Today, our political class is in a frenzied, forced march to remake America, seemingly indifferent to the unprecedented tea party gatherings of protesters concerned about reckless spending and staggering debt; indifferent to the record breaking crowds attending town hall meetings in their districts--crowds fearful and frantic about the economy and jobs; and indifferent to national polls reflecting record low levels of approval for both the President and Congress. A Gallup poll reports the President’s approval rating at the lowest level ever for any President at a similar 10-month stage of his term. And Gallup’s “Annual Honesty and Ethics of Professions” poll discloses for the first time that a majority—in fact 55% of Americans—say the ethical ratings for Congress are low or very low. And as a further sign of the public’s ringing disapproval the “Right Track/Wrong Track” results revealed in a Real Clear Politics average of four polls find only 34.5% feel we are on the right track and a whopping 59.5% worry that the country is on the wrong track.

The political class in Washington is not only indifferent; they are out of touch with their constituents. You see, they are busy jumping from one complex and unfinished legislative bill to another 1,000-plus page, unintelligible bill; rushing from trillion dollar spending bills to burdensome cap and trade proposals; pushing us towards a Leviathan government-run health care. And all the while, like maggots feasting on rotten pork, they are creating new ways to spend and tax, seeking new ways to curry favor with political interest groups, new ways to expand government, new ways to extend control in a broad and comprehensive way over what were previously individual choices.

Thomas Jefferson said: “When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.” Today, Jefferson would likely say we have things backwards—our political class does not fear the people. Today our politicians march onward despite constituent concerns and fears. They seem driven, perhaps compelled in search of a fantasy ideology, and the spending rolls on, without regard to constituents concerns, without concern about the pain and the fear they are causing, fear of government action resulting in waves of debt facing the U.S. Government, and a failure of the economy or a collapse of the dollar leading to a coming deficit disaster.

The proposed legislation is unnecessary since state and federal criminal law statutes currently protect all persons from physical harm. In a capital case for murder, for example, the death penalty (or a life sentence) is authorized. What further punishment greater than the death penalty can be adjudged by virtue of passing hate crimes legislation? What purpose is served?

Furthermore, anecdotal evidence of the consequences of hate crime legislation in England and Canada raises serious concerns, reflecting consequences of such legislation that should be a red flag to all Americans. A great danger with a ‘hate crimes’ bill is the harmful and debilitating effect it has had in foreign jurisdictions: limiting speech, curtailing debate, ushering in speech codes. Hate legislation has a chilling effect on debate. It puts a sword in the hands of litigious groups to stop speech. In Canada, for example, an author of a book review was recently forced to defend his written work before a Human Rights Commission when he merely reported on the content in a bestselling book.

Unfortunately, Senate Bill 909 increases the risk of taking our country in a dangerous direction. Even if you see some intangible benefit in such legislation, however remote, consider the danger that regulating speech and thought poses to a democratic society, a society that values free speech and respects and honors open debate in the public square.

The jury may still be out (at least among those American voters who even still strongly support the President) on his blueprint to remake America, but there is one area where it is timely, indeed—mandatory, to point out how the President is doing and that is with his campaign promise to improve our image aboard—to make the world like us again. 

You may recall that it was a constant drumbeat by candidate Obama along the campaign trail--our reputation had been trampled and destroyed and ruined during the Bush years, and President Obama promised that he would improve our standing in the world—countries around the world would be our friends again.

In fact, we now have enough details to grade the President; we have had an eye view of his handiwork to remake our image into a beloved country around the world. I don’t know if the President’s special talent comes from his Ivy League education; or from his training as a community organizer; or from his friendships with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and his fellow board member, Bill Ayers; but our former Senator from Chicago has essentially thrown out that old kernel of Arabian wisdom, that bit of Americana—heck, what did Lincoln know anyway?, he was just a one term President; forget The Godfather, he is just a fictional character. No, our President has a new, and even better, formulation—Keep your enemies close—distance yourself, even disrespect, your old friends.

And while the President is failing, failing disastrously in his campaign promise to improve our image aboard, he continues to mount trophies on his White Office wall, trophies of the splendid success of his novel formulation to “distance yourself, even disrespect, your old friends.”

His triumphs mount whether it is: the British—insult them and reject the Churchill bust, give the Prime Minister a gift that screams indifference; or the French—that’s right, reject a dinner invitation from President Sarkozy and his wife during a visit to France, refuse to find time for a reception, reject any reason to spend personal time with the French leader; or the Germans—lecture the Germans on the holocaust, rub their noses in it on your tour of a prison camp, and feel the glacial cooling between you and Angela Merkel, a cooling so icy that the White House had to deny there was any tension with the Germans; or the European countries of the former Soviet bloc (Secretary Rumsfeld’s ‘new Europe’) who now see themselves abandoned by the U.S., left to fend on their own, chartering a course without American resolve, without NATO admission, without missile defense, without promised U.S. support against Russian interference and intrigue; or the Israelis--who have an exploding cottage industry of writers explaining how the Obama diktat not to expand settlements is part of a White House plan to destabilize their government, to saddle them with a tired left wing coalition that will give away land and security, leaving them unable to defend themselves. And all of this isn’t even counting the President’s victories closer to home: antagonizing Mexico with a sop to unions over trucking or the Buy American rule riddling our friendship with Canada, angering Canadian cities and prompting a Buy Canadian resolution in return.

Yes, how our educated Ivy Leaguer, trained Community Organizer, befriender of radicals, and companion to the marinated disaffected managed in less than six short months to turn his campaign promise inside out, to turn conventional wisdom on its head, to isolate us even further and crush and trample our friendships of many long years, why, dear reader, it is a performance not to be missed; perhaps even, a performance for the ages—but then, I guess no one would expect anything less from—The One.

It was only a brief sojourn, but you were facing social decline (oral sex is not sex), decay (lying and perjury), and degeneration (perpetual war rooms, character attacks, and confidence in the integrity of government). Entropy.  So then, when you began: how were you to make a new beginning? How were you to change the tone? How were you to reverse the order—breathing in life, beginning anew?

And so you began, with ruddy cheeks—with optimism, hope, and a clear vision.  But, to too many, you are the “Shrub.” The journey is longer. The trail is more difficult than expected.  Only the path is clear: creed leads and shapes the end.

And yet, if turned once too often, that turned cheek turns purple, battered, and bloody; and as you keep turning, you travel from bloody, to lonely, to isolated. Perhaps it requires turning too often, but resetting the center means finding the mean, like finding the 50-yard line after going from end zone to end zone.  Despite the blows and the ridicule, resetting the chains, marking a new center, and recapturing civitas(civility, respect for the rights of others, and spontaneous willingness to obey the law): requires more.  And so, in repairing the damage and cauterizing the wound you are turning, perhaps to often, from another unfair and unanswered attack.  The trail is difficult. The journey is long. 

How else will you change the tone?  How else will you restore the model?  Continue by taking the bloody blows, following your creed when duty is clear, setting the new course, resetting the center of discourse. The entropy is advanced and the need for a new centering of tone and discourse means losing support, losing friends, losing—in the near term, but not in the end.