It's really difficult to keep track of the many ways that the Obama administration is chipping away at the freedoms and independence that were the foundations of our nation, bequeathed to us as a birthright.

Let's just summarize the more egregious behavior of our Beloved Leader and his Apostles.

Fast and Furious

The administration, under the non-leadership of Attorney General Eric Holder, shipped about 2,000 weapons into Mexico and straight into the hands of the narco-terrorist cartels effectively in a state of armed rebellion against an allied nation. 

When asked about this situation, Eric Holder repeatedly said that he knew nothing about it.

Apparently, the government would have us believe that junior bureaucrats, acting on their own, decided to create their very own foreign policy.  This new, extralegal program resulted in the deaths of at least two Americans and at least one hundred times that many Mexican citizens. 

It should be recalled that not one of these junior bureaucrats is currently languishing in a jail cell.  It appears that the punishment was simply to be told: "That was naughty.  Don't do it again."

So, on one hand, the Obama administration will apparently allow subordinates to create their own foreign policy, but if a state, on the other hand -- let's just say Arizona -- tries to enforce laws already on the books that touch upon the sovereignty of Mexico and the apparent right of Mexican citizens to come and go over our borders at will, then the DOJ under Eric Holder will jump right in with a federal lawsuit to stop that state in its tracks, because that would be interfering in foreign policy.

Then, the administration, prior to the discovery that they, themselves, were actually the source of these weapons that had been shipped to our southern neighbors (without even telling them about it), branded ordinary Americans and American firms the culprits of gun-trafficking into Mexico. 

This appears to have been merely another attempt to control the constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms that is crucial to the birthright mentioned earlier.

Got all that?  The only objective of Fast and Furious was to justify ever more draconian measures to reduce Americans' 2^nd-Amendment right to defend themselves.  If it cost a few hundred lives, well, it appears that was the price Obama and company were more than willing to pay.  Like Mr. Obama's drone strikes, those deaths are classed only as collateral damage.  The administration appears to view the evisceration of the 2^nd Amendment as nothing more than collateral damage as well.

Benghazi

The president's relationship with nations and power blocs in the Middle East has always been marked by his ambivalence in dealing with anything even remotely associated with the words "Islam," "jihad," or "terrorism."  He also seems to be a little unclear about the limits of his authority.  Take, for instance, claims that he is waiting for the FBI to apprehend the perpetrators of the Benghazi massacre, so he can (one infers from earlier behavior in similar situations) have them read their Miranda warnings or suggest that they claim 5^th-Amendment privilege or something.  This is exactly what happened when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called "Underwear Bomber," was arrested, and what happened again with the younger terrorist, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who decided to use a pressure cooker for something other than cooking a pot roast in Boston.

Apparently our "smartest guy in the room" leader is under the impression that the FBI can enforce the laws of the United States within the confines of an independent sovereign nation.  But then, perhaps he believes that the very phrase "sovereign nation" is obsolete.  After all, it certainly wouldn't be used by the New World/One World Order.

Obama touted his view that the "Arab Spring" was a grassroots striving for democracy.  This is an unlikely characterization.

Obama's secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, should have been able to tell him based on her vast experience in foreign affairs that there wasn't the chance of a snowball in hell that democracy was going to spring into being in the Maghreb, or in any Islamic nation anywhere. 

The president's behavior, speeches, and policies in the Middle East have emboldened al-Qaeda, its affiliate Ansar al Sharia, and the Muslim Brotherhood.  It was they who were responsible for the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi -- not, even though Obama kept repeating and having others in his administration continue the fantasy, the result of a nearly unknown YouTube video. 

Yet the American people are being instructed to simply wait patiently for Obama, Holder, and the new secretary of state, John Kerry, to smooth things over with these radical jihadists, and everything will be just wonderful as long as we don't "offend" them.  Apparently the fact that more than 300 million Americans are a little offended by the deaths of their brothers is of no consequence to Obama or his minions. 

It would seem that in this case, the Obama crew looks askance at the constitutional "equal protection" afforded under the 14^th Amendment when providing that protection might "offend" some Islamic jihadist who has murderous intent.

IRS targeting of conservatives and the Tea Parties

One has to admire the president's reprise of the role of Captain Renault from the film Casablanca when he said that he was "shocked" to find that the IRS had acted improperly in delaying the approval of the 501(c)(4) non-profit status of Tea Party organizations nationwide. 

The fact that these same individuals had been acting this way for at least two and possibly as much as three years, to the utter obliviousness of any senior member of the administration, has resulted in a bipartisan cry that Congress is also "shocked."

I'd be happy to be brought to justice under this administration if, like Ms. Lois Lerner, who refused to testify (as is her constitutional right under the 5^th Amendment) before Congress, I could be "punished" by being placed on "administrative leave," which would mean I would still receive all of my salary and my extremely generous pension and medical benefits.

Targeting various news organizations and specific reporters for the temerity of asking questions.

Since Barack Obama declared his intent to run for the presidency, the mainstream media has protected, shielded, defended, and sheltered him and his administration from any and all criticism.  And how did the administration reward such (frequently mindless) loyalty?  Well, the relationship between Obama and the press can be summed up with the words of Bart Simpson:  "I dump on you, and you take it.  That's how friendship works."  

Obama and his administration apparently hate leaks, which is seemingly how they define any truth published in the media which is "leaked" by anyone other than themselves.  So if a reporter asks a question of a governmental official, and gets an answer, and then publishes that answer, he or she is subjected to massive research of his or his organization's phone records, the phone records of others in his or her organization, and, unbelievably, research on the phone records of his or her parents.

Once again, the administration is trashing the 1^st Amendment, and doing its level best to suppress speech that might in even the slightest way run counter to the administration's institutional narrative.  The administration seems intent on silencing anyone who appears, even slightly, to be "anti-government."  It's worth pointing out that no matter who is in charge in the White House, every single individual currently breathing is "anti-government." 

If a Democrat is in the White House, conservatives, Republicans, libertarians, Tea Partiers, and others on the right view him as the embodiment of out-of-control spending and rapacious taxation, favoring specific groups that make up his political base and appeasing America's enemies all over the world.

If a Republican is in the White House, Democrats, progressives, liberals, and RINOs take the view that the administration is hurting the poor by not spending on them, hurting the middle class by not "stimulating" the economy enough, not caring about anyone except the "fat cats on Wall Street," and on and on with the usual litany of complaints.

This administration is doing everything it can to suppress the complaints of the first group in any way that it can, regardless of the constitutional protections of the 1^st Amendment -- which, in the more elegant language of the 18^th century, declares that Americans have the right to tell both the Congress and the administration, and specifically the president, that they are completely brain-dead and the essence of evil.  Right or wrong in that assessment, they have that right.  Period.

Obama apparently thinks that constitutional right applies only when he himself is not in office.

If there is anyone who believes that none of these actions on the part of the Obama administration can possibly affect him, let me remind you of the words of Martin Niemöller (1892-1984), who wrote about conditions in Germany when Hitler was consolidating power:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.

Jim Yardley is a retired financial controller for manufacturing firms, a Vietnam veteran, and an independent voter.  Jim blogs at http://jimyardley.wordpress.com, or he can be contacted directly at james.v.yardley@gmail.com.