America's Cold Civil War

By Lawrence Sellin, PhD
FamilySecurityMatters.org

On November 19, 1863 during the Consecration of the National Cemetery following the July 1–3, 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, a clash with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln pondered whether a government of the people, by the people and for the people could long endure.

We continue to have elections, but we no longer have representative government.

In prepared remarks delivered on Feb. 7, 2012 in Denver during the Colorado Caucus, Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, in reference to the 2012 election, stated:

“…this campaign is about more than just replacing a President – it’s about saving the soul of America. We all know in our hearts that soul is corrupted by a Washington culture of reckless spending, voting to raise your own pay, and saying you support term limits but always running for re-election. It’s that Washington that we must change.”

As many before him, as well as his major competitors for the Republican nomination, Romney accurately described the symptoms, but like the others, he offered no genuine and lasting cure beyond a redistribution of power in Washington D.C. between the Democrat and Republican political establishments.

Repeating the same empty promises of the past brings Americans no closer to saving the nation’s soul and restoring a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

In a speech in Manchester, New Hampshire on June 22, 2007, then Senator Barack Hussein Obama declared;

“We need a President who sees government not as a tool to enrich well-connected friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as the defender of fairness and opportunity for every American.”

Yet once obtaining power, the Obama Administration proceeded to institute its own version of crony capitalism.

After signing Obamacare, the healthcare mandate imposed on all Americans, Mr. Obama granted hundreds of waivers to himself, labor unions, large corporations, financial firms and local governments with strong Democratic connections. Among those waiver recipients were upscale nightclubs, bars and hotels in then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district.

CBS News recently identified 11 green-energy companies in addition to Solyndra that got billions of tax dollars and then declared bankruptcy. It has been claimed that 80 percent of the $20.5 billion in Energy Department loans for “green” energy went to Mr. Obama’s top donors, such as oil billionaire George Kaiser, whose family-foundation investment fund was a major stakeholder in the failed solar energy company Solyndra.

In the same 2007 New Hampshire speech Obama pledged:

“I will end the abuse of no-bid contracts in my administration. In the last six years, the unprecedented use of these contracts has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars and outsourced critical government services to friends and supporters who are more connected than they are qualified.”

According to a recent editorial, the pharmaceutical firm Siga Technologies, headed by Obama intimate Ronald Perelman, received a $443 million sole-source, no-bid, no-questions-asked government contract for an unnecessary anti-smallpox pill. Siga previously had been awarded a $3 billion contract after placing former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) boss and frequent White House visitor Andy Stern on its board.

There is a Cold Civil War underway in the United States to determine who should control the federal government. It is not a contest between Democrat and Republican ideologies, but a battle between the power of the two political establishments and the rights of the American people.

The Cold Civil War is a fight to restore adherence to the Constitution or continue the political expediency practiced by the two major parties. It is a choice between a government of the people, by the people and for the people envisioned by the Founding Fathers or something akin to a “managed democracy”, where a governmental cartel, composed of the two political establishments, funded by their affluent left- or right-wing financiers and buttressed by a compliant media, stages elections every few years to obtain voter acquiescence for a continuation of the corrupt status quo.

During his Denver speech, Mitt Romney said:

“This is not a moment when we can continue to do business as usual. This is not a moment when we can expect those in Washington to realize suddenly that they have been wrong and next time they will get it right.”

He is correct, but neither the Democrat nor the Republican establishment can achieve what is right as long as they are solely focused on exercising political power in conflict with the Constitution and against the will and well-being of the American people.

America’s Cold Civil War will not remain cold forever because a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired colonel with 29 years of service in the US Army Reserve and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. Colonel Sellin is the author of “Afghanistan and the Culture of Military Leadership“ and “Political Establishments and the Culture of Dependency”. He receives email at lawrence.sellin@gmail.com