Given our present beliefs, what grounds would we have for invalidating Obama’s candidacy?

Ben W. writes:

I’m wondering how do Obama’s past associations invalidate his candidacy? The figures he has been linked to, such as Wright and Ayers, are Americans. If conservatives were really serious about one’s associations, then the minute Wright said, “God damn America” he should have been put aboard a ship or plane and kicked out of the country. Since no conservative is willing to deprive anti-Americans of their Americanism, then Obama’s associations are as American as apple pie.

I recall that when Ann Coulter labeled liberals as “traitors,” it was the conservative side that rose up against her for using this term. She demonstrated how traitorous liberals truly were during the McCarthy years. But since conservatives are so namby-pamby, pusillanimous and McCainish about calling liberals what they truly are and acting upon it, they are getting it in their face in spades. Obama will be elected by the American population his associations notwithstanding because there is nothing unAmerican about them. The American electorate will get exactly what it deserves because in its mind there is nothing unAmerican about being unAmerican.

LA replies:

I agree with your general point. I would only add the qualification that if we determine that the other side are traitors, politics has come to an end. If an entire party are traitors, then our only possible relation with them is to use force against them to suppress, jail, or kill them. So I would be careful in throwing around the word traitor as Coulter has done.

But your overall point is correct. If we had true standards in America, then a Wright or an Ayers would be persona non grata. He would be excluded from any mainstream recognition, and so would anyone who followed him. He wouldn’t have to be physically excluded from the country, but he would at the least become a pariah. When Philip Nolan, the protagonist of “The Man without a Country,” was sentenced to spend his life outside the U.S., it was because he had said something very like “God damn America,” but he had also participated in an actual plot against the U.S. government.

However, in principle I would not be opposed to denying the citizenship of and expelling from the U.S. someone like Wright or Ayers. No society is morally obligated to allow to live within its borders people who hate it and are devoted to its destruction. If we had such an understanding in place, or even a fraction of such an understanding in place, then Obama’s following of Wright would have been seen by the whole society as, at the least, automatically disqualifying him from high public office.

Robert B. writes:

You wrote:

Philip Nolan, the protagonist of “The Man without a Country,” was sentenced to spend his life outside the U.S., it was because he had said something very like “God damn America,” but he had also participated in an actual plot against the U.S. government.

Our liberals are seeking to overthrow the U.S. They have willfully attacked our nation, in public view, for decades—even making war upon our children through malicious and false propaganda masquerading as truth. They are acting in concert to destroy or make meaningless the Constitution. The Constitution guarantees the rights of property—yet they attack it every day in a myriad of ways—socialism is against our constitution. They are allowing an invasion to take place. They tax us to feed, clothe and house this invading army. They have and are attempting to destroy our economy. They make it impossible for our industries to operate within our own borders. They have consorted with our enemies—even making trade agreements with them, as in the case of China, so as to milk our country dry while swelling the treasury of a sworn enemy. They allow hostile states to import drugs into our nation—an act of war, and do nothing to stop it.

Lawrence, what more must they do?

LA replies:

You have made a case for revolution against the current liberal order. There is tendency, which I share, of slipping into not seeing our situation in revolutionary terms because it is outwardly peaceful, life is just continuing on. Most importantly, there is the phenomenon of the “radical mainstream,” by which the actual radicalism of our present order is not seen as such because it presents itself as moderate and ordinary. As just one example of this radical mainstream, think of the nihilistic filth that is broadcast every evening on prime time network television and no one even notices it, let alone protests it. It’s just an accepted part of our “culture.” And now look at how the inconceivable innovation of homosexual “marriage” is, step by step, being established as an ordinary and routine aspect of America. Even the ongoing immigration invasion and destruction of our common culture gets incorporated into the ordinary and the routine.

But if the transgressions of our time call for revolution, and I agree in principle that they do, what form would this revolution take? How many people would be prepared to support it? What would be its goals? How do you launch revolution in a country of 300 million people and 50 states? And in a society, moreover, that is not visibly or forcefully oppressing anyone? A society of widespread prosperity, comfort, and pleasure?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 12, 2008 07:43 PM | Send