Feb
16
These people are scary
February 16, 2008 |
A lot can be said about the complete vacuousness of Barack Obama. He has managed to snooker a great number of otherwise intelligent people with empty rhetoric that sounds good. And while his large following demonstrates the continued Oprah-ization of American society, we should really tremble at the prospect of an Obama presidency. Contra John McCain, Obama truly is a socialist, and he will take this country to places we ought not go.
Captain Ed has a blog post which shows the latest example of why we should fear an Obama presidency. Barack’s wife Michelle recently gave a speech which is horrifying both substantively and rhetorically.
In 2008, we are still a nation that is too divided. We live in isolation, and because of that isolation, we fear one another. We don’t know our neighbors, we don’t talk, we believe our pain is our own. We don’t realize that the struggles and challenges of all of us are the same. We are too isolated. And we are still a nation that is still too cynical. We look at it as “them” and “they” as opposed to “us”. We don’t engage because we are still too cynical. . .
Yawn. We’ve been saying this for, oh, about 200 years. Yes, we are perhaps living in uber partisan times. Heck, when a hearing about steroid abuse in baseball can be riven by partisanship, that’s a sign that maybe we’ve gone a bit too far. But this is really just meaningless drivel spewed every four years by presidential candidates who believe that they can magically cure the human condition.
Americans are not in debt because they live frivolously but because someone got sick. Even with insurance, the deductibles and the premiums are so high that people are still putting medications and treatments on credit cards. And they can’t get out from under. I could go on and on, but this is how we’re living, people, in 2008.
This is simply stupid. Americans are in debt because of health care? That may be true for some, but does Michelle Obama have any evidence to prove that this is the case for most people? Sorry Michelle, we’re in debt because we live beyond our means. I’m just as guilty as anyone, and my total outlays on health care cost have been minimal.
We have lost the understanding that in a democracy, we have a mutual obligation to one another — that we cannot measure the greatness of our society by the strongest and richest of us, but we have to measure our greatness by the least of these. That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I am here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this who understands that. That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.
Captain Ed bolded that last sentence, and here’s his commentary on it.
But it’s the notion that only Barack Obama can save our souls that is the most offensive part of the speech, by far. Government doesn’t exist to save souls; it exists to ensure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense. If I feel my soul needs saving, the very last place I’d look (in the US) for a savior would be Washington DC or Capitol Hill. I’ll trust God and Jesus Christ with my soul, and I’m not going to mistake Barack Obama for either one.
This, though, is the religion of statism distilled to its essence. Only a government can rescue people from the consequences of their own decisions. Only government programs can provide for your every need, and only government can use your money wisely enough to ensure that your needs get covered. Individuals cannot possibly manage to help their neighbors through their churches or community organizations, let alone encourage people to do for themselves.
And all you need to enter the statist Utopia is to sell your soul. So that it can be fixed.
No, thank you.
Exactly. Again, it’s this rhetoric that one man can suddenly transform the human condition that is just utterly appalling. The Obama campaign is more akin to a cult than a political movement, as exemplified by this satirical site. And yet it’s the right that supposedly wants to create a theocracy? Right.
Update: It is possible to put a slightly better spin on Obama’s speech. Obama himself is not going to save our souls, but only he understands that our souls are broken. Now, this still seems pretty snobby to me, and there’s still a sense that the power of the state can be used for redemptive purposes. So even if Ed has overreacted a bit, I think he’s right in pointing out the worrisome nature of what Obama has said.
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I do a lot of personal bankruptcies. About 10% of the bankruptcies involve substantial medical debt which I define as over 25% of total indebtedness. Most of my bankruptcies have some medical debt, but usually it is less than 10% of total debt.