s rhetoric itself lacks reference to individual freedom, instead focusing on words like “shared sacrifice,” and his followers are eagerly falling in line. For example, the public frenzy about taking steps to do something is so insidious that the global warming faithful are saying we will all need to drastically cut back our power usage, which will also mean drastically altering our lifestyles. The opposition to last week’s Tea parties was especially vitriolic considering the rallies were the result of simple grassroots movements. Detractors claimed the rallies were back be rich Republican interests and called the protesters ingrates for daring to be against excessive taxation — not to mention the thinly-veiled sexual references espoused by left-wing cable news anchors. Obama’s ultimate goals are anyone’s guess, but the signs thus far are troubling. Chamberlain signed on to the Munich Agreement with Hitler in the hope of achieving “peace in our time,” and Obama said he was simply being polite when he greeted Chavez. However, Hitler ultimately ignored the agreement, condemning Chamberlain to be considered an appeaser because his pursuit of peace at any cost blinded him to threat Hitler represented. If Obama’s pursuit of creating a fairer society and placating our enemies blinds him to the dangers to freedom Chavez and those like him represent, history may remember too in less than favorable light. • Guilmette is managing editor of the News-Examiner. He may be contacted at mguilmette@newsexaminer.com. |
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Copyright © 2009, Michael C. Guilmette Jr. |
The leaders’ meeting was widely hailed in the media, both for who the leaders are and what their meeting represents.
