Antiwar.com
editor Justin
Raimondo will be wearing "all black to mourn the victims of
Obama's wars, and the death of our old republic" Inauguration
Day, 2009: A Day of Mourning. Just when "the death of our old
republic" occurred is open to debate, but we all agree that it is
dead.
Gore
Vidal gave us a date, February 27, 1947, when "Harry Truman
replaced the old republic with a national-security state whose sole
purpose is to wage perpetual wars, hot, cold, and tepid." Others,
like Laurence
M. Vance, suggest the date might go back as far as 1787 Is
Our Government Legitimate? Many of us would agree that the War
of Northern Aggression serves as a convenient marker.
The
American Lenin, pictured behind the next occupant of the White
House, was born 200 years ago, and the media are already congratulating
us on how far we've come, what progress we've made, whose dreams
are being realized, etc. This is not to diminish the fact that America,
the least racist country in the world, has been given the chance
to show the world, and herself, her true colors.
But what's
missing is how little has changed and how much has remained the
same since 1865, aside from the brief periods of light that were
the nonconsecutive presidencies of the great Grover
Cleveland, the "committed isolationist" who "opposed imperialism,
taxes, corruption, patronage, subsidies and inflationary policies,
while adhering to the principles of classical liberalism."
You don't
need me to recount the many comparisons between Barack
Obama and Abraham Lincoln. I just ask, will the former abolish
Habeas Corpus as
did the latter? Will the former imprison opponents to his wars,
as did the latter, and war presidents in between like the other
one to whom he is also often compared? Will he be, as Lincoln-scholar
Thomas J.
DiLorenzo asks, Abraham
Delano Messiah Obama?
It seems evident
that with "the death of our old republic" we need a new anthem.
Here's one possible suggestion, borrowing a rousing tune that many
of you may already be familiar with:
Unbreakable
union of one-time free states
Northern Aggression welded forever by fate!
The Fourteenth Amendment created it by writ
Unitary and intrusive, our centralized State!
CHORUS:
Sing to the Homeland, and its National Security,
Republicrats and Demoblicans in duopoly strong!
Both parties of Lincoln! The strength of the State.
To Keynesianism’s triumph lead us on!
Through
tempests the sunrays have broken through
Despite the new path where imperial presidents now ruled!
To the imperial cause they launched foreign wars
Trained cannon fodder in government schools!
CHORUS
In
the victory of Cultural Marxism’s satanic ideal,
We see the future of our dear lands
And with the shreds of our spangled banner,
in mournful prayer we fold our hands!
CHORUS
January
21, 2009
An American
Catholic son-in-law of Korea, Joshua Snyder [send
him mail] lives with his wife and two children in Pohang, where
he serves as an assistant visiting professor of English at a science
and technology university. He blogs at The
Western Confucian.