Occasionally the real Obama is revealed for a passing moment, shedding more light on his agenda than could be gleaned from months of parsing speeches.  An off-handed comment to "Joe the Plumber" pulled the curtain back for a peek at "spreading the wealth," and Rahm Emanuel revealed early on how "crisis" would be used to "do things you could not do before." 

Now an off-handed comment by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood pulls the curtain back for a peek at "coercing people out of their cars."  LaHood has illuminated a central tenet behind the Obama car agenda, which Obama is pursuing without regard for Americans' deeply ingrained love for their cars.  

"Coerce" may be defined as "compel by force, intimidation, or authority, esp. without regard for individual desire or volition."  Individual choice, free markets and the rule of law are casualties of government coercion, with individual liberties not far behind.

The current round of coercion began under George Bush and Henry Paulson, when the heads of the nine largest banks were summoned to a room in Washington and ordered to sign the bailout papers in front of them.  We were coerced into granting GM and Chrysler bailouts by a lame-duck president under pressure from the unions, after Congress, supposedly the voice of the people, rejected the auto bailout.  President Bush was swept along in the financial panic and thus paved the way for President Obama's agenda of coercion.

Obama opened his presidency by coercing congress to accept his stimulus package under cover of his "worst financial crisis since the great depression," that "will turn into a catastrophe if congress doesn't act," and which mysteriously disappeared from the public discourse shortly after the bill was signed.  The feigned Obama "outrage" over the AIG bonuses fed the coercion of financial executives, at the expense of the sanctity of contracts. 

And now we have an automotive industry in the throes of bankruptcy, a netherworld in which lawyers and creditors strip what little flesh is left on the corporate bone before releasing the debt-laden shell to fend for itself once again.  Even in that netherworld there are laws that govern the distribution of assets to the creditors, but in Obama's world of coercion, the rule of law is the casualty.  Secured creditors have been coerced into accepting second place behind unsecured, but politically favored, unions.  In Chrysler's case, the largest secured creditors were also TARP recipients, and a good sharp tug of the government chain was enough to pull them in line.  

Americans will soon be coerced into accepting unsafe matchbox cars to meet CAFE standards decreed by Obama.  We are coerced by Al Gore and the EPA into "believing" that carbon dioxide is a deadly poison, that the earth is about to overheat, and that only the EPA can save us from that fate.  The high priests of cap and trade are attempting to coerce us into accepting a huge across-the-board tax increase in the name of green energy and the aforesaid carbon dioxide.

Americans are about to be coerced into accepting the nightmare of government-run health care rationing, including massive spending and taxes, and the destruction of our medical system as the cold grip of government squeezes the life out of it and drives away the doctors and surgeons, equipment and medicine, that make our medical care the envy of the world.

And it goes on: coercing the people is the common theme running through every Obama initiative.  And so it must be, as the only way Obama can force his agenda down our throats is, by definition, through coercion, aka "transformation."  The LaHood gaffe reminds us that Obama's agenda will be imposed, not by the will of the people, but in spite of the will of the people.

We will learn in the 2010 elections much more about whether or not Americans will accept the imposition of  Obama's vision through government coercion.