How dangerous is Obama?

This was a fortuitous choice of posts in view of the immediately preceding posts of The Curmudgeon Emeritus and Leonidas.
Neo-Neocon is always thoughtful. She wrote recently on what she calls one of her favorite topics, “how can you tell if tyranny is approaching, and especially whether it’s likely to be successful?”

But the “it won’t happen here” position is not only dangerous, it’s incorrect. I submit that it depends on what the “it” is. Tyrannies don’t always look exactly alike. In fact, they only resemble each other in very broad principles, such as the reduction of liberty and the spread of state power.

Yes, Chavez rewrote the constitution of Venezuela, and Obama may not be able to do that here. But he (or any other president bent on similar goals) can do quite a bit to further the same end: through government regulation, through the cooperation of a supermajority in Congress, through threats (the Chicago way is alive and well and living in DC), through lies, through voting fraud granting the Left bigger and bigger majorities.^[1]

To which add:

The breakup of the American order has been masked by American prosperity, which has continued throughout the process of social disintegration. To a very great extent, the financial crisis we are experiencing today is no ordinary economic downturn. It is also the result of spiritual and moral degeneration together with the total collapse of paternal authority.

Most citizens of the Republic do not realize that a breakdown has already occurred. But many are troubled. . . .

* * * *
. . . Furthermore, today's attempt to forgo economic pain merely promises greater pain and calamity in the future. Our disordered appetites, and our refusal to accept the discipline of the free market system leads us into a series of disastrous interventions of which socialism is the fiery pit itself.^[2]

President Obama, I believe, wants nothing better than to lead us into that pit.

Perhaps his civilian defense corps, so lightly touched on in the campaign, will be there to assist him.

Notes
^[1] "Tyranny and Obama: success or failure." By Neo-Neocon, 10/23/09.
^[2] "Prosperity and the Roots of American Order." By J. R. Nyquist, By J.R. Nyquist, Financial Sense Online, 10/23/09.