Who is the American Taliban?

There is fear in America. There is the gnashing of teeth. There are ravens sitting atop the weather vanes outside of progressive voters' windows.

It is an odd thing to watch, this hysterical response to a Christian perhaps earning the presidential nomination of the GOP. There was no such hysteria from progressives when Barack Obama, a twenty year member of Jeremiah Wright's congregation and an avowed born again Christian, won the nomination of today's American socialist party.

Perhaps this is because Obama more or less admitted during the campaign that he had no idea what Wright was blathering on about during all those years that he sat in the pews being elbowed by his enthusiastic though never-proud-of-America spouse. More likely it was the belief among progressives that Obama's constitutional scholarship would prevent him from ever (wink, wink) using assumed executive powers to subvert the Constitution toward his own favored outcomes.

I have no idea about the sincerity of Obama's core religious beliefs, but on the second point progressives certainly had it right, and it was the conservatives who should have been worried about the dismissal of the Constitution and an unprecedented executive power grab.

During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama spoke eloquently about his family and about the importance of family. He spoke about the importance of his religion, about community, and about service to others. Oddly, he completely forgot the presence of some guys in the neighborhood. He lamented the break up of the family and incidentally said that gay marriage was not something that he believed in though he favored civil unions. None of these comments shook up the American political landscape.

Things are a bit different this time around. Yesterday comments by Rick Santorum in West Michigan were enough to scorch the foreheads of progressive socialists. Santorum's sin was spending some time talking about traditional values and in particular, about the failures of the American family.

This apparently is taboo in 2012.

Statistics are statistics and to the dismay of liberals, Santorum knows a few of them. In today's America too many children are born out of wedlock. In today's America, too many children grow up in one parent households or in households where no parent is present at all. In today's America, too many families are plagued with the scourge of drugs and alcohol and Alice reruns.

In today's America too many children reach their schooling years with no adult outside of the school caring one whit whether the child attends class or learns anything at all. Sadly, too many of those parents who actually do seem to care about their children prove their parenting incompetence by sending little Sally and Johnny to school packing only a turkey sandwich, chips, a banana, and apple juice.

It is well known that poverty rates are much higher among children who grow up in one parent households. Children who grow up in one parent households are more likely to do drugs and drop out of school and are much more likely to live a life in poverty. Both the American legal system and the Jerry Springer show are choked with persons who grew up in broken families.

Mentioning these uncomfortable facts on the campaign trail breeds hysteria in progressives.

One of Santorum's most offending statements of the weekend:

"We know the devastation the family breakdown causes our society, yet you will never hear any politician run around and talk about it.

We can cut taxes, grow the economy, we can cut spending and ... reduce the size and scale of government, but it won't work unless the family starts … coming back together."

It was as if Santorum had threatened to burn down city hall.

In comments at the Detroit News were some of these gems:

Santorum hates everybody: Protestants, non-married people, people who take birth control or God forbid seek pre-natal (sic) care, the blahs (he said he did not mean black people it came out blah people), people who send their kids to public schools, environmentalists, people who go to college aka "the elites" and people who support unions. ok. OBAMA LANDSLIDE 2012!

Another:

West Michigan:Home of this state's branch of the American Taliban.

And from a Ron Paul supporter:

ready for the christian version of sharia law?

Of course, in terms of one's religious or social beliefs, if a President abides by the Constitution he must lead his administration lawfully and according to that document. Attacking Santorum as if he would not govern in such a way is to project onto conservatives the same sort of political maneuverings that are common among democrats in general and Barack Obama's administration in particular.

Rick Santorum has vowed that he will abide by the Constitution, and while Obama took an oath to do the same when he came into office, it is not something that he has allowed to hobble him during his three years of post-Constitutional tyranny. What progressives fear in Santorum is exactly what their guy has delivered in Obama; a routine flanking of Congress through regulation, the corralling of administrative tasks beyond congressional oversight, recess appointments when Congress is in session, a war fought without Congressional approval, and countless departmental overreaches that fly in the face of both Congressional approval and popular sentiment.

In fact, should Santorum be fortunate enough to win the GOP nomination and go on to an electoral victory, it will be Obama himself who will share much of the blame should Santorum decide to govern as Obama has--that is, largely outside of Congressional oversight.

So, why wouldn't progressives decry the possibility of a Santorum who says that he believes in a moral American society? Why wouldn't they quake in fear over the new American Taliban? After all, they sat by and applauded the Constitution's shredding and welcomed with open arms a sitting President's tendency to overreach--they are, in effect, the offensive line that opened the hole.

Don't get me wrong. I would have the same problem with Santorum as I do with Obama if he decided to govern in the same manner. As for his comments yesterday, if he desires the reestablishment of the American family (something that he can only do inspirationally, by the way, and cannot legislate or administer within the limits of the Constitution that he has sworn to uphold) what can it hurt, except of course, if he tries to govern unconstitutionally--a precedent that Obama should be proud of.

As a Christian, I want to live and believe in the way that I want to, and I want to live my life in freedom beyond the reaches of a federal government wanting the power to establish its own church and morality and then adamant about forcing me to abide by them. While these are my God given rights as recognized in the Constitution, it is these same rights that are under attack today--not by potential President Rick Santorum who has vowed to govern constitutionally, but in President Barack Obama who has shown no interest in doing so.

I do not fear the future American Taliban. I want to get the ones currently in office tossed out.