Obama Remaking America?

From another note I sent to Kay (we do talk, by the way - it’s just that I get the need to rant when I’m reading the internet; I’ve been fairly restrained in sending stuff to her for most of our marriage, but this election is worrying me). Again, not tons of time to research, but this is up for a sample of my thoughts:

Remember the claim I made that Obama would try to change America fundamentally? This quotation, though edited for length by someone else (and I’ve not checked the original source yet) seems to support what I’m saying. The poll numbers have been narrowing again (though possibly not enough), because Americans don’t like explicit re-distribution [and Obama has been more open about his tendencies in that direction]. What Obama sees as a “fundamental flaw” most of us see as its glory - we don’t have others who think they know better than us telling us what to do with the fruits of our labor. When the Church says, “give to the poor,” they don’t back it up with an army and force it upon us, but the government does. When the Church says, “give to the poor,” they don’t get more votes from those they’ve benefitted with someone else’s confiscated monies, but the politicians do. (That’s the benefit of the Church being a dictatorship of sorts.) The debate between socialists like Obama and the rest of us is not to do with greed vs. generosity, but liberty vs. freedom. When the Church says, “give to the poor,” they mean that I have to, [but] morally. When the government says, “give to the poor,” they mean that I have to, or else, and that, in addition, they’ll decide who the poor are and how, whether, and how much they deserve the largesse from my pocket. What else is a confiscation of my monies for another but a chance for the powerful to buy popularity at little cost to themselves?

Here’s the quote, indirect source below:

“But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. … And one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was — because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. … The Constitution reflected an enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day. … The Framers had that same blind spot … the fundamental flaw of this country.”

http://www.creators.com/opinion/tony-blankley.html

I wasn’t going to originally post that, but it seemed to connect to a really effective post by John Hood, over at The Corner. I want to just post the whole thing, but I’ll simply summarize and post part of it. Then go and read it. Hood riffs on Obama’s line that McCain would call him a Communist if he were to share his toys in kindergarten, explaining that Obama’s gag shows he doesn’t even understand what Communism is. Hood’s points have been stated many times, but Hood states them clearly and with elegance, using Obama’s inadvertently-provided analogy to great effect. Here is Hood’s explanation of collectivism:

Collectivism in all its forms is about taking away your choice. Whether you wish to or not, the government compels you to surrender the toy, which it then redistributes to someone that government officials deem to be a more worthy owner. It won’t even be someone you could ever know, in most cases. That’s what makes the political philosophy unjust (by stripping you of control over yourself and the fruits of your labor) as well as counterproductive (by failing to give the recipient sufficient incentive to learn and work hard so he can earn his own toys in the future).

Government is not charity. It is not persuasion, or cooperation, or sharing. Government is a fist, a shove, a gun. Obama either doesn’t understand this, or doesn’t want voters to understand it.

Nicely said. Looks like my poor wife is going to get another e-mail.