Mark Steyn: Pledging allegiance to our beloved Obama »
Posted By RTHTGakaRoland 2 months, 3 weeks ago in Political Opinion
The Omnipresent Leader has traditionally been a characteristic feature of Third World basket-case dumps: the conflation of the man and the state is explicit, and ubiquitous. In 2003, motoring around western Iraq a few weeks after the regime's fall, when the schoolhouses were hastily taking down the huge portraits of Saddam that had hung on every classroom wall, I visited an elementary-school principal with a huge stack of suddenly empty picture frames piled up on his desk, and nothing to put in them. The education system's standard first-grade reader featured a couple of kids called Hassan and Amal – a kind of Iraqi Dick and Jane – proudly holding up their portraits of the great man and explaining the benefits of an Iraqi education:
"O come, Hassan," says Amal. "Let us chant for the homeland and use our pens to write, 'Our beloved Saddam.'"
"I come, Amal," says Hassan. "I come in a hurry to chant, 'O, Saddam, our courageous president, we are all soldiers defending the borders for you, carrying weapons and marching to success.'"
Pathetic, right?
On Friday, Aug. 28, the principal of Eagle Bay Elementary School in Farmington, Utah – in the name of "education" – showed her young charges the "Obama Pledge" video released at the time of the inauguration, in which Ashton Kutcher and various other big-time celebrities, two or three of whom you might even recognize, "pledge to be a servant to our president and to all mankind because together we can, together we are, and together we will be the change that we seek."
Altogether now! Let us chant for mankind and use our pens to write, "O beloved Obama, our courageous president, we are all servants defending the hope for you and marching to change."
Any self-respecting schoolkid, enjoined by his principal to be a "servant" to the head of state, would reply, "Get lost, creep." And, if they still taught history in American schools, he'd add, "Oh, and by the way, that question was settled in 1776."
The president is not our ruler but our representative, a citizen-executive drawn from the people. It is unbecoming to a self-governing republic to require schoolchildren to (to cite another test question) select the three most important words in the president's speech.
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RTHTGakaRoland
“…man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law ...
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Striker1012 months, 3 weeks ago
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Our Texas hometown school superintendent has firmly stated that the video pledge to Obama will not be shown here. Not everyone is playing the Obama games here, which instills a bit of pride. We need to act to resist in every possible way, every time.
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smithichie2 months, 3 weeks ago
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stephen-johnson2 months, 3 weeks ago
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"Our Texas hometown school superintendent has firmly stated that the video pledge to Obama will not be shown here. "
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It's a moot point where I live. .
I live in NYC, where the school year starts on Sept 9. So NYC school children will miss Obama's prsentation. As will children in LA, Seattle, Boston and a number of other localities.
More heads-up planning by the crackerjack Obama team. -
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icono12 months, 3 weeks ago
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I guess the 0 Messiah hasn't really grasped that the preamble to the US Constitution starts out with "We We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union....."
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Not with 'Me Barack Hussein 0Bama, in order to form a more inclusive and perfect collective society that is all about me, Barak Hussein OBama......' -
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Tumultuous2 months, 3 weeks ago
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Hatred is self-punishment. Hatred it the coward's revenge for being intimidated. Why is the right wing possessed with such irrational hatred? Because they are coward's.
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Societies regression is the goal of the conservative character. The conservative coward is frightened of progress.
With the coward, it is always one step forward, two steps back. This is why the right wants America to fail. If they can't control the agenda, they will destroy the agenda of those who do.-
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stephen-johnson2 months, 3 weeks ago
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Where do the moderates/independents fall in your analysis?
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http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cr_20090...
"Independent voters -- fired up by the war in Iraq and Republican scandals -- gave Democrats control of both chambers of Congress in 2006. Two years later, independents upset with President Bush and eager to give his party another kick expanded the Democratic majorities on the Hill. Late in the campaign, the economic downturn, together with an influx of young people and minorities enthusiastic about Obama, created a wave that left the GOP in ruins.
That was then; this is now. For the seven weeks from mid-April through the first week of June, Obama's weekly Gallup Poll approval rating among independents ran in the 60-to-70 percent range. But in four of the past five weeks, it has been only in the mid-to-high 40s. Meanwhile, Democrats and liberals seem lethargic even though Republicans and conservatives are spitting nails and can't wait to vote.
What's going on? While political analysts were fixated on last fall's campaign and on Obama's victory, inauguration, and first 100 days in office, two other dynamics were developing. First, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression scared many voters, making them worry about their future and that of their children and grandchildren. And the federal government's failure to prevent that calamity fundamentally undermined the public's already low confidence in government's ability to solve problems. Washington's unprecedented levels of intervention -- at the end of Bush's presidency and the start of Obama's -- into the private sector further unnerved the skittish public. People didn't mind that the head of General Motors got fired. What frightened folks was that it was the federal government doing the firing.
Many conservatives predictably fear -- and some downright oppose -- any expansion of government. But late last year many moderates and independents who were already frightened about the economy began to fret that Washington was taking irreversible actions that would drive mountainous deficits higher. They worried that government was taking on far more than it could competently handle and far more than the country could afford. Against this backdrop, Obama's agenda fanned fears that government was expanding too far, too fast. Before long, his strategy of letting Congress take the lead in formulating legislative proposals and thus prodding lawmakers to take ownership in their outcome caused his poll numbers on "strength" and "leadership" to plummet." -
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corbin-dallasComment removed: Abusive1 Reply
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noahjw122 months, 3 weeks ago
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Mark Steyn, in case anyone is unaware, is a very right wing columnist dedicated to promoting conservatism and smearing any other form of thought. That some hollywood Obama supporters pledged to serve the President is a non-issue, a rhetorical flourish. That Steyn would link this to the type of brain-washing that took place in Saddam's Iraq would be laughable, if the right-wing hadn't, with some success, also been able to float other bizarre claims such as health care 'death panels' who would decide which citizens lived and died. There are real issues in the U.S., in health care, economics, etc. that conservatives could make sensible, fiscally and socially conservative arguments about.
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Instead, Steyn, and his kind, search for socialist boogey-men behind everything Obama does. They are right about one thing, these Steyn-ites - Obama is not 'the Messiah'. But guess what, he's not Stalin either. -
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stephen-johnson2 months, 3 weeks ago
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/be...
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"Hot Air's Ed Morrissey - joined by bloggers Baseball Crank and Moe Lane - notes that Los Angeles public schools won't be in session next Tuesday when President Obama delivers his speech to the nation's children. Neither will those in the Boston schools. Or the New York City public schools. Or those in Seattle, Buffalo or Eugene (Oregon).
It's the Obamatuerism of the day on this one, but it may be indicative of a new theme concerning the Obama administration's managerial and strategic political competence. All presidential teams tend to get high marks during their honeymoons. But the Obama honeymoon has clearly been over since early summer.
Now, the school speech was poorly thought out, both in concept and execution. The same can be said of Obama's recurring unsuccessful attempts over the summer to "reframe the health care reform debate," and the multiple mis-steps in responding to his Town Hall critics, beginning with the spectacularly inept branding of them as an "angry mob."
There will be many more such opportunities for political mis-steps and odds are the Obama team won't miss many of them. A blitz of news stories about the massive waste and fraud attending the $787 billion stimulus program is probably headed Obama's way in coming months, and who knows how many more Van Jones that he has appointed to influential jobs in the government will suddenly hit the front pages.
The lesson here is that the political ear that warns of potential mis-steps in a campaign is not the same one that works once you are elected and have to make the thousand decisions that come with daily governance of a central government that long ago become far too big and expansive to be effectively managed. This is why administration officials approach projects like the school speech without anticipating the explosion of negative public reaction." -
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ConquerorWyrm2 months, 3 weeks ago
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To all of those paranoid, America hating psychopathic Republicans out there...
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Obama has not, to my knowledge, referenced himself in a speech yet as the "Leader".
GWB constantly referred to himself in his speeches as the "Leader".
Stop trying to put the anti-American sins of your Masters onto the backs of true Americans!-
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Tasine2 months, 3 weeks ago
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There are no America hating Republicans. And don't for one second think that only Republicans see the government as over-reaching. I know many Democrats who think the same thing. I suppose all Libertarians do, and I'm sure at least some Independents do.
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Trying to protect one's country from destruction is NOT the action of a traitor nor a psychopath. Some people can see the big picture and have studied history and KNOW warning signs when smacked in the face with them - some people cannot, or worse yet, WILL not if it hurts their dreams. It is that simple. What the leftists on this thread call progress, I call regression of over 200 years, and I am not ready to let my country drive itself back that far.
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lloydm652 months, 3 weeks ago
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I can't believe someone to the left of Castro criticising hate speech.They have made it their lives since 2000.I believe that before they put their children to bed,they remind them this family hates Bush,and everybody who don't hate bush.When you go see grand pa tell him Bush hates him,and granny,but Obama loves them.
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david_nwpa2 months, 3 weeks ago
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When Ronald Reagan used a speech to school children to explain the changes to the tax code, you were fine with that. When GW Bush left the Kindergarten class on 9/11 to talk with kids about the terrorist attacks, you were fine with that too. Now comes President Obama who wants to talk about staying in school and striving for success, you are offended and upset by "liberal indoctrination"?? How hypocritical can the right wing get?
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Will13132 months, 3 weeks ago
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Find some pride, Pc25.
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where is there pride in being anti-American..
he's the most sniveling little anti-American POS on propeller well was. there are other's now here almost equal in their fear of progress and unity...
there was a reason many of these people couldn't cut it on Digg.. and personally they can have their little circle - jerks among themselves.. -
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noahjw122 months, 2 weeks ago
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To Wolfie2007 who wrote
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"So all you can do it attempt a smear job. Looks to me like you'd like to be the boggy man and scare folks away from all you don't deem to be correct according to you leftward political leanings. Sad little useful idiot."
I gather you are one of the people living in fear of all that is not conservative. I'll try once again to talk plain sense to you. There are millions of people across the Western world, the vast majority in fact, who fall into an ideological middle zone. We might support the war in Afghanistan, but think Iraq was ill-advised, see the real need to put a cap on spending, but also think some stimulus in the time of recession is not a bad thing, believe that a leader should have the right to give a speech to his county's children, but agree that if and when that speech descend into ideological coercion, than that leader should be taken to task for doing so.
However, there are fanatics on both the left and right that will attempt to destroy any thought that is not there own. I have no problem with anyone criticizing Obama or in defending conservative ideals. My problem comes from people demonizing thought that is not their own. Those who talk about health-care death squads, who thing children need to be protected from being addressed by their President, even if his message might just be stay in school, who call others 'idiots' for not agreeing with their position - I'm sorry, these people are the fanatics of the Right, just as the supporters of Castro are the fanatics of the left.
I say, lets not let the fear-mongerers on either side win out. Let the middle majority - which encompasses both liberal and conservative thought- have an adult conversation.-
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Tasine2 months, 2 weeks ago
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You on the left who are incapable of rational thought, be careful of calling love of free enterprise, love of freedom, love of liberty and dislike of huge government or collectivist government FEAR. Trust me, it isn't FEAR. It is WHITE HOT ANGER, not even so much at Obama as he can't help himself as at lifelong citizens who know America is not the cesspool Obama keeps telling the world it is, but support and parrot him while knowing better.
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noahjw122 months, 2 weeks ago
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Tasine, you need to bone up on your history - liberalism rose up in direct opposition to repressive big governments and has a long history of fighting for freedom, e.g. to expand the vote throughout the Western world, to end segregation in the South, to protest unfair govenments in Apartheid S. Africa and in modern day China - note the last, liberals speaking out against communist China, because liberal thought, despite what far-right conservative believe is nothing like communism.
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And thats the real problem I have here - how a certain portion of the right will paint anyone and anything that doesn't agree with them as extremists who hate freedom liberty and think America is a cesspool. It is frightening to me that somone like you or Wolfie2007 can't distinguish between people in the middle with some liberal ideals and someone like Hugo Chavez, who your comments might be applicable too. You're WHITE HOT ANGER is fanatacism - and I think a lot of people in the middle majority can see that pretty plain.
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