By Quin Hillyer on 10.23.09 @ 6:08AM

We will not be intimidated, we will not be bullied, we will not be silenced, and we will not lose. Barack Obama's thugocracy is dishonest, dangerous, and malicious, but it cannot be stronger than the aroused might of a free people. His foreign policy deliberately debases U.S. interests rightly understood, in an effort to suborn our sovereignty in favor of a United Nations he in turn wants to control. But even on foreign policy, there are certain checks on his power that can be called into play. We who oppose his aims -- yes, Michael Wilbon (Washington Post sportswriter who blasted Rush Limbaugh), we who hope that Obama, who happens to be "a black man," fails, and fails miserably at those ends -- must not, however, fall into Obama's Alinskyite traps. We must keep our own eyes on the ball.

The ball right now is the unprecedented power grab in the name of health care. That is Obama's whole immediate domestic ball of wax. Because Obama is losing on the issue, losing quite badly, in the court of public opinion, he is trying to change the subject and distract our attention so we, the broad American public, will ease our pressure against Democrats skittish of doing a lemming act on health care. If we ease our pressure on them on health care in order to fight Obama on other fronts, those skittish Democrats might succumb to the White House pressure instead and use parliamentary tricks to pass the legislative monstrosity Obama seeks.

That's what the attack on Fox News is all about: It's a distraction. That's what the attack on Rush Limbaugh was and is: a distraction. Attack on the TEA partiers: distraction. Attack on insurance companies, and so on and on: distraction. distraction, distraction, distraction. "The basic tactic in warfare," wrote Obama's organizational idol, Saul Alinsky, "is a mass political jujitsu." And "the real action is in the enemy's reaction." And "the major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition," so "pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

In response, we can't afford to let the attacks go unanswered, but we also can't afford to let them dominate our attention. We can't let the Left pick and freeze the target. We need to swat them down, and keep moving against the main Obama power grab.

All that said, others (like The American Spectator's own Phil Klein, who has done yeoman's work on the issue) can highlight the Left's main weak points regarding Obamacare. Let this column instead catalogue the ways in which the Obamites try to bully us, silence us, etcetera -- so that with this catalogue in one handy place, the rest of the movement can focus instead on Obamacare's weaknesses.

If you follow this roundabout logic so far, then:

Note, and don't allow it, when this administration tries to keep insurance cooperatives (Humana) from communicating with their own customers. Note, and don't allow it, when it targets a whole industry (insurers again) for attack. Note when it bullies car companies and banks. Note when it threatens the Chamber of Commerce. Note when it puts out booklets equating conservative veterans and activist groups with hate militias. Note when the president himself says he will "call out" those who disagree with him, that he will "not abide" us, that his opponents are "filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads" when the ads are actually factual. Note when he repeatedly accuses his opponents of using "scare tactics," yet in the next breath says "if we do nothing, our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it the most. And more will die as a result." And then, having said that doing nothing will make more people die, he accuses those who don't agree with him of wanting to do nothing. Nice smear, that.

Note when the administration and its lackeys attack Fox News and when they attack Limbaugh. Note when they tell an Arizona sheriff that he's not allowed to tell the press about his pickups of illegal aliens. Note when they fire Inspectors General who embarrass their friends, after telling one of them that he too isn't allowed to talk to the press. Note when they tell towns in North Carolina that they cannot hold nonpartisan elections because blacks need to know who the Democrat is -- even if the town itself is majority black and voted to hold its elections in a non-partisan way. Note when they condone vote fraud and voter intimidation when it suits their purposes. Note when they drop an already-won case against vicious New Black Panther Party members. Note when they accuse Americans of being "a nation of cowards" on race. Note when they blame every problem on their White House predecessors. Note how they lock Republicans out of committee meetings. Note how they refuse to let the public have time to read legislation before it is voted on. Note how they vote on legislation that isn't actually even in one written piece yet.

They promise transparency, but they stonewall legitimate Freedom of Information Act requests on subject after subject. They stonewall legitimate information requests even from ranking congressmen. They refuse to turn over information about the fired or disciplined Inspectors General. They won't turn over information about their decision to subvert Honduran constitutional democracy in favor of an anti-American leftist thug. They won't turn over information about the New Black Panther decision. They lie about who made the decision. They lie about their efforts to politicize recipients of government arts grants. They brag about controlling information given to the press, and about controlling the press itself. They have a communications director who idolizes mass murderer Mao Tse-tung. They have a manufacturing czar who also speaks favorably about Mao. They have a science czar who quotes Mao, and who says it is not unconstitutional to coerce abortions or to put prophylactic chemicals into the drinking water (!!!).

Their attorney general refuses to protect the civil rights of white people (unless the whites are gay). Their Justice Department drops cases against an allied governor of New Mexico -- yes, that's called interfering with prosecutorial decisions. They gut the public integrity section of Justice. They ignore career prosecutors in the civil rights division and in the appellate division. The attorney general also overrides the established position of the division charged with constitutional interpretation (after pledging to support the division's independence).

The Obamites unilaterally violate the sanctity of contracts (and probably the Constitution) to gut the ownership rights of secured creditors and expand the unearned ownership by the unions. They threaten businesses that won't jump in line behind their takeover plans. They set up a pay czar who threatens to literally force executives to accept "negative" salaries. And when faced with complaints about utterly abusive new regulations that will criminalize people holding garage sales and put hundreds or thousands of businesses out of, yes, business, they loudly boast that "there's a new sheriff in town." And they invite foreign authorities, at the expense of our civil liberties, to regulate us further.

And, of course, they say their opponents are all racists, or they say that honest citizens speaking up of their own free will at town hall meetings are thugs and haters and rabbles and mobs and should probably be shut down.

I could go on, but that's enough for now. We will not be shut down. We will not relent. We will not be intimidated by false accusations of racism, or of greed, or of hatred, or of any other ill motives. We are motivated by love of country, and of freedom. And we will keep working to keep our country free.

We will do so whether or not the president can "abide" us and whether or not he calls us out. Actually, let him call us out. We call him out, too. In the light of day and the light of reason, we are more in our element than he is. We will win, and he will fail. And that's a good thing.