Thomas Sowell, Black Economist, Asks if "US Now on Slippery Slope to Tyranny"

Thomas Sowell, black conservative economist & political commentator, criticizes Obama for forcing BP to create fund to help victims of oil spill in Gulf.

Thomas Sowell, a black conservative political commentator & economist, wrote a blistering column in Investors Business Daily, entitled "Is US Now on a Slippery Slope to Tyranny," which has created a lot of buzz on the Internet. Though I tend to agree with some of his statements, particularly that many people have become disillusioned with President Barack Obama and his policies, I still cringe when I hear him compared to Adolf Hitler in any way or even Vladimir Lenin for that matter. This just feeds into the notion that Barack Obama is somehow trying to indoctrinate our children and to control every facet of our lives. Here's an excerpt from Thomas Sowell's article:

When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics. Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler's rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions. "Useful idiots" was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union......

The president's poll numbers are going down because increasing numbers of people disagree with particular policies of his, but the damage being done to the fundamental structure of this nation goes far beyond particular counterproductive policies. Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.

What is particularly upsetting to many in conservative circles is the $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate those people adversely affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The fact that the president reached an agreement with BP to set up this fund is unsettling to many because it basically circumvented our laws and the courts. They make the argument that the Constitution says that private property should not be confiscated by the government without "due process of the law," but do we throw BP a lifeline and take their side, knowing that they are in the business to improve their bottom-line or do we force them to pay for the wrong they have done? Considering they lied repeatedly about the extent of the oil spill, why would you take their side? Sowell makes the argument that if you believe in a constitutional government, then the $20 billion fund is contrary to everything America stands for. Still, I have to ask, where do you draw the line as a president when you see a private company wreaking havoc on the welfare of some of your citizens?