One Nation Under Obama ...

ViRedd · #1 07-02-2008, 05:54 PM

One Nation Under Obama

by Thomas Fleming

Barack Obama has kicked off his “Patriotism Tour” with a speech that is designed to depict the candidate as a thoughtful man who has meditated long and hard upon the history of our country and the meaning of patriotism. In fact, it reveals him for what he is: a knee-jerk Marxist who has swallowed hook-line-and sinker the academic left’s reinvention of America and its contempt for what the rest of us would call patriotism. It also reveals an inane duplicity that I had hitherto thought impossible in anyone not named George Bush.

Senator Obama is well aware that the patriotism issue does not favor his side. His transparent lack of patriotism is made even more glaring by his wife’s flippant dismissal of her nation’s virtues—until, of course, the arrival of her husband on the national political scene—and by Wesley Clark’s ham-fisted dismissal of Senator McCain’s military service. Most Americans, including many who loathe John McCain almost as much as I do, do not like to hear attacks on the military record of men who have served their country in war and who have been tortured by their country’s enemies.

In something of a jam, then, Obama has gone on a tour whose title is less reminiscent of a military campaign than of Madonna’s “Blond Ambition” tour. He begins with the familiar leftist platitudes about the American Revolution. The tough New England yeomen who left their homes in 1775, according to this myth, were not fighting “on behalf of a particular tribe or lineage, but on behalf of a larger idea. The idea of liberty. The idea of God-given, inalienable rights. And with the first shot of that fateful day – a shot heard round the world – the American Revolution, and America’s experiment with democracy, began.” Etc. etc. They must have been reading “The Declaration of Independence”–or, rather, they must have been the true author’s of the screed that Jefferson signed some 15 months later.

Obama does well to ignore the real men who fought at Lexington, because they were on a mission to prevent the British authorities from seizing the weapons they had stockpiled in anticipation of the outbreak of the revolution they had been plotting. Even the gun nuts at the NRA would probably not like to defend a band of reactionary farmers who were prepared to fight to restore their traditional liberties. They might even have said their chartered liberties, though today we would invoke the constitution and not our states’ colonial charters.

Perhaps we should not blame the Senator too much for his ignorance of any American history that cannot be reduced to ideological slogans about equal rights. He is a victim of his education. Who was there, either at Columbia or at Harvard Law, who did not believe this booshwa? But his professors, at least, would not disguise the fact that they hated the real America represented by either Yankees or Southerners or that they rejected the whole notion of patriotism as Neanderthal. When Alisdair MacIntyre even raised the question in the title of his essay, “Is Patriotism a Virtue?,” he was defying the academic establishment.

Then what, for this “man of mixed race, without firm anchor in any particular community, without even a father’s steadying hand,” is patriotism, since it obviously cannot be the pre-rational love of blood and soil? The answer is that “it is this essential American idea – that we are not constrained by the accident of birth but can make of our lives what we will.” Among these accidents of birth, of course, are such trivial details as who our parents are and in what country we are born. From Obama’s point of view, his Kenyan father should have just as much right as he does to be elected President.

So then, does patriotism mean turning our backs on our families and our people to march boldly into a future determined by ideological abstractions? Apparently. “Patriotism is always more than just loyalty to a place on a map or a certain kind of people. Instead, it is also loyalty to America’s ideals – ideals for which anyone can sacrifice, or defend, or give their last full measure of devotion.” Note the “always.” A dumb WASP who loves the country his ancestors fought and died for cannot even be regarded as a lower kind of patriot. Rather, he is one of those retrograde social elements that Marx and Engels wanted to wipe off the map of Europe.

Like every other unreflective leftist in the world, Obama knows he is on the right side of history. This means, among other things, that he knows what conservatives and Christians believe better than they do. You must have all had the experience. Backed into a corner, the leftist always says, “a real conservative would support a ban on killing seals,” or “a real Christian would see Gay Marriage as an affirmation of the institution of marriage.” For this reason, Obama cannot cut any slack to us knuckle-dragging chauvinists and insists that all of us “can agree that no party or political philosophy has a monopoly on patriotism.” Just as mere Christians cannot have a monopoly on Christianity, and just as (so he has also declared) we could not make an abortion policy on the basis of one faith or of all faiths, so people who love their country have no monopoly on patriotism . Quite simply, Christians and conservatives do not have a perspective on anything, because there is only one legitimate point of view—the point of view of Barack Obama and the rest of the anti-American Marxist Left —that needs to be considered.

In the real United States of America, where patriotism was still a virtue and where people were expected to know their country’s history, Obama would never have made it to the Illinois legislature. In Reconstructed and occupied USA, it will be amazing if he is not made dictator for life.

medicineman · #2 07-03-2008, 01:18 PM

It's amazing the drivel one can find on the internet, the above excerpt is a prime example. Oh, that's right, in this case one must consider the dementia of the poster.

ViRedd · #3 07-05-2008, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by medicineman

It's amazing the drivel one can find on the internet, the above excerpt is a prime example. Oh, that's right, in this case one must consider the dementia of the poster.

In stead of prodding with your personal attack, limited mentality, how about dissecting the post and tell us what it is that you disagree with?

Don't you have some Storm Troopers to organize or something?

Vi

medicineman · #4 07-06-2008, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ViRedd

In stead of prodding with your personal attack, limited mentality, how about dissecting the post and tell us what it is that you disagree with?

Don't you have some Storm Troopers to organize or something?

Vi

I wish, I'd be at your front door in a heartbeat,~LOL~. You are so fucking paranoid. In point of fact, it has been your crowd that has taken most of our freedoms away, remember Habeas-Corpus? I remember you trying to defend Bush on that one, like saying, "well have you been arested yet and held incognito" Well no, but anyone could and certainly will be (Think Guantanamo) unless this insanity is turned around. How about the intel act to listen in on every form of communication, your crowd again. More repukes than dems voted for that shit. When you go off on your liberty rants, you should be more blameful of the repuke party than the dems, figures don't lie, but libertarians do.

The Republican Candidates: Ditto. Every one of them voted for the rise of the police state (Patriot Act) not once, but twice.
Then there's the torture bill (Military Commissions Act).
This was voted for by solid Republican vote, while the Republicans still had the majority. The Dems just as solidly voted against it, with only a few Repubs and Dems breaking the party lines each way.
It pretty much follows party lines all through the end of our rights. The republicans want to take our rights away, period.

ViRedd · #5 07-06-2008, 10:03 AM

Call out the bullshit cops ... Med's ranting again!

I have repeatedly said that I DID NOT VOTE FOR BUSH. Therefore, Bush is not "my guy." I have also repeatedly said that I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN. So here you go again, mistaking anyone who espouses liberty as "right-wing." Other than trying to blur the debate, is there any other reason why you lefties do that? I tend to believe that its because you are misinformed. I'd hate to think that you have a more sinister motive.

Vi

medicineman · #6 07-06-2008, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ViRedd

Call out the bullshit cops ... Med's ranting again!

I have repeatedly said that I DID NOT VOTE FOR BUSH. Therefore, Bush is not "my guy." I have also repeatedly said that I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN. So here you go again, mistaking anyone who espouses liberty as "right-wing." Other than trying to blur the debate, is there any other reason why you lefties do that? I tend to believe that its because you are misinformed. I'd hate to think that you have a more sinister motive.

Vi

Oh, I see, you sure championed Bush when he gave you a huge tax break. Now that he's turned out to be such a scumbag, you run from the sinking ship like the rat you are. Pro bush one minute, anti-bush the next. talk about a flip-flopper.

ViRedd · #7 07-06-2008, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by medicineman

Oh, I see, you sure championed Bush when he gave you a huge tax break. Now that he's turned out to be such a scumbag, you run from the sinking ship like the rat you are. Pro bush one minute, anti-bush the next. talk about a flip-flopper.

One issue does not connote support of the total person. Yes, I supported the tax cut. Tax cuts represent less government power over our lives. I supported JFK's tax cuts too. The only problem with Bush's tax cuts is that they weren't big enough ... and some contained sunset clauses.

Now with that said, and talking about flip-floppers ... have you checked out your boy O'Bama's latest take on ending the war in Iraq? He's getting a little nuanced isn't he? ~lol~

Vi