Around the Corner

I have not been able to watch the news as much as I like in the past week as we were working hard to get BiGWand.net launched. However, I did hear there was controversy over President Obama’s speech at the commencement at Ohio State University. So, I found the transcript to read the entire speech for myself.

It is a powerful speech about citizenship. He talks about making this a non-partisan speech, but still took a couple of jabs at conservative thought. But for the most part, his words were eloquent and encouraging.

Then he said,

“Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.”

For a leader, especially the President of the United States, to discourage Americans from questioning government control and those who serve them is frightening. For a leader, especially the President of the Untied States, to say that those who question government are suggesting that our “brave and creative and unique experiment in self rule is just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.” is dishonest at best, incredibly divisive, and flat out dangerous.

Our founders, and all of those who gave their life in the Revolutionary War so we would enjoy the freedoms stated in our Constitution, made provisions so our public servants would not turn into tyrants. They brilliantly crafted our founding documents so their intentions for Americans in the 21^st Century would be clear - it is okay to question government, especially if those who swore to serve the people of the United States lose sight of their oath. They created a government whose leaders have checks and balances in order to hold them accountable by the people they serve. They created a limited government for a reason – to avoid a tyrannical government from ever coming to power on American soil again.

This statement by President Obama became personal in those four short sentences. A man, who is supposed to be my President too, encouraged everyone to ignore me.

You see, I taught history in middle school many years ago. I taught about how World War II came to pass. I taught about tyrannical leaders like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.

Why?

Because we should always be aware that tyranny is lurking around the corner.