OUSFL is responding to a horrible article in our campus newspaper that praised Obama as our nation’s savior. I thought I would post a few paragraphs I squeezed out between classes. I haven’t proof read this at all so don’t send me hate messages about my grammar.
I agree that Barack Obama has brought about change. Unfortunately it was not the change we were expecting or what he was elected to do. We elected Obama (I wasn’t old enough to vote but I probably would have voted for him) in the hopes that he would be a new champion of civil liberties and that he would stand up to the status quo of Washington, D.C.
Since he was elected he has made a 180 on many of his campaign promises. Guantanamo Bay is still open and still contains many prisoners who have been denied rights guaranteed by our Constitution. You would think a Constitutional Law professor would understand that this is indefensible and he often voiced criticism for this policy while serving as a Senator. Yet he continues to allow such injustices to continue. His administration continues to use the DEA and ATF to raid marijuana dispensaries around the nation, even when they are legal under state law.
Obama was also elected because he was a opposed to our foreign policy in the Middle East. He was elected to mend ties in the Middle East and to build bridges. What do we have to show for this in 3 years? Drone strikes have tripled in Yemen and Afghanistan and we are at war with Libya. Barack Obama, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner, is bombing the nation that is home to the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner. It’s also hard to argue that Obama “got us out of Iraq” when he was really just following the time table George Bush had set, and it’s often overlooked that Obama only settled on this date after he tried to negotiate with the Iraqi government to stay longer.
Just recently Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act, a bill that extends the power of the Patriot Act to detain anyone indefinitely until the “end of hostilities” in the War on Terror. Obama just made it that much easier for the federal government to detain an American citizen, indefinitely, without the rights contained in our Bill of Rights.
