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Is Barack Obama Anti-American? »
Posted By RTHTGakaRoland 3 weeks, 3 days ago in Political Opinion
Everything has a fundamental essence, a quality that makes it uniquely itself. Take an orange, for example. It's not only a citrus fruit -- it's an orange-colored citrus fruit. Horticulturists can alter its size, its texture, its sweetness, and even (to a limited extent) its color, but as long as its color is orange, the fruit remains "an orange" because that color is its definition. Change the color, however, and suddenly you have the un-orange, the anti-orange. You have something completely different that no longer contains the essence of the original fruit. Lose the essence and you lose the orange.
America has an essence too, and that essence is liberty. Since its inception, America has been defined by liberty -- both the liberty of the individual and the liberty of the nation. As the Declaration of Independence more elegantly states, "Goverments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." If we, the people make a social compact by which we consent to be governed, it means that government is our servant, not our master.
This uniquely American precept, one that sees the power of government flowing from the people rather than controlling the people, ideally results in a situation in which citizens are subject to minimal government constraints. As the Founders envisioned American government, the state exists to optimize individual freedoms, not to control the individual.
To this end, once the Founders delineated our government's structure in the Constitution -- a structure that grants the government only specifically enumerated powers and ensures that no single branch of the government can become dominant -- the Founders immediately turned their attention to the individual freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Each of these rights is intended to optimize the citizen's power against his (or her) own government.
Read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution and you will see that the American system is structured so that government is subordinate to the people, not vice-versa. The government's sole purpose is to provide a functioning framework within which American citizens can act freely to exercise their "unalienable Rights ... among these ... Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Liberty also extends to the nation as a whole. Both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are replete with examples of the Founders' absolute obsession with a free-standing national sovereignty. Indeed, the entire point of the Declaration of Independence is to establish America as a nation second to none.
Our American essence, therefore, can be defined as follows: American individuals are free from control by, and fear of, their own government, and the American nation is free from control by other nations.
Barack Obama stands out as the first American president whose every instinct is contrary to America's essence. At home, every single one of his initiatives is directed at increasing government control in every area, with a corresponding decrease in individual liberty. Here's an incomplete bullet-point list of his anti-liberty goals on the home front:
* He wants to deny individuals access to the marketplace --where they can make their own decisions about their own health care -- and instead put the government entirely in charge.
* He's willing to give government control over American businesses (e.g., the bank takeovers and Government Motors).
* His administration, while on record as opposing the Fairness Doctrine, is aggressively exploring a backdoor regulatory scheme that would have precisely the same practical effect as the Fairness Doctrine: it would impose government restrictions on content, rather than allowing the market (that means us, the consumers) to control content.
* His FCC wants to control the internet, a humming beehive of free speech (much of it critical of Obama).
* As his loud battles with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News illustrate, he desires a single-party press, not a free one.
* He believes that now that he is in power, the opposition should shut up and "get out of the way," a notion that runs directly counter to the First Amendment.
* Although he's mostly erased the record that once existed in cyberspace, his dream is to create a civilian national security force, subordinate to the administration, which would be larger than the American military. The military, please note, is controlled by the Constitution and has traditionally existed separate from, but subordinate to, the rest of the American government.
* He wants to take away the right to bear arms. He'll pay lip service to supporting the Second Amendment, but his fundamental goal is to use government to remove arms from individuals.
* In a stunning blow to the freedom of born alive infants, he is one of a handful of politicians nationwide who believes it is appropriate to leave such infants to die alone and untended. With few exceptions, even those whose politics are entirely colored by a pro-choice viewpoint couldn't swallow this approach.
* Without money, people have no choices. The more money the government siphons to itself, the fewer choices we as individuals have. Although he dresses it as fairness (it's "fair" for the "lucky" to pay substantially more), Obama believes that it's government's role to "spread the wealth." That may be "fair," but it's not consistent with liberty, hard work, and individual choices.
America is no longer the symbol of liberty around the world. She's just another nation -- and worse, one whose leader, by temperament and political belief, has more reverence for dictatorships than democracies. In other words, when Obama deals with the world outside America, he again denies America's essence, which has so long marked her as the symbol of and standard-bearer for freedom.
Just as an orange deprived of its color becomes the anti-orange, it's reasonable to state that because the overwhelming number of Barack Obama's desires and actions are antithetical to America's essence, he is in fact anti-American. He's not merely making little changes around the edges, smoothing away rough spots, augmenting existing traits, or getting rid of a few ugly cankers. Instead, both at home and abroad, Barack Obama is trying to destroy America's essence, that commitment to liberty that makes her unique in this world, and that makes her uniquely American.
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Submitted By:
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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RTHTGakaRoland3 weeks, 3 days ago
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This article had no illustration, and this cartoon was on a different page. I think that they missed a natural pairing.
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http://americanthinker.com/cartoons/?id=718 -
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Striker1013 weeks, 3 days ago
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I wrote and posted this on November 9th, 2008.
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http://morality101.net/AmericaLost.html
It helps explain this article too. -
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Justice4All3 weeks, 3 days ago
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engineer3 weeks, 3 days ago
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vor3 weeks, 3 days ago
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from the article....
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"America is no longer the symbol of liberty around the world"
That is the single most untrue and unpatriotic statement he has made yet! As if any of you actually speak to anyone of intelligence outside of these borders! Keep posting and abusing your liberties. No one will stop you. Proof of the absolute idiocy of your (and unAT's) argument. Only wish we could send you both to a totalitarian country like NK where you would learn what it was really like to be deprived of your liberties. That might be the only thing that would shut you up once and for all!
'Barack Obama stands out as the first American president whose every instinct is contrary to America's essence."
This line stood out as well for its absolute delusional quality...just another lame attempt to savage the man...if it was in print and laying on the ground and I stepped on it would have a devil of a time scraping it from the soles of my shoes...and I am sure it would stink to high heaven just like the essence of the (un)AmericanThinker.
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Daylight3 weeks, 3 days ago
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Every American is an anti-American that do not approve the Israeli crimes. Most of the posts on these thread come from the Israeli sympathizers, for them Obama is anti-American. I am not saying Obam is an Angel but compare to Bush he is not going that far enough to destroy America so fast, even though America by nature is on the path to destruction. The system is such Obam a cannot change it over night, anything he does will be called Marxist.
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(Obama believes that it's government's role to "spread the wealth." That may be "fair," but it's not consistent with liberty, hard work, and individual choices.)
BTW you have to sacrifice something in order to get something, you can't have the cake and eat it too and if you are worried about individual choice then there are 90% people will be left poor and helpless, only the rich will life a very comfortable lives at the expense of the poor and destitute.
The funny thing about America is that only Americans believe that it is a Democracy and it loves freedom. If America loves freedom,why does it support Israeli oppression for the last 60 years and also support puppets and dictators because they serve American interest? American Democracy is the biggest hoax of the century.-
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Striker1013 weeks, 3 days ago
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I saw nothing about Israel in this post????
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Anything and everything from 0 is marxist, so thus is it called.
Spread the wealth, by Force, is most UNfair. Why will anyone bother to work when it's all taken away and nobody can be prosperous except the Rulers/
Work is it's own reward and is not sacrifice. Force is sacrifice. -
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icono13 weeks, 3 days ago
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"BTW you have to sacrifice something in order to get something, you can't have the cake and eat it too and if you are worried about individual choice then there are 90% people will be left poor and helpless, only the rich will life a very comfortable lives at the expense of the poor and destitute."
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K Marx could not of said it better.
Have you read 'Capital' by Marx? -
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Edmar143 weeks, 3 days ago
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Daylight, this post has absolutely nothing to do with Israel. It tells me and a lot of others about you when you show your hate and ignorance no matter what the topic. You would never have heard an Israeli post something negative about Muslims on a thread that had absolutely nothing to do with Muslims. Your post tells us a lot about why the Middle East still doesn't have peace. Thank you for confirming that for us.
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truthiness3 weeks, 3 days ago
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perhaps if I was this confused about the goals and actions I would be afraid to.. most of the things listed are incorrect.
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-health insurance reform wont hve any affect on your personal decisions. it is just revamp the payment system.
- I think the GM takeover was a bad idea as well, but it hardly demonstrates an attempt to takeover the entire private business sector. that is just ridiculous on the face of it.
- the fairness doctrine is an attempt to create balanced airtime.. its a bad program b/c of the national nature of broadcasts vs its local requirements.. but that demonstrates poor planning not evil.
- The net neutrality act is about Liberty. it guarantees equal access to the web regardless of whether yu are an individual or billion dollar business. which is what we have now. Communications companies want a system where if you pay more you get better access (also not evil, just unfair to the rest of us)
- the civilian service corp was not a military. it was a variation on Americorp, but better organized. he did want service to be compulsory, which I found objectionable, but the goal was to instill civil pride in young citizens while also getting stuff done.
- the second amendment does need reform, but we all know that can only be done by amendment.
- I dont know about this born alive thing,
- if taxes were near 50% you would have a point. but they aren't. in fact they are not even the highest in US history. in fact, all that money the Fed has irresponsibly been pumping into the economy, taxes are a way to draw some of it out and keep inflation down.
you all might be taken a little more seriously if when Bush was president you had raised such an alarm, as he was far more brutal on our liberties and the constitution.-
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RTHTGakaRoland3 weeks, 3 days ago
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First, thanks for the first meaningful comment addressing the issue of the story that I have seen here (or in most of the stories that I have posted) from those opposed to the opinion and/or information presented.
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I still, certainly, disagree with your each of your points either in interpretation or in degree; but you score "Best of the Left".
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RTHTGakaRoland3 weeks, 3 days ago
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I have to give you of the Propeller Left due credit.
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You make it remarkably easy to tell when one is on the right course. The faster the drops and off topic attacks the closer we are to the proper heading. Everyone, not only we Conservatives and/or Libertarians, looking on can be sure of it by now.-
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jakesguile3 weeks, 3 days ago
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Let me ask you... if tomorrow you made an outlandish comment where you said "Let's find everyone who's gay beat them to death and throw their bodies onto a giant bonfire" how many pos votes do you think you'd actually have? If you turned into Hitler and started making comments about rounding up and executing Jewish people again, how many pos votes do you think you'd have?
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Think about that before you think that just simply negging you and calling your ideas stupid means you're on the right course.... cause frankly if you said something like that there'd be a lot of negs and a lot of people saying your ideas were stupid....and lot worse
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Sageparadox3 weeks, 3 days ago
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* He wants to deny individuals access to the marketplace --where they can make their own decisions about their own health care -- and instead put the government entirely in charge.
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Actually with the corporate monopoly over health care, people have no access to any kind of market place when it come to health care. Obama is atleast attempting to give people a second choice in the matter.
* He's willing to give government control over American businesses (e.g., the bank takeovers and Government Motors).
Actually the government has had little to no decissions in regards to the companies that it has bail out. The only attempt at all is to keep outragoues bonuses under controled that tax payers money would have been used. -
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Sageparadox3 weeks, 3 days ago
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* His administration, while on record as opposing the Fairness Doctrine, is aggressively exploring a backdoor regulatory scheme that would have precisely the same practical effect as the Fairness Doctrine: it would impose government restrictions on content, rather than allowing the market (that means us, the consumers) to control content.
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Come on now, can we please have some proof of this. Obama has done nothing to restrict any content when it comes to any kind of media matters.
* His FCC wants to control the internet, a humming beehive of free speech (much of it critical of Obama).
In truth it is the opposite, his FCC is trying to keep broadband internet providers from controling free speech and cencoring contents. Cons believe it is bad when gov cencors but its ok when corp. does.
* As his loud battles with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News illustrate, he desires a single-party press, not a free one.
No he is just calling them out for what they are. The loud speaker of the Gop. Funny that you believe the Fox News and Rush have freedom of speech, but the president Obama has none. -
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Sageparadox3 weeks, 3 days ago
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* He believes that now that he is in power, the opposition should shut up and "get out of the way," a notion that runs directly counter to the First Amendment.
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Oh I see the problem with this one. You are mistaken Obama for Dubya and his eight year reign of terror.
* Although he's mostly erased the record that once existed in cyberspace, his dream is to create a civilian national security force, subordinate to the administration, which would be larger than the American military. The military, please note, is controlled by the Constitution and has traditionally existed separate from, but subordinate to, the rest of the American government.
All I got to say about that is, watching to much Glen Beck is bad for your brain. -
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Sageparadox3 weeks, 3 days ago
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* He wants to take away the right to bear arms. He'll pay lip service to supporting the Second Amendment, but his fundamental goal is to use government to remove arms from individuals.
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Once again, two words : PROVE IT!
* In a stunning blow to the freedom of born alive infants, he is one of a handful of politicians nationwide who believes it is appropriate to leave such infants to die alone and untended. With few exceptions, even those whose politics are entirely colored by a pro-choice viewpoint couldn't swallow this approach.
Question: How much crack did you have to smoke to come up with a statement like that?
* Without money, people have no choices. The more money the government siphons to itself, the fewer choices we as individuals have. Although he dresses it as fairness (it's "fair" for the "lucky" to pay substantially more), Obama believes that it's government's role to "spread the wealth." That may be "fair," but it's not consistent with liberty, hard work, and individual choices.
Here we go again. It is so unfair to tax the 'poor' rich people in this country. Helping the poor to become more productive and active members of society is socialism and is 'spreading the wealth'. While at the end of the day the wealth will still be wealthy and the poor are lucky to have a decent dinner at the table. Believe it or not, a good portion of poor people will work ten time harder in one day than a rich man will in his life time.
Well that was fun, and alot easier than I thought it would be. -
roosieComment removed: Hard Banned
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roosieComment removed: Hard Banned
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chip563 weeks, 3 days ago
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Inactive3 weeks, 3 days ago
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icono13 weeks, 3 days ago
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I like this, everything is everybody else's fault, especially in politics.
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I had someone tell me last week that the reason that 0Bama had to save the economy was because of Reagan's economic philosophy that was put in place 'only to embarrass Carter'.
We have linkage also, Reagan to Bush1 to Bush2 to the collapse of the American financial system with no mention of the Democrats linkage to the problem; I guess Barney Frank et al was innocent bystanders.
I guess some individuals and their politics are just above reproach and when a problem happens it is definitely some one else's fault, which is mostly Bush 2 recently.
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david_nwpa3 weeks, 3 days ago
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FTA: "Barack Obama stands out as the first American president whose every instinct is contrary to America's essence. At home, every single one of his initiatives is directed at increasing government control in every area"
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Really? Have you lost your sense of direction? What was and still is the USA PATRIOT Act? It's perhaps the most intrusive stripping of liberties in US history, and it was signed by GW. What about the Telecommunications Wiretapping Act that built up a kangaroo secret court in Washington which rubber-stamped warrants to listen in to and apprehend thousands of phone conversations and e-mails? The article is simply not credible in its condemnation of Obama as the first President to cut American liberties, when it has been an ongoing problem leftover from Bush (and frankly from prior administrations too.) -
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smithichie3 weeks, 3 days ago
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FTA- As the Founders envisioned American government, the state exists to optimize individual freedoms, not to control the individual.
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Somehow I don't think this was on G. Washington's mind when he personally led troops against the Whiskey Rebellion in the 1790's when the ink on the Constitution was barely dry. -
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