The President
off Teleprompter –
“If, if, if,
if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if” – Smooth!
The View from the Middle
If you haven’t seen
the President’s recent attempt to speak without his teleprompter, I’ve attached
a link below for your convenience. While
his serial stuttering got most of the attention, it is the hypocrisy of what he
said that I want to focus on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSxo9-Z5Ki0
In my opinion, Barack
Obama has been the most divisive President in my lifetime, if not of all time,
yet he has the hutzpah to lecture us on the dangers of being divided. Isn’t this the same President who said, back
in 2008, that the people of the Midwest tended to, “cling to their guns and
religion”? Isn’t that an attempt to
divide people along socio-economic and religious lines at the same time?
Is this not the
President who called half of America “the enemy” in a Univision interview back
in 2010? So, if you disagree with the
President on any issue, you are no longer an American. You are the enemy. Any person can win the Presidency by simply
acquiring a simple majority of the Electoral College votes, but that person
must govern for “all the people”. How
does a person do that when he has such disdain for so much of the citizenry?
The President also tried
to turn the poor against the rich and vice-versa. According to the President, everyone who is
rich is a “cold hearted capitalist type.”
He continually minimizes the effort that many rich people have made and
the risks they have taken to amass their wealth. Back in 2012 he suggested that if a person
had a successful business, “you didn’t build that.” He has also famously compared the country’s
rich to “lottery winners”.
Even though some people
become wealthy by inheriting fortunes, this doesn’t make them automatically
selfish. In fact, many of these people
are very generous and hard working in their own right. Just take a look at the Walton family. Also, while there is a certain amount of luck
in every life, most wealth development is a result of hard work, intelligent
choices and a willingness to take risks.
No matter what the President (the true lottery winner) thinks, these
people are not adversaries. They are
proud, loyal Americans who just happen to have a different opinion than he does.
Finally, the President’s
most disappointing act of division in America has been along racial lines. Many, including me, had hoped that the
President could have had a very positive impact on race relations in this
country. Unfortunately, that has not
happened. Today 46% of Americans believe
that race relations has gotten worse under this President, while only 18%
believe they have gotten better.
This because it suited the
President to divide us in this area.
From the beer summit to Trayvon Martin to Ferguson, he and Eric Holder,
his minion, fanned the flames of racial discord for their own political gain. Ben Stein (writer, lawyer, actor and
political and economic commentator) labeled Barack Obama the most racist
President in history, and I tend to agree with him.
I do agree that we are
strongest as a people when we are united, but it irks me when this President,
who has divided this country along economic, religious, political, racial and
gender lines (a whole other story I didn’t have time to get into), has the guts
to suggest that he has been a uniter.
This simply proves that hypocrisy and duplicity are alive and well in
Washington.
I totally get the rational behind where you are coming from but allow me to retort.
ReplyDeleteBut before I retort let me agree that Obama acts at times arrogant. He gloats. He dismisses. Please tell me that George W Bush was not arrogant, dismissive, or gloated. How short our memories are at times. Or at least selective at times.
In a vacuum you nailed it with President Obama. Out of the vacuum the reality is the Republicans stated from day one they would work with the President, then on day two it was leaked that the Republican Senate leader stated goal to keep the President from being successful.
When the Democrats hated and tried to block President Bush in seemingly every way I hated it. When the Republicans did it to Clinton I hated it and I hate it when they do it Obama.
AS far as your final point, the President took stands I disagreed with. He missed a great opportunity to bring our country together.
My point is President Obama does not babble. He is extremely thoughtful and well spoken. He has been leveled headed about putting our soldiers in harms way and the long view is proving he has been right for the most part.
Finally, our nation is not divided because President Obama has babbled in hypocrisy, it divided because we are not dealing with the actual reasons for division which in my opinion is equal opportunity. Nuanced barriers exist that conservatives don't want to admit and indeed will fight against. On the left, a entitle mentality is being fostered which will never result it a positive outcome.
To me, the view from the middle is more powerful when specific plans are submitted that have a magnetic draw from both sides leading to solutions rather than put downs of our leaders.
In the book "The Faith of Obama" he is very self aware and uses the term "Post-Modern Christian". Post Modernism is a philosophical worldview that is relativistic and has no fixed point of reference. Though self-aware and accurate in light of his reign, I must add that this is why he can bow before a Muslim Sheik and carry a little Buddha in his pocket. The reality is our nation's culture has been flipped on its head. The process started in the 1850's, showed it's face in the 1930's and came full force in the 1960's. Fredrick Nietsche was right about the madness which would set in once God's word was doubted, and God was rejected as the transcendent fixed point of reference for morals and ethics. I leave you with a quote from G.K. Chesterton which is soooo applicable: “But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. . . . As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. . . . The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.”
ReplyDeleteOne additional thought for consideration: Our nation’s division proceeds from a change in our presuppositions; a rejection of the self-evident truths upon which the country was founded; net: The elimination of the ontic referent. Truth is put aside in the headlong pursuit of what is logically valid. This is bigger than the debate between Republican and Democrat. If not resolved you will find that both parties will move the same direction over time just one will get there faster than the other. This affects young, old, businesses, lawyers, politicians and government officials. It is inside the church and outside the church. Francis Schaeffer highlighted this in his book “What Ever Happened to the Human Race?” where he outlines the moral shift based on a philosophical shift which used reason to eject the ontic referent (God) and then “did the unthinkable by using reason to reject reason itself”. So the modern man is a more of a mystic than anything else. In hindsight we can see what was unthinkable in the 1980’s has not only happened but our nation has exceeded expectations. The president who is elected is simply a reflection of a deeper issue which permeates our society embodied in a pursuit of total absolute autonomy from all and everything. I could give many proofs for this from many sources. It is in our schools, in our music, in our tv, in our poems, in our literature, in our business, in our politics. Why debate conclusions when there is no longer an recognition nor agreement on the starting point? Isn’t a line comprised of two points? How can you project a line to point the way when everything is relative? There needs to be a radical (from the latin word “radixx” which pertains to the root) return to truth, to principles, to morals and ethics; non of which is possible unless there is a deep repentance and return to the Creator God over saw the birthing of this nation and his unchanging words which lead to life.
ReplyDelete