Obama has defined the enemy and the enemy is us

This morning our nation awaited a presidential statement of condolence and comfort, reassurance of our security and safety, and assurance that our enemy will be soundly defeated. What we got was an arrogant lecture from an angry, petulant child about our own shortcomings. No solace for the victims.

Obama is a “Constitutional scholar” who studied our founding doctrine only so he would know what parts he wanted to change. Forty-nine people are dead and fifty more are grievously wounded with some of them likely to join the former and the president’s only plan of attack is against our First and Second Amendments.

So I’m going to share my feelings. Obama and his minions believe a man is judged by his careful phrasing, flowery words, and elegance of speech, not by his actions. Eight years of the present administration has demonstrated the veracity and calamitous outcome of this fatuous belief. Our nation is in a time of mortal crisis brought on by this administration’s policies and their answer to it is gun control and parsed speech.

Obama sees the First and Second Amendments as part of a “living Constitution” he can strangle at his convenience. Obama is firm in his belief a serious crisis is a terrible thing to waste – especially when you create it yourself. I believe if you cause a problem, you aren’t the right person to fix it.

Our founding fathers knew that a citizen’s right to bear arms was their only protection against tyranny from without and within, and you can’t speak freely if you can’t defend your right to speak. We are obligated to protect ourselves and our freedoms. We can’t count on someone else to keep us safe.

Take away our guns and only the criminals and terrorists will have them. They don’t go through background checks and paperwork to get theirs, and they have no restrictions on what weapons they acquire. (The first armed responder on scene at the Orlando massacre found himself out-gunned and had to beat a

hasty retreat.)

Gun control only creates more soft targets. You need only to watch the news to see “gun free” locations are an open invitation for uninterrupted slaughter. We all want to reduce violent deaths but banning guns isn’t the answer. Look to the man. It’s the man not the weapon. After 911 we didn’t ban box cutters, or airplanes and Boston didn’t result in the eradication of pressure cookers.

And as for freedom of speech, Obama’s banning of the words Islamic terrorist, Sharia Law, and jihad doesn’t make them magically go away. You have to define the enemy and know their plans before you can face and defeat them.

We cannot tolerate terrorist acts or the nations that support them. “Workplace violence” at Fort Hood and “man-caused disasters” here and overseas cannot be lessened by Obama’s applied euphemisms. Militant Islam has put us in a worldwide struggle between freedom and fanaticism.

We need a president who will build up our military, revitalize our intelligence gathering organizations, strengthen our homeland defense, support and equip our law enforcement, identify our enemies, and realize we are at war. Wars aren’t won in the courtroom. You don’t ticket terrorists.

We will have to fight our enemy here, there, and wherever and whenever he appears. If the rest of the free world won’t join us in this fight, so be it. Our forefathers left their homelands to stand apart, alone, and free. We must do the same.

John F. Kennedy said, “let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

And I believe we don’t have to amend the Constitution or give up any of our God-given rights to accomplish our goals. We are, after all, the land of the free and the home of the brave. We are Americans.

God Bless America,

Jonathan Ingram

Murrieta City Councilman