I must admit, I thought I knew who Barack Obama was and what motivated him. I honestly thought he was a committed Socialist who wanted to tear down America to rebuild it as a Socialist nation. I was wrong.
Dinesh D’Souza’s documentary, 2016: Obama’s America is a documentary that explores the driving forces in Barack Obama’s life, and seeks to explain the things that motivates his choices and his policies. D’Souza digs into young Obama’s childhood, and introduces us to those who influenced him as he grew up. The experience is eye-opening.
The parallels between the early lives of Barack Obama and Dinesh D’Souza are uncanny, which gives D’Souza a unique ability to understand the things that shaped Obama’s outlook on the world around him. In his movie, D’Souza pieces together the fragments of what little we have been allowed to know about Obama’s life and in doing so manages to bring the events of the past four years into sharp focus.
I have long been convinced that Obama’s goal was to destroy the America we know for the purpose of rebuilding it into a Socialist nation, but I now know I was wrong. Tearing down America is the goal, and Socialism is simply the tool.
Please, go see the movie. If you love the America envisioned and created by our founding fathers, you cannot come away without a sense of dread about the future of our country if Barack Obama is allowed another four years in office. See the movie, take along some friends, and make sure you are registered to vote.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
The Collectivist Within
During the debate over Obamacare, then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi uttered her infamous line “We have to pass the bill to see what’s in the bill”. Although were never given that particular advice about Barack Obama, it is now clear that we had to elect the man to find out what’s in the man. Now, almost four years later, there is a lot we still don’t know about the man, but we do know a lot about what is in the man and what we do know should be sufficient to preclude another four years.
In most cases you can learn a lot about a man by reading his autobiography, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with our current President. According to biographer David Maraniss, the President’s autobiography should have been entitled Barack’s Fables rather than Dreams From My Father. In his book Barack Obama: the Story, Maraniss reveals that much of Obama’s book is fiction, similar in many ways to the things he says in his speeches. How then, are we to get to know the real Barack Obama? As is always the case, we can find excellent advice for this situation in the Bible where Jesus said “You shall know them by their fruits”.
To avoid confusion, I should point out that in this case the word “fruits” does not refer to the members of Obama’s administration; rather, it is a reference to the product of his policies and his actions. We should also be careful to differentiate between the fruits of his administration and those of previous administrations. If you’ve ever spent any time in a fruit orchard, you know that there is often overripe fruit lying on the ground, rotting and giving off a putrid smell. In the case of Barack Obama however, his fruits look and smell that way while they are still growing on the tree and tend to get worse over time.
To be fair, Barack Obama is a multi-faceted President, having many bad qualities; so it would take much too long to review all of them here. Instead let’s choose one area that is near and dear to most of us right now, his economic philosophy. Prior to his nomination in 2008, Obama was asked in an interview with the New York Times to describe his economic approach. “My core economic theory is pragmatism,” he said, “figuring out what works.” It is not clear if, at that point, the interviewer followed up with a question about what he was trying to accomplish.
Since Obama was, and continues to be, allowed to dodge a direct question about is core economic philosophy, we will have to determine what they really are on our own. We begin by looking at his book Dreams From My Father. We already know that the content of the book can be disregarded, but there is much to be learned from the title. The President’s father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., was a government Economist in Kenya and has been described as a committed Marxist. Obama’s maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham is also said to have been a communist who chose communist political activist Frank Marshall Davis to be a mentor for his grandson Barack.
It would not be unreasonable then, to wonder if these early communist influencers shaped Obama’s core economic views. Obviously President Obama isn’t likely to hold a press conference and announce his admiration for Marxist philosophies, so we will have to look for other clues. One such clue came during the previous campaign when then candidate Obama told Samuel Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, that "when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody".
Certainly, we can examine the policies promoted by the Obama administration and see that they consistently move the country toward a larger, more controlling federal government and fosters a culture of government dependency. We can also recognize a tendency on the part of the President to spend tax dollars in a manner that so far has succeeded only in raising our national debt to crisis levels. If we are to take him at his word that his plan has worked, then we can only conclude that this was his goal.
The President also has an affinity towards raising taxes at every given opportunity. Since this is a common trait among Democrats, we should examine their reasons for wanting to do so. Their excuse of course, is to reduce the deficit. We know however, that Congress has the ability and the will to spend in excess of what they take in regardless of how much that might be, so higher taxes will never accomplish that goal. It would seem reasonable to deduce then, that the higher deficits could have been created simply for the sake of establishing a basis for higher taxes. If we again remember then candidate Obama’s desire to “spread the wealth around”, as well as his more recent statement in Chicago about shared prosperity, it becomes clear that larger deficits and higher taxes are part of his overall plan.
President Obama has at times been described as a Liberal, Progressive, Socialist, Communist, and a Marxist. While there are subtle differences between each of these, they are all varieties of a political philosophy called collectivism. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, "collectivism has found varying degrees of expression in the 20th century in such movements as socialism, communism, and fascism.” Even the religious views espoused by the President include a belief in collective salvation.
In the past Americans would have balked at the first sign of Socialist ideology, but as more people become comfortable with their dependency on government the idea doesn’t seem quite so frightening. Those on the lower end of the economic scale are often easily lured by the prospect of being on the receiving end of wealth redistribution. What they fail to understand however, is that as well as being a collectivist, President Obama is also a globalist who is totally unconcerned about our national borders. Due to Obama’s upbringing, he lacks the cultural ties necessary to instill a sense of loyalty to America to which most of us are accustomed. From his point of view, America is simply a pot of wealth needing to be spread around the world. This combination of political philosophies means that those Americans who are now considered poor will suddenly, from a global perspective, achieve a position of wealth and affluence placing them at the other end of the line for wealth redistribution.
After almost four years we have begun to learn a little about just who Barack Obama really is, but we have much more to learn. Much of who he is has been hidden due to his desire to win re-election. In March of this year, the President was caught on an open mic telling Russian President Medvedev “This is my last election. After my election, I’ll have more flexibility.” The subject of the discussion was missile defense, which is troubling enough, but during the conversation he indicated that the pending flexibility applied to other issues as well. Apparently if we want to know who Barack Obama really is we will have to follow Nancy Pelosi’s lead and elect him again. For my part though, I think I already know enough.
In most cases you can learn a lot about a man by reading his autobiography, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with our current President. According to biographer David Maraniss, the President’s autobiography should have been entitled Barack’s Fables rather than Dreams From My Father. In his book Barack Obama: the Story, Maraniss reveals that much of Obama’s book is fiction, similar in many ways to the things he says in his speeches. How then, are we to get to know the real Barack Obama? As is always the case, we can find excellent advice for this situation in the Bible where Jesus said “You shall know them by their fruits”.
To avoid confusion, I should point out that in this case the word “fruits” does not refer to the members of Obama’s administration; rather, it is a reference to the product of his policies and his actions. We should also be careful to differentiate between the fruits of his administration and those of previous administrations. If you’ve ever spent any time in a fruit orchard, you know that there is often overripe fruit lying on the ground, rotting and giving off a putrid smell. In the case of Barack Obama however, his fruits look and smell that way while they are still growing on the tree and tend to get worse over time.
To be fair, Barack Obama is a multi-faceted President, having many bad qualities; so it would take much too long to review all of them here. Instead let’s choose one area that is near and dear to most of us right now, his economic philosophy. Prior to his nomination in 2008, Obama was asked in an interview with the New York Times to describe his economic approach. “My core economic theory is pragmatism,” he said, “figuring out what works.” It is not clear if, at that point, the interviewer followed up with a question about what he was trying to accomplish.
Since Obama was, and continues to be, allowed to dodge a direct question about is core economic philosophy, we will have to determine what they really are on our own. We begin by looking at his book Dreams From My Father. We already know that the content of the book can be disregarded, but there is much to be learned from the title. The President’s father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., was a government Economist in Kenya and has been described as a committed Marxist. Obama’s maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham is also said to have been a communist who chose communist political activist Frank Marshall Davis to be a mentor for his grandson Barack.
It would not be unreasonable then, to wonder if these early communist influencers shaped Obama’s core economic views. Obviously President Obama isn’t likely to hold a press conference and announce his admiration for Marxist philosophies, so we will have to look for other clues. One such clue came during the previous campaign when then candidate Obama told Samuel Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, that "when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody".
Certainly, we can examine the policies promoted by the Obama administration and see that they consistently move the country toward a larger, more controlling federal government and fosters a culture of government dependency. We can also recognize a tendency on the part of the President to spend tax dollars in a manner that so far has succeeded only in raising our national debt to crisis levels. If we are to take him at his word that his plan has worked, then we can only conclude that this was his goal.
The President also has an affinity towards raising taxes at every given opportunity. Since this is a common trait among Democrats, we should examine their reasons for wanting to do so. Their excuse of course, is to reduce the deficit. We know however, that Congress has the ability and the will to spend in excess of what they take in regardless of how much that might be, so higher taxes will never accomplish that goal. It would seem reasonable to deduce then, that the higher deficits could have been created simply for the sake of establishing a basis for higher taxes. If we again remember then candidate Obama’s desire to “spread the wealth around”, as well as his more recent statement in Chicago about shared prosperity, it becomes clear that larger deficits and higher taxes are part of his overall plan.
President Obama has at times been described as a Liberal, Progressive, Socialist, Communist, and a Marxist. While there are subtle differences between each of these, they are all varieties of a political philosophy called collectivism. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, "collectivism has found varying degrees of expression in the 20th century in such movements as socialism, communism, and fascism.” Even the religious views espoused by the President include a belief in collective salvation.
In the past Americans would have balked at the first sign of Socialist ideology, but as more people become comfortable with their dependency on government the idea doesn’t seem quite so frightening. Those on the lower end of the economic scale are often easily lured by the prospect of being on the receiving end of wealth redistribution. What they fail to understand however, is that as well as being a collectivist, President Obama is also a globalist who is totally unconcerned about our national borders. Due to Obama’s upbringing, he lacks the cultural ties necessary to instill a sense of loyalty to America to which most of us are accustomed. From his point of view, America is simply a pot of wealth needing to be spread around the world. This combination of political philosophies means that those Americans who are now considered poor will suddenly, from a global perspective, achieve a position of wealth and affluence placing them at the other end of the line for wealth redistribution.
After almost four years we have begun to learn a little about just who Barack Obama really is, but we have much more to learn. Much of who he is has been hidden due to his desire to win re-election. In March of this year, the President was caught on an open mic telling Russian President Medvedev “This is my last election. After my election, I’ll have more flexibility.” The subject of the discussion was missile defense, which is troubling enough, but during the conversation he indicated that the pending flexibility applied to other issues as well. Apparently if we want to know who Barack Obama really is we will have to follow Nancy Pelosi’s lead and elect him again. For my part though, I think I already know enough.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Why the LGBT Community Should Support Chick-Fil-A
I seriously doubt Dan Cathy, President of the Chick-Fil-A restaurant chain, had any idea that his simple statement of support for traditional marriage in an interview with the Baptist Press would have caused such a firestorm. His statement, along with his company’s financial support of various Christian charities, has been mischaracterized by many people on the left and in the LGBT community as being hateful and anti-gay.
If it is the goal of the LGBT community to declare the majority of Americans to be its enemy, it is most certainly free to interpret his remarks in that way and even to call for a boycott of his business. Judging from the response to that boycott call, I would suggest that it might be wise for them to reconsider their stance. In fact, I would even go so far as to suggest that it would be wise for everyone, including those in the LGBT community, to support Dan Cathy and Chick-Fil-A.
Don’t misunderstand; I’m not suggesting that they suddenly declare themselves to be in agreement with Mr. Cathy’s views; I am simply reminding them of the words attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
When this issue first made the news, it amounted to nothing more than an uproar over a simple statement of support for the Biblical ideal of marriage between one man and one woman. While I do not believe that this statement was in any way hateful or anti-gay, it is well within the rights of those who do to condemn and even to protest against such views. You see, I might disagree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it.
The nature of this debate changed however, when Boston Mayor Thomas M. Marino declared his intention of blocking Chick-Fil-A from opening a franchise within the city. The mayors of Washington D.C., Chicago, and San Francisco have also expressed similar intentions. Initially this controversy was nothing more than an ideological difference between the two sides, but the expressed intention of these elected officials to use the power of their office to punish the owners of Chick-Fil-A for their religious beliefs transformed it into a flagrant violation of the 1st Amendment.
While it is entirely appropriate for people to publicly disagree with Mr. Cathy on his views, it is absolutely inappropriate and illegal for government officials to abuse their power in this way. While I understand why the LGBT community disagrees with Dan Cathy, I call on them and every other American who values their Constitutional right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion to denounce these officials.
I know some may think it would be absurd for the same people who opposed Mr. Cathy to suddenly turn on those who ostensibly support their cause, but they must understand that the actions of these mayors, if allowed to stand, threaten the constitutional rights of ALL Americans, not just the rights of those with whom they disagree. If a mayor can block a company from doing business in his city because it supports traditional marriage, he can just as easily block a company that supports same-sex marriage. Is that the kind of country in which you want to live?
In a nation that guarantees the freedom of religion and the freedom of speech, there will always be divisions between those who hold differing points of view. It is because we have the freedom to express our views and to debate issues we hold dear that we are able to eventually bring these issues to resolution. Government, in its proper role, is a servant of the people; but when it becomes the arbiter of what is proper thought it takes on the role of master. A government created by the people and for the people was never intended to be our master, and those in the LGBT community have just as much interest in stopping this as anyone else.
If it is the goal of the LGBT community to declare the majority of Americans to be its enemy, it is most certainly free to interpret his remarks in that way and even to call for a boycott of his business. Judging from the response to that boycott call, I would suggest that it might be wise for them to reconsider their stance. In fact, I would even go so far as to suggest that it would be wise for everyone, including those in the LGBT community, to support Dan Cathy and Chick-Fil-A.
Don’t misunderstand; I’m not suggesting that they suddenly declare themselves to be in agreement with Mr. Cathy’s views; I am simply reminding them of the words attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
When this issue first made the news, it amounted to nothing more than an uproar over a simple statement of support for the Biblical ideal of marriage between one man and one woman. While I do not believe that this statement was in any way hateful or anti-gay, it is well within the rights of those who do to condemn and even to protest against such views. You see, I might disagree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it.
The nature of this debate changed however, when Boston Mayor Thomas M. Marino declared his intention of blocking Chick-Fil-A from opening a franchise within the city. The mayors of Washington D.C., Chicago, and San Francisco have also expressed similar intentions. Initially this controversy was nothing more than an ideological difference between the two sides, but the expressed intention of these elected officials to use the power of their office to punish the owners of Chick-Fil-A for their religious beliefs transformed it into a flagrant violation of the 1st Amendment.
While it is entirely appropriate for people to publicly disagree with Mr. Cathy on his views, it is absolutely inappropriate and illegal for government officials to abuse their power in this way. While I understand why the LGBT community disagrees with Dan Cathy, I call on them and every other American who values their Constitutional right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion to denounce these officials.
I know some may think it would be absurd for the same people who opposed Mr. Cathy to suddenly turn on those who ostensibly support their cause, but they must understand that the actions of these mayors, if allowed to stand, threaten the constitutional rights of ALL Americans, not just the rights of those with whom they disagree. If a mayor can block a company from doing business in his city because it supports traditional marriage, he can just as easily block a company that supports same-sex marriage. Is that the kind of country in which you want to live?
In a nation that guarantees the freedom of religion and the freedom of speech, there will always be divisions between those who hold differing points of view. It is because we have the freedom to express our views and to debate issues we hold dear that we are able to eventually bring these issues to resolution. Government, in its proper role, is a servant of the people; but when it becomes the arbiter of what is proper thought it takes on the role of master. A government created by the people and for the people was never intended to be our master, and those in the LGBT community have just as much interest in stopping this as anyone else.
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