Today's discussions...

Continuing with my last post...

I talked more with my anti-Obama friend today. He didn't care for my thoughts concerning his views on Obama, because he feels that at no time in our nation's past have we ever been at a greater "crossroads" than we are right now.

My response? "Bull$#!t"

What could possibly compare in today's political environment to the divisions facing the United States of America in 1861? No one in the Tea Party movement is taking up arms and seperating from the Union. No one is enlisting in armies that are camped and poised to invade the neighboring State simply because they voted for Obama as President. Yet he feels the differences between those advocating "individual" and "State" rights are as polar-opposite to those advocating stronger, more intrusive Federal government than they have ever been since at least 1789.

"Okay," he says, "What about the bias in the media today? It has never been this bad before, has it?"

Really? Surely, Harry Truman would say it was. His entire re-election campaign was smeared top tp bottom by the "mainstream media" for the entire year running up to the election... even going so far as the "guaranty" the election of Dewey as the next GOP President of the United States fully 12 hours AFTER Truman had won BOTH the popular and electoral votes... soundly, I might add.

"Well," he continues, "When have we ever seen a President so hell-bent on changing America into something it was never meant to be? No President has done more to ignore or destroy the Constitutional fabric than Obama has!"

Forgetting Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, ignoring Jackson's Indian Removal Act, and ignoring much of what Lincoln did in his first term of office... let's look only at Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson. Johnson presided over a government where eleven out of 36 States were utterly unrepresented in Government, and vetoed any moderate attempts to change that situation. No other President (including Lincoln) can boast as non-representative a government as Johnson can. As his reconstruction plans began to unravel (very early and very rapidly) he vetoed moderate attempts to keep the "black codes" out of Southern military governorships, and the beginnings of institutional segregation in the South was born. 100 years of second-class citizenship would be the "norm" for blacks in 13 States as a direct result of Johnson's Presidential actions. Even Obama can't boast that kind of "reform", can he?

One can bitch and complain all they want... and I often do... but we are not at a point in our nation's history where we can say "This is as bad as it has ever been!" Isn't that something to be thankful for, all by itself?