In late October 2008 I wrote the below article. It is now two years and eleven months later. The campaign season is underway for a second Obama term.
Why I Would Or Would Not Vote For Obama
by
J. Scott Lyman
In a few days the nation will chose a new president. This particular election comes at a time when the nation is engaged in a struggle for its very survival as a Great Power. From Wall Street to Main Street and every avenue and ally in between, America and Americans are confronting unprecedented financial, international, military and environmental challenges. Two men, as different as...black and white?..., are vying for the opportunity to meet these most daunting challenges.
One man, Barack Obama is the “change agent.” While Obama is very good at using rhetoric and generalities instead of talking about specific plans and details, I suspect that his idea of change is reflective of his radical egalitarian value system. The other man, John McCain, regardless of his maverick image or ability to reach across the isle, is much more closely aligned with the status quo and the inertia of the past, which is brought us to where we are today. The tension between change and inertia is as old as time and the correct course of action is seldom uncluttered. So let’s compare the alternate courses.
Newton’s first law of motion states: An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Think of McCain as the body in motion–an extension of Dubya. Think of Obama as the unbalanced force seeking an alternative of the past leading to the future. Applying Newton’s first law to the choice America will make next Tuesday, the question is, more of the same or hope and change?
The reasons to vote for Obama, for the unbalanced force, for his mantra “hope and change”, are, at this late hour, hopefully reasonably well understood. Let’s do them by the numbers: 1) McCain is a Republican and associated with George Bush, who history will record as one of the most unpopular and misguided presidents in American history. 2) The economy is teetering on the edge of massive dislocations, somewhat similar to the dire circumstances that confronted the nation in the early 1930s. And George W., like Herbert Hoover, has been in residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue most recently while the termites have been undermining the foundation of our economy. 3) The nation is bogged down in two asymmetrical wars that the American public is ill-prepared to understand and lacking in the patience to see through to victory, assuming that even possible. 4) The fossil fuel economy upon which the American economy is built is running on empty. 5.) Intuitively recognizing reasons 1 - 4, the American people are deeply fearful of what lies ahead. Note well that reasons 1 - 5 to vote for Obama have nothing to do with Obama, but reasons 6 and 7 do. Reason 6) Obama is charismatic, intelligent, articulate, attractive and black. 7) He stands for change. He promises to be the unbalanced force, interrupting the inertia of the United States and creating a new course. Now let’s look at the reasons not to vote for Obama; to vote against the unbalanced force of hope and change.
First, let’s consider the context of this election. The challenges I describe in the opening paragraph of this article, I submit, are nothing short of a battle for the health, safety and well being of our nation, perhaps for decades, or longer. The challenges facing the American people in the coming decades of the 21st Century are economic, political, structural, and demographic. As one of my undergraduate professor heros at Stanford pointed out decades ago, the issues of population, environment and resources threaten to overwhelm not only our country, but life on Earth. So, arguably, the choice before in the 2008 election us amounts to nothing less than an historic battle not only for the very survival of the United States as a free society and Great Power, but for Earth itself.
With this in mind, here are the reasons not to vote for Obama: 1) At best, he is a lieutenant junior grade, having never been tested in battle, nor even having even seen a battlefield. Think of your son or daughter being led into battle by an untested dilettante. 2) The greatest accomplishment in Obama’s life is self-promotion, as manifested by two autobiographies and winning the Democratic nomination for president as a two year freshman Senator. 3) If there is any truth to the conventional wisdom that you can tell most about a man by the company he keeps, Barack Obama is, at his core, a committed radical egalitarian, if not a Marxist.
He started life after college as a committed acolyte of the Saul Alinsky school of community organizing in Chicago. As anybody familiar with Alinsky knows, there was far more to his community organizing activities than registering voters and helping little ‘ol ladies across the street. Alinsky was a radical egalitarian and a revolutionary who unapologetically advocated revolution and the destruction of the existing social order. Next.
For 20 years Obama sat in the pews of Jeremiah Wright’s church internalizing the tenants of Black Liberation Theology. BLT is openly ethnocentric, revolutionary and patently Marxist. Among his political associates are a large cadre radical egalitarians like John Ayers, Alice Plamer, Carl Davidson, and Frank Marshall Davis; all avowed socialists/communists.
4) Electing Obama president with progressives Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House and Harry Reid as Majority Leader of the Senate will be the equivalent of throwing away the checks and balances so carefully woven into our Constitution.
5) If the 20th Century taught us anything it is that nations turning to charismatic leaders in times of national crisis and upheaval soon learn to regret it while at the same time becoming powerless to do anything about it. 6) Obama’s radical egalitarian agenda will severely undermine confidence in the movers and shakers of the economy and the ability of the nation to cope with the epic problems we now confront.
Long ago, Lord Acton counseled us that: “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He also warned that “great men are almost always bad men.” I recognize that Obama may be a great man. I also fear he may be a bad man.
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