Constitution
How liberty dies: with boom and greed
A nearly forgotten movie offers a stark lesson, and a warning, for today. Revenge of the Sith (2005) sets a stage eerily similar to modern America. Three years of warfare make the people clamor for security. An ambitious senator exploits the crisis—which he set up. Finally he tells the Senate, and the vast nation-state, that their country is no longer a Republic. It is an Empire, literally a command society, with the arch-planner in absolute power. And the crowd goes wild. A former Senator watches this on television (or whatever they call it). Turning to a friend, she says, “So that’s how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.”
George Lucas got some of that right, but not all. Endless warfare isn’t the only way to win the affections of a people. It isn’t foolproof, either. Endless war can make people weary and follow a leader who will end the war now, win or lose. But a bribe works far better than a scare. And a bribe will come. In a little more than two years, America will see the largest boom in energy since the Lucas No. 1 oil well, or “Spindletop.” That boom will provoke greed. And in their greed, oil field developers, refiners, and other such players will pay any fee that Barack Obama demands. With that, Obama will campaign for a third term, or even a Presidency for Life. And win. That’s how liberty dies.
How Liberty Dies, Round One: Spindletop
The gusher at the Lucas No. 1 oil well on the Spindletop Salt Dome. Photo: John Trost, 10 January 1901.
Porter Stansberry, of Stansberry and Associates, explains how this will happen. He cites the Spindletop Salt Dome to show how it happened before. In 1901, oil prospectors at the Spindletop Salt Dome found more oil than they thought anyone could find in one spot. Here they had instant wealth. What were a few permitting fees compared to what they could gain? Theodore Roosevelt understood this. He also understood how, when people think they are richer, they think they can do anything with the right kind of leader. Theodore Roosevelt vowed to be that leader. He, not Woodrow Wilson, put in place the first “progressive” laws. And the people accepted that, because they were richer than they were. If he made them poorer than they might have been, they didn’t notice. They couldn’t. No one can.
That’s how liberty dies.
In 1930, says Stansberry, the cycle repeated itself. Franklin D. Roosevelt could never have won election, much less put through his New Deal, if enough people hadn’t gotten rich themselves and then enriched him. Those people were H. L. Hunt and his friends. They got rich from the East Texas oil field, a worthy successor to Spindletop.
That also is how liberty dies.
How liberty dies: another Spindletop
And now, says Stansberry, it will happen again. Some of it has happened already. Today the country is floating on cheap natural gas. Thank the hydraulic fracture (“fracking”) technique for that. In 2015, America will be awash in shale oil. America will have enough oil and natural gas to export. (People are already working to export liquefied natural gas, cheaply, safely and efficiently.)
Abundant energy means wealth to whoever holds it. But: those holders will have to go through Washington for permits, leases, and the like. And Barack Obama, says Stansberry, will know just what to charge, and just how hard to squeeze, to keep those people paying. (Even Barack Obama might understand that he can’t name his own fees. But those fees will still be sky-high.) And with those fees will come power. Power to hand out more “goodies,” like food stamps and other government handouts. The taxpayers won’t care, so long as they have cheap energy. And Obama will become the true American Idol. The people will love him so much that they won’t want him to go away. That’s how liberty dies.
Theodore Roosevelt ran for a third term in 1912. He lost only because Woodrow Wilson co-opted his program. Franklin D. Roosevelt had no such problem. He coasted to a third term, then a fourth. After that, Congress proposed Amendment XXII, to limit Presidents to two terms, or ten years (say if they took over in the middle of another President’s term). But Obama might do one of two things:
- Propose another Constitutional amendment to repeal the Twenty-second.
- Nominate his wife to be President in his place.
[Either way], Obama will never give up the amount of power he will garner in his second term. Look at his entire career. Obama has never shied away from taking power… or taking credit. Like any good Chicago politician, he knows how to use influence. He will capitalize on this energy revolution to become the most powerful president in modern history. Like other energy-backed demagogues around the world (Putin, Chavez, the Kirstners in Argentina), he will not willingly give up his power.
And the crowd will clamor for a third Obama term, or even Emperor Obama.
So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.
Evidence to support this scenario
What evidence does Stansberry have? He quoted Leonardo Maugeri, former executive at the Italian oil giant, Eni. Others have quoted Maugeri, to show that “green cars” will be a passing fad. Maugeri himself says another oil glut will come. He advised people not to bet on oil getting dearer.
To be sure, all this assumes that Obama is more machine politician than environmental ideologue. After all, he killed the Keystone Pipeline to keep his environmentalist supporters happy. And he has publicly supported the “global warming” story. Who can forget him posing behind the wheel of a Chevrolet Volt?
But maybe all of that is a sham. Will he really stand in the way of the biggest energy glut in history? No. He’ll extort vast sums from oil and gas companies. Those companies will pay because they’ll make it up in sales. But what about his promises to the environmental lobby? Should they really trust him any further than a moderate can? (Which is to say, any further than they can throw him?) Obama has shown no loyalty to anyone but himself. This will be too great an opportunity to miss.
He does not even have to nationalize the oil and gas industry, as Hugo Chavez did. The license and fee system will bring in all the revenue he needs.
And the people? Again from Stansberry:
Your neighbors don’t want freedom. They don’t want lower taxes. They don’t want more opportunity. You know what they want? More handouts.
Bill O’Reilly said it, too. Many tried to skin him alive for it, but he told the truth: people want “stuff.” Today people can doubt whether Obama has “stuff” to give. After this oil boom, he can remove all doubt.
That’s how liberty dies. With a boom, and the greed that goes with it. For what is greed, but a shortsighted search for the pathway of least resistance?
George Lucas boiled over with rage at the Presidencies of Richard M. Nixon and George W. Bush. War, he thought, was how those two men held the power he wanted to break. That, he said, was how liberty dies: with a phony scare and the fear that went with it. But that’s now all of how liberty dies. Sometimes it dies with a bribe and a shakedown. It helps to have something real behind that bribe and shakedown. With the oil and gas boom, Obama will have it.
“So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause”. from elreystadesnudo on Vimeo.
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Terry A. Hurlbut has been a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years. He is a graduate of Yale College and has served as a physician-level laboratory administrator in a 250-bed community hospital. He also is a serious student of the Bible, is conversant in its two primary original languages, and has followed the creation-science movement closely since 1993.
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Michael Alan Kline Sr liked this on Facebook.
These seem to be some eminently testable predictions! I think I’d like a piece of this action.
Dr. Hurlbut, what probabilities do you attach to these predictions:
1) Obama will propose or support reversal of the 22nd Amendment by 2016
2) [if 1 is successful] Obama will run for a third term as President
3) [if 1 is successful or not] Obama will be declared President-for-Life, Emperor, Administrator Extraordinary of UN Region A-14 (to include the territory of the former U.S. of A.), or some other equally-catastrophic overthrow of the current Constitutional system.
4) [if 1 fails or does not occur] Michelle Obama will register with the FEC as a presidential candidate in 2016.
For my own part, I give them 0%, 0%, 0%, and 0%. As such I’d be happy to wager real money on the outcome of any of those predictions, provided that mutually agreeable conditions can be reached. I am sure that such conditions can be reached even if you attach only a low probability to any of those outcomes.
Why should Obama walk away from a kingship, if millions of adoring fans offer him that? When has he ever walked away from a kingship, or principate, or whatever you want to call it, when someone or something has offered him that at various junctures in his career?
With respect, that doesn’t answer my question: what probabilities do you personally assign to the predictions that you made? Is there a 100% chance that Obama will be Emperor Saddam I in 2016? 50%? 1%? I gave you my probability predictions : 0% across the board. None of them will come to pass, and I’ll lay money on it.
Emperor Saddam I. I like that. All right: 50 percent. At least.
“All right: 50 percent. At least.”
How much are you willing to bet on it? I’m up for $50,000 that the USA has a perfectly normal election in 2016, Obama doesn’t stand and you have a new president in January 2017.
If you really had $50K US to lay on a wager like that, I’d advise you to keep quiet about it. Because sooner or later this government will find some way to confiscate any wealth denominated in US dollars.
You’re talking about wagering money. I’m wagering my liberty.
“Because sooner or later this government will find some way to confiscate any wealth denominated in US dollars.”
Uh, Terry, what your government does or doesn’t confiscate has very little to do with me.
It has everything to do with you if, as you hinted, you possess any asset denominated in United States Dollars. Including the physical cash that takes the form of “Federal Reserve Notes.” And any share of common or preferred stock that is traded on the New York Stock Exchange or the National Association of Securities Dealers’ Automated Quotation system.
It might not look that way to you now. But I try to project the limits of what a President (putative or otherwise) is capable of.
“It has everything to do with you if, as you hinted, you possess any asset denominated in United States Dollars.”
No it doesn’t, Terry. What is King Barack going to do, send someone to my house to demand all my dollars? Fine; he can wait on the doorstep for the Polizei to arrive.
I wouldn’t put anything past him. First he got the job under false pretenses of eligibility. Second, he governs largely by Executive Order. Third, if he’s said it once, he’s said it a hundred times: “Oh, how I wish I could bend Congress to my will!”
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and the third time, it’s enemy action. Source: Fleming I, Goldfinger.
“I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
I know you wouldn’t, Terry, but it’s still irrelevant. If any hypothetical US leader decided to confiscate the contents of my bank account because I could use it to make a payment in US dollars I would simply tell him to go perform an obscene act on himself.
I must say, that’s one of the most original reasons for not taking a bet that I’ve ever heard: because the government might seize the other guy’s money (before the bet is concluded, presumably).
Wagers of gold or silver bars or precious stones or bushels of wheat should have no such concerns attached. Or Dr. Hurlbut could wager his participation at Conservapedia, or some other such consideration.
“because the government might seize the other guy’s money”
From a German bank account, no less.
It’s a few weeks to the election, and a few months from the presidential inauguration. I’m curious as to how likely you currently think it is that the 22nd amendment will be repealed, that Obama will run for a third term, that Obama will be acclaimed emperor or caliph by the shrieking masses, or that Michelle Obama will run for President.
I believe that your last statement was that there was greater than a 50% chance of Obama would stay on past the 2017 presidential inauguration. Do you have any reason to revise that figure?
Obama doesn’t need to run for any third term. From Producer James O’Keefe, I now learn that the Democratic Party have been swinging elections by fraudulent means for fifty years. Their operatives have voted in the names of multiple people each, many of them dead or moved out of their original States of registration.
The history of the United States for the last fifty years should have been radically different from how it has played out. Barack Obama should never have been elected President. Neither should James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr., nor William Jefferson Clinton. The composition of the Senate and the House of Representatives should also be radically different from what we see today.
Hillary Clinton has pledged many times to repeal the Second Amendment. She also has threatened open war against all sincere Christians. You have only to read her platform, and to read transcripts of speeches by George Soros, to know how the history of America will play out for the rest of our lives.
Except I also have reason not to believe current polls, either. And the media? Thirty years ago I started calling them the Fishwrap Axis. As in, “Wrap fish in it; it’s all it’s good for.” I have even more reason now.
Interesting theory, but not an answer to my question.
I thought you said second amendment. You said twenty-second. Well, it’s too late to repeal the twenty-second amendment for this election cycle. I’d rate the odds against that as a hundred to one.
I’m still not clear on what your position is. Obama doesn’t need to run for a third term because Democrats will steal the election for him despite not repealing the 22nd amendment? Because his wife will become President as his proxy? Because “the crowd will clamor for a third Obama term, or even Emperor Obama” (different from the Democrats ‘fixing’ an election)? Because he will simply refuse to leave office? Remember, the whole thrust of this 2012 article was that Obama would not surrender power in 2017, which you gave a greater than 50% chance of coming to pass.
Or are you saying that Trump’s support is underreported and he will win anyway and expel Obama?
I predict that Clinton will defeat Trump in the election and Obama will leave office on January 20th as expected. Even if Trump wins, I still think Obama will leave office on January 20th. I don’t see how Clinton becoming President keeps Obama in power any more than George H W Bush becoming president kept Reagan in power, or Ford being president kept Nixon in power.
I’m amazed that you give the overturning of the 22nd amendment odds as high as 100:1 against for this election cycle. I’d put it more like a hundred million to one against.
Since you mentioned it, I’d be interested in seeing where Clinton pledged to repeal the 2nd Amendment.
Hillary Clinton is Obama’s third term. Or it is George Soros’ third term. George Soros exchanges one puppet for another.
The Twenty-second Amendment is not the issue. Party operatives casting votes in the names of the dead and the move-outs, are.