An ecstatic Obama supporter declared on the eve of the election: “I never thought this day would ever happen. I won’t have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won’t have to worry about paying my mortgage. You know, if I help [Obama], he’s gonna help me.”  The words were spoken by Peggy Joseph, a.k.a. “Peggy the Moocher,” as she cheered on Barry at one of his campaign rallies.

The quote illustrates how severely America has regressed since its first generation fought to be free of a king and his taxes.  Peggy the Moocher and her fellow Obama followers want a life devoid of personal responsibility.  They want the government to provide their food, shelter, transportation, education, child rearing — every basic need and a broad variety of wants.  They don’t like the idea of a society in which certain jobs lose value over time and must be eliminated or replaced.  Instead, an authority should “protect” jobs by assigning everyone work and a “fair” wage.  Their desires may be summarized as a plea for slavery.  They cast themselves as slaves and Barack Obama as king.

Many have commented on the peculiarly un-American nature of Obama’s extravagant inauguration.  Katty Kay of the BBC wrote yesterday that Obama’s inauguration is more properly described as a coronation.  She writes to Americans: “You simply replaced the pomp and ceremony of hereditary monarchy with the pomp and ceremony of elected monarchy. OK, you didn’t opt for the dynastic duo of Bush and Clinton, which really had us scratching our crowned European heads, but the fanfare with which Caroline Kennedy has entered the political picture suggests your infatuation with royal families is still not over.”

The AP notes the Democrats who called on Bush to be frugal four years ago are now gleeful at Obama’s record-breaking, $170 million inaugural gala, and this time around the nation is in a recession.  The king has arrived in Washington and no expense can be spared.  Thousands are flocking to pay him tribute, sing him songs, praise his reign.

Lost in reverie, many Americans forget the man they laud has yet to accomplish anything.  Like the remaining monarchs of Europe, his primary claim to power is birth.  While the Europeans cite their ancestors’ former accomplishments, Obama cites something of far greater political value: his ancestors’ victimhood.

Americans’ return to monarchy should not be surprising.  One would expect people to always prefer freedom, but to the contrary, they often clamor for a king.  They stop relying on themselves, their churches and God, and instead pay reverence to government.

Americans are like the Israelites demanding God give them a king.  1 Samuel 8 describes their folly:

6 …when they said, ‘Give us a king to lead us,’ this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD told him: ‘Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.“

10 Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, ‘This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day.’

19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. ‘No!’ they said. ‘We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.’

21 When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the LORD. 22 The LORD answered, ‘Listen to them and give them a king.’  (NIV)

Christians should be wary as the coronation proceeds.  The True King has yet to return.  Our lives are to be devoted to Him, not to the political ambitions of human kings.  Obama’s message of hope and salvation is salaciously appealing but counterfeit, sloven, and rotten to the core; it cannot satisfy.