Loyal Opposition

Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI)

Rep Eric Cantor (R-Va)

Senator Ron Paul (R-Ky)

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas)

Private Bradley Manning

"As Michael Ignatieff, a former leader of the loyal opposition in the Canadian House of Commons, said in a 2012 address at Stanford University: "The opposition performs an adversarial function critical to democracy itself... Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

--Wikipedia

For Senator Joseph McCarthy, traitors were everywhere in the federal government. He could not find them, but he knew they were there or China would never have gone Communist, and the Soviet Union would never have gained dominance in eastern Europe.  Traitors, disloyal citizens, who took their marching orders from Joseph Stalin and the Soviet communists had to be doing their dirty work and that is what explained every ill which beset America of the 1950's.

For today's unappetizing Republicans, Cantor, Cruz, Paul, we have the same sort of mentality--name a problem and you will find some free spending liberal, determined to unbalance the budget, blow the deficit up to monumental proportions, at the root of that problem. They only occasionally question the loyalty of their Democratic Party opponents, but they suggest the outcome is the same. The Democrats may or may not be intending to inflict lethal blows to this country, but they are inflicting those blows intentionally or not, so the outcome is the same. In an outcome analysis, the Democrats are as pernicious and dangerous to the National health as any traitor could be. So the Republicans simply refuse to participate in any government which has two parties. The Republicans simply refuse to have a democracy, which depends, at the bottom line, on compromise.

What is perplexing is the attitude of the Obama administration toward Private Bradley Manning, whom it has labeled as a "traitor." That is a strong word, coming from a party which says it believes in hearing both sides, believes in compromise and open discussion. To say the release of embarrassing documents is treason makes one wonder how different Mr. Obama is from Mr. Bush in this area.

Of course, as a member of the United States Army, Private Bradley should have understood he was living not in a democracy but in a hierarchical dictatorship--you give up rights when you enter the military. You follow orders, play by the rules. But to compare Private Bradley to General Benedict Arnold, who actually left the forces of the United States and joined the opposing Army strikes The Phantom as a bit of pique on Mr. Obama's part. He embarrassed me, therefore he committed treason.

Come again?

President Obama would do well to look at those creeps who undermine him on the Republican side of the aisle and be sure when he acts, he takes pains to avoid doing anything of which  they might approve. He should not ask, "What would Jesus do?" He should ask, "What would Ted Cruz do?" And then he should do exactly the opposite.