The “fast and furious” scandal involving Obama and his attorney general is an example of Big Government gone bad.
The scandal centers on a federal policy of “gunwalking” that began in 2006, first during the George W. Bush administration and later dramatically escalated during the Obama administration.
“Gunwalking” or “letting guns walk” was a tactic whereby the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) knowingly allowed thousands of guns to be bought by suspected arms traffickers (“gunrunners”) working through straw purchasers on behalf of Mexican drug cartels. The stated goal of allowing these purchases was to continue to track the firearms as they were transferred to higher-level traffickers and key figures in Mexican cartels, in theory leading to their arrests and the dismantling of the cartels.
This is dangerous stuff. But such a policy presupposes that government should be engaged in the War on Drugs in the first place.
Should government be making it a crime for people to use or abuse drugs? If so, then gunwalking—or whatever else the BATF deems necessary—arguably makes a lot of sense.
If it’s truly the job of our Big Government Nanny State to keep people from inhaling, smoking or drinking substances which the government does not wish them to inhale, smoke or drink, then it makes sense to pull out all the guns—literally, in this case—to stop people from doing what we all know they’re going to keep doing anyway.
At the moment, Republicans and Democrats are engaged in a partisan struggle over Obama’s refusal to release documents relevant to the government’s gunwalking activity which led to the death of at least one federal border patrol officer in a tragic incident.
But notice how there is NO struggle over whether government should be involved in regulating people’s personal habits—admirable or not, addictive or not—in the first place.
Is there anyone who would actually claim that the decades-old “War on Drugs” is anything close to a success? It has cost billions of federal dollars and no doubt many lives…to achieve what end, exactly? There are just as many people using or abusing drugs as ever before.
So why are a majority of us permitting the federal government to risk lives and place resources into breaking up gangs and cartels in Mexico? To make America a drug-free country? It’s too absurd to even be laughable!
Congress should initiate a principled debate on why we even have a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in the first place. Unfortunately, neither Republicans nor Democrats would ever consider it. It’s because they agree on all the things that really matter. Liberty is not what they’re after.
Is Obama’s attorney general a creep, and does he deserve to be brought down? I don’t doubt it. But you have to be FOR something more than you’re against something. This is why Republicans have lost most political struggles, and when they do win it rarely matters. People ask me if I’m a Republican and my usual reply is, “I honestly have no idea what a Republican is.”
That aside, it is good to see Obama and his administration finally be held responsible for something. After nearly four years, the country is just as bad or worse off than before. Our allies don’t respect us; the Middle East is quite literally on fire; nuclear war could begin any day between Iran and Israel; the American economy is stagnating if not tanking; and medical care as well as other important enterprises of American society are facing imminent nationalization.
In poll after poll, the vast majority of Americans see things as horrendously off track, yet a majority still do not blame Obama for any of it. To me, this suggests a mental disorder even more serious than drug addiction.
What makes the “fast and furious” scandal interesting is watching Obama actually be held accountable for something that he did, or may have done, wrong during his administration. It’s as if for the very first time in nearly four years: He’s the President.
Obama’s reaction shows how he’s really no different from the Big Government-dependent constituents upon whose weakness and misfortune he clings to power. Like a petulant child, he’s invoking executive privilege. “I don’t have to show you I’m obeying the law if I don’t want to.” You go for it, Barack! You don’t answer to nobody!
President Nixon did something quite similar many decades ago. The socialist liberal Establishment had his head on a platter. Obama, the prince of the socialist liberal Establishment, will not face that level of pressure, but he will face some. And it will make him real, real annoyed, because he’s clearly not used to it.
It’s fun to watch Obama and his comrades endure their self-imposed suffering. But it would be a lot more fun to see a real debate about introducing actual liberty and individual rights into this society.
