Obama is an unreconstructed liberal idiot (and why he is one)
(Note: this entry has been expanded since it was originally posted.)
James Lewis, a regular contributor at American Thinker, is evidently one of those right-wing anti-Obama fanatics that David Horowitz has been decrying. Lewis’s point (see below) is that Obama understands none of the lessons that Americans—including rational liberals—had learned over the last five decades from the catastrophes brought by liberalism, and so is likely to lead us into even worse catastrophes. As I’ve said before, with Obama, we’re going to have to suffer through every leftist folly from scratch, as though we hadn’t gone through all this before.
Which, by the way, is another reason why the President of the United States should be a natural born U.S. citizen, as the Constitution requires. A natural born citizen will be more likely to have imbibed his country’s historical experiences and lessons. This is much less the case with an exotic like Obama, who has never looked at America and the West as truly his home, and who, based on his concealment of his birth records, is almost certainly not a natural born citizen.
As Steve Sailer argues, Obama’s non-belongingness is central to who he is. In America’s Half-Blood Prince, pp. 224-25, Sailer recounts the final scene of Obama’s Dreams from my Father, in which a Kenyan woman tells him that the reason visitors are so disappointed by Africa is that there is no authentic Africa. Absurd, says Sailer; the reason people are so disappointed by Africa is that it is so disappointing. He continues:
[W]hy did Obama feel compelled to bring this question up and feature Rukia’s nonsensical answer so prominently as the Climactic Insight of His Life?
Because her answer, ridiculous as it is, at least validates the central concern of Obama’s existence: to prove he’s black enough. If even Africans in Africa aren’t authentic, as this learned African scholar says, then his being half-white and brought up in a wholly non-black environment doesn’t disqualify him from being a black leader.
The culminating insight of Obama’s life thus leads to the culminating insight of Sailer’s book about Obama.
However, I would take Sailer’s insight a step further. Just as Obama realized that he could be a black leader despite the fact that he’s not really black, he also realized that he could be an American leader despite the fact that he’s not really American.
And that’s the situation in which we actually find ourselves, with our country under the government of a half-alien exotic who on a profound level was not formed by this country, who is a product of black liberationism and the transnational left more than he is of America, and who thus has not absorbed the common lessons and shared principles of America’s distant and recent past (except for the principles of Chicago corruption). It’s almost as though the country, as in some science fiction story, had been transported back fifty years in time, and through some bizarre coup had come under the power of one of those emergent African leaders circa 1961 in whom the world placed so much Hope.
Lewis writes:
We know that Obama has a very conventional mind. I have not heard a single novel or even interesting idea from the man over all the months that I’ve listened to him. He clearly has no understanding of classical economics. He doesn’t understand, as Bill Clinton did, the real harm and suffering that welfare dependency has inflicted on black people after LBJ’s War on Poverty. He does not understand the elementary difference between productive and non-productive investment of scarce resources. He has no conception of the damage inflicted by inflation on the poor, more than even on the rest of the country. He has no real understanding of the dizzying complexities of foreign policy—nor does his Secretary of State, who was hardly picked for her competence in foreign affairs.
These are not just rank amateurs, they are willfully ignorant amateurs, who also happen to be grandiose narcissists, and who now have free reign over the levers of power in the United States. We are all watching the Titanic steaming full speed ahead right before that diamond-hard iceberg tears off all the steel rivets from her skin. If you’re not aghast, you’re just not paying attention.
- end of initial entry -
Andrew H. writes:
Lewis’s comments about Obama hit the nail on the head. I’m always curious, what has Obama read? He’s been entrenched with liberals and activists for such a long time, I wonder if he’s ever read books on economics or public policy that run contra to his politics. My guess is that he has not.
LA writes:
By coincidence, David Horowitz’s FrontPage Magazine has another pathetic article trying to shut down discussion about the Obama birth issue. The author, Andrew Walden, argues that Obama in refusing to release his paper birth certificate has deliberately behaved in such a way as to make people believe that he’s not a natural born citizen, so as to get conservatives to waste their energies in pursuit of an issue that can go nowhere. But if what Walden is saying is true, then, one, Obama is diabolical and has acted in profound bad faith with the American people; and two, Obama, whatever his motives, HAS given people reasons for believing he’s not a natural born citizen, and therefore the interest in this issue is valid. So the Walder article cancels itself out. Horowitz’s contributor, in accusing Obama of being too clever by half, practices some too-clever-by-halfness himself.
I went to the comments page for Walden’s article and here is the first comment I looked at:
Name: Audacity17
Subject: The bottom line
Comment: I am conservative, what one might call a classic liberal.
I’ve read David’s book and this site for years. Here it is.
1. I don’t believe Obama is a natural born citizen. I don’t believe he’s playing a rope a dope. Presenting the certificate would have shut it all down.
2. If tomorrow it was proved he wasn’t eligible, the Supreme Court would not remove him. That’s the takeaway point that I think David wants people to get. The court would say something about the “will of the people” and “disenfranchised voters” and such. They would say it is the responsibility of congress to require candidates to prove eligibilty etc etc. Any attempt to remove him would be met with riots and protests. We all know it.
So, one, lets defeat his policies and him at the ballot box in 2010 and 2012. Two, lets insist on more thorough proof of all candidates in the future.
April 2
Barbara W. writes:
You write:
“Which, by the way, is another reason why the President of the United States should be a natural born U.S. citizen, as the Constitution requires. A natural born citizen will be more likely to have imbibed his country’s historical experiences and lessons. This is much less the case with an exotic like Obama, who has never looked at America and the West as truly his home, and who, based on his concealment of his birth records, is almost certainly not a natural born citizen. “
I agree emphatically with the above, but I would point out that learning our country’s historical experiences and lessons is much less likely in the past two decades as millions of public and liberal private (including many religious), school children graduate who have been taught to hate their country, their race if they are Caucasian, and worship trees. They are taught less history every year, our traditional holidays have been done away with, the curriculum dumbed down, etc. Conservatives and Christians continually bemoan what is going on in our country, and rehash the now almost daily assaults on our Constitution, yet continue to send their children to be indoctrinated in a place that is openly hostile to their beliefs. Many don’t seem to realize that even when their child is under the tutelage of a supposedly Christian teacher, the curriculum and culture dictate how and what is taught. It seems so incredibly basic that it’s madness to send children to be taught by one’s enemies, that I wonder what you think? Hoards of dumbed down, pacifist Eloi, as you so aptly refer to them, are being turned out daily in our government schools to work in government, pastor our churches and raise an even dumber and more spineless next generation. Why the broad silence on this issue?
Also, I’m shocked at how easily Obama has been able to avoid showing his birth certificate and how the courts have engaged in endless legal maneuvering in order to avoid hearing the case. I’m not only surprised, but extremely angry. I’m not usually obsessive, but this issue truly bothers me. It’s surreal to have been required to pay for a “certified” copy of my children’s birth certificates so that they could play little league, yet Obama has been able blatantly to cheat his way into the highest office in the land. Do you think that anything will ever be done now, or that he’s boldly pulled off the biggest scam in American history?
It seems to work like this: In Portland, Oregon the mayor has admitted having an affair with a young aide, who may have been a minor when the affair began. He lied about this incident in print and public speeches before the election. After he was elected and it all came out, there was a huge outcry, and even gay leadership in the city called for his ouster. He simply laid low, waited for the people’s anger to dissipate and until the public’s attention was turned elsewhere, and continue on as mayor. I hear nothing about it these days. This seems to be the current pattern in all the outrageous things I read about. Have we simply lost our country altogether and now must watch it’s not-so-slow demise?.
I greatly appreciate your opinion and often pass on your commentary to others. I hope the above hastily written, insomniac questions aren’t too jumbled.
LA replies:
Of course it’s the case that millions of leftists in this country are as ignorant of the country and its history and common experiences as Obama. So obviously being a natural born citizen is not a guarantee of being an informed and patriotic citizen. But Obama is not just one of millions of leftists. He is (as incredible as it is to say this) the President of the United States. So his generic leftism combines with and is exacerbated by his marginal, outsider, and (most likely) non-natural-born status in a way that is uniquely significant and harmful.
I am not expecting or hoping that anything will be done about his status, given that he’s been elected President. What I want is for the truth to come out. In this I am the opposite of David Horowitz, who says that people who care about truth are naive, unrealistic, and dangerous, Horowitz, the “conservative” with the deep inner mental workings of a leftist, Horowitz, who is philosophically and temperamentally committed to the position that truth doesn’t matter and should be suppressed.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 01, 2009 03:17 PM | Send