I’ve been wanting to put this post up, but it just keeps being one of those that just slips away each evening. Certainly it is clear that there is a divide, nay, a chasm between those of the Left and those on the Right. That chasm is for the future direction of the United States.
- Liberal / Statists / Progressives / Socialists want the country to move forward – to a utopia that holds the Collective as the highest ideal
- They also want self annointed experts to make the major decisions for everyone else.
- Conservatives / Constitutionalists / Libertarians wish to move the country forward – but know that to do so, we must first go back to Constitutional values as elucidated by the Founders.
- We want you to be able to make your own decisions.
Obama famously said that “we are five days from fundamentally transforming the United States”. His vision is clear: unlike all of US History, he wishes to completely subsume all of Society under the thumb of Government. Why is this a fundamental transformation? Remember your history – the Declaration and the Constitution were all about protecting Individual Rights against an encroaching Government. Society was to have a Government that served it and not the other way around.
Much has been said about Obama’s birth and his upbringing – Is he a real American? Is he native born? Is he a Muslim? How about his mentors view of America? Why did he seek out the disaffected and Marxist professors? For the sake of argument, I will posit he is an American, but his upbringing was not that of a normal American kid and has not been steeped in the traditions of America. Given his formative years impressions, I believe that his “Perfectible Union” is indicative of his disdain for traditional America’s love of the individual and the idea of the individual seeking their own happiness. Stanley Kurtz over at The Corner dug this up in support of this, in Obama’s own words:
As President Obama begins to hit back at Mitt Romney’s supposedly out-of-context use of his “You didn’t build that” remark, let’s remember that this was no isolated outburst. Consider a comment Obama made during his first campaign for office in 1995. Obama was teaching classes in community organizing for ACORN and the Centers for New Horizons. A reporter for the Chicago Reader sat in on one of his New Horizons classes and heard Obama say this:
In America we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations.
Our Founders knew that the individual could not accomplish everything on their own, nor expected them to do so. De Tocqueville clearly noticed this in the mid 1800’s as he toured our new nation and marveled how ordinary folks would band together voluntarily to accomplish a specified goal and take care of an explicit need – and then go their separate ways. The difference here is that Obama and Progressives do not accept this “voluntary assembly as needed” quirk of the rest of us – they are dumbfounded and unbelieving of any solutions that do not require mandatory, collective action with that action controlled and directed by a Progressively constituted Government. Obama has said it and now we see his actions; his recent utterances, outside of his gaffes (i.e., his occasional outbursts of truth) are drowned out by his earlier words (when visions of the Oval Office weren’t as clear) and utterly dismissed by his actions. Here, we see that early rejection of that Individual dreams in favor of “The Collective” vision.
And he’s not alone – Neal Boortz has a number quotes from other Leftists of history that make it clear of their intentions of the Ideal of the Sovereign Citizen:
This is important – this election. We have a president who treats the Constitution like a disposable placemat and who believes that when someone talks about the rule of law, they’re talking about him. This is a president who truly believes that he is there to fulfill the role of a ruler – not a leader – a president who’s own transition chief told the nation “We will be ready to rule from day one.” Phrases like that aren’t accidental.
…I’ve told you before that liberalism is a philosophy of anti-individualism. It’s there if you just listen for it. Actions of the individual are diminished … “You didn’t build that!” … while actions of the collective are praised.
…
- “The main plank in the National Socialist program is to abolish the liberalistic concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity and to substitute for them the folk community, rooted in the soil and bound together by the bond of its common blood.” (Adolph Hitler, quoted in Hitler, A Study in Tyranny, by Alan Bullock (Harper Collins, NY))
- “It is thus necessary that the individual should come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his nation; that the position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole … that above all the unity of a nation’s spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual. …. This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture …. we understand only the individual’s capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow man.” (Adolph Hitler, 1933)
- There is the great, silent, continuous struggle: the struggle between the State and the Individual; between the State which demands and the individual who attempts to evade such demands. Because the individual, left to himself, unless he be a saint or hero, always refuses to pay taxes, obey laws, or go to war. (Benito Mussolini)
- Fascist ethics begin … with the acknowledgment that it is not the individual who confers a meaning upon society, but it is, instead, the existence of a human society which determines the human character of the individual. According to Fascism, a true, a great spiritual life cannot take place unless the State has risen to a position of pre-eminence in the world of man. The curtailment of liberty thus becomes justified at once, and this need of rising the State to its rightful position. (Mario Palmieri, “The Philosophy of Fascism” 1936)
- “Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all.” (Nikita Khrushchev , February 25, 1956 20th Congress of the Communist Party)
- “All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and here it comes up again: the glorification of one personality. This is not good at all.” (Vladimir Lenin, as quoted in “Not by Politics Alone.)
- “We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.” (Hillary Clinton, 1993)
- “We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans.” …” (President Bill Clinton, USA Today, March 11, 1993, Page 2A)
And while we’re at it, I thought I would throw in just a few quotes that you would NEVER hear from the mouth of our Dear Ruler.
- “The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.” (Ayn Rand)
- When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man? (Henry David Thoreau)
