Posted on 02/20/2008 7:18:08 PM PST by K-oneTexas
The Cult of Obama By Steven Laib
What America truly needs is not a sycophantic public following a cult leader on a path of foolishness.
America as been fortunate in avoiding political cults of personality. The closest that we have come to it may have been the 4 terms that Franklin Roosevelt was elected to. We should note also that FDR was a special case. He was first elected during the Great Depression and continued into World War II. This form of crisis situation has been unusual, and while one might disagree with the way that President Roosevelt handled some aspects of them, he certainly understood the gravity of the situation and the need for America to take action to preserve itself. This is exactly the opposite of what we see with current Democrat presidential front-runner, Barack Obama.
Simply stated, and as a significant number of critics, both liberal and conservative have pointed out, Senator Obama is an empty suit; a candidate who talks in endless platitudes, but says nothing of substance, except that he wants to enact a myriad of tax and spend programs at home, while ignoring the true nature of its enemies abroad and emasculating the military. Perhaps he believes that the foreign dictators are foolish enough to fall for his charm. If elected, he will quickly learn that they will be more than willing to say anything, and then do exactly the opposite if it suits their interest at the time. As Neville Chamberlain sold out Europe to Nazi Germany, Senator Obama is willing to sell out the United States anyone and everyone who has an axe to grind and is willing to say the right things in public, regardless of their true intentions.
Sean Hannity has talked a lot about two focus groups that were asked if they could identify any of Obama’s accomplishments. Both came up with essentially nothing, which speaks volumes; the man really has done nothing, except promote his own political career as rapidly as can. Now, the fact that he can speak charismatically is really all that he is running on. People like what he says, regardless of whether it has any substance. I remember having a similar reaction to Jimmy Carter many years ago. I was a teenager when I told my, now departed, Mother that he said a lot of things that sounded nice, but there was nothing that I could identify specifically as practical or realistic. Obama is now doing the same thing. He talks about “hope” but it is a blind hope; faith that he has all the answers and that electing him to office will somehow solve all of America’s problems. To make matters worse, his campaign is taking on a messianic attitude. This may well speak of an even greater underlying danger.
Michael Medved recently asked of his audience why people are supporting this candidate. He received all of the usual empty answers about hope, unity and the like. In the end, there really was nothing of substance that anyone could identify. I have an answer; it is not one I like, but I believe that it is the truth; that Senator Obama is the candidate of the intellectually bankrupt. It is no wonder to me that so many young people are swooning over this charlatan. He is all show and no substance, like so much of modern entertainment. He is the MTV candidate. He is the candidate of people who love special effects and don't care about the plot. Politically they are oblivious to the consequences of electing someone who is as gullible as they are. He is their drug that will make all problems go away, but like with a drug, the problems don’t really go away and after effects are terrible. Enacting the Obama domestic policies would result in a quick trip to national bankruptcy. His foreign policies would create a weak, vacillating nation that will not defend itself because talking to an implacable enemy is always better than eliminating him. He has no realistic method for dealing with our national energy needs. In short, he is running on hot air, and despite his contentions to the contrary, empty words. He does not have the depth to create words of real substance and so he must rely on others to do his thinking for him.
Anyone who is willing to blindly trust an inexperienced, charismatic figure in our present situation is operating off of emotion, rather than intelligence and rational thought. This is precisely what a charismatic leader wants. It was the same with the people who followed the religious cult figures during the 1970’s. In the worst example, they let Rev. Jim Jones do their thinking and ended up dead from cyanide laced Kool-aid. Fortunately, the damage Jim Jones caused was limited to a relatively small number of people. Electing a President of the United States has far reaching consequences, and can make the difference between a nation that survives or dies.
Barack Obama is counting on a non-thinking, poorly educated public to sweep him into office. He is counting on people having decided that there is no longer any real threat from Islamo-fascists. He is also counting on no one understanding that a high tax, big government; super-regulatory state is a recipe for economic disaster. It seems that the vast number of his followers fit this model to a T. They don’t care about anything except the nebulous mantras of “hope” and unspecified “change.” As Dennis Prager likes to point out, change doesn’t mean anything unless it states what you are going to change from, how you are going to change it, and what you expect the end result to be. No one I’ve heard from seems to know exactly what kind of change is proposed or expected, except that he will magically unify the nation and make our challenges disappear. Change for change’s sake appears to be the fashion this year. Real, specific, identifiable changes, calculated to preserve American existence for the future are not high on any candidate’s list, unless you believe that John McCain will suddenly reach in a totally new direction and allow Michael Savage to formulate his policy direction in the same manner that he allowed Ted Kennedy to do.
What America truly needs is not a sycophantic public following a cult leader on a path of foolishness. What they need is to believe in themselves; to believe that they can lead themselves and take control of their own lives. They need to educate themselves to take charge of their own futures and avoid the empty promises of political con artists of any and all stripes. They need to be able to separate the true statesmen from those offering platitudes in the interest of self aggrandizement. And, if Americans need a messianic figure, then let it be the one they find in their church, rather than a self appointed demagogue who offers nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
Steven D. Laib is a semi-retired attorney living in Cypress, Texas, just northwest of Houston. He is a member of the California State Bar, and United States Supreme Court Bar.
stevenlaib@sbcglobal.net
http://intellectualconservative.com
Of course his greatest attraction to the hard-core is that he is NOT a figure of “change.”
Obama is truly the candidate of “back-to-the-future.” A return to mindless socialism and liberal big-government solutions.
He just put my thoughts into words.
I hope this author’s home address is a well kept secret. If not, then some of Obama’s young Red Guards might show up tonight.
I do ponder how much Hussein Obama could actually get done as president -- he's really a neophyte legislator with zero experience. Then again, he could turn into a one-man wrecking ball and seriously set the country back -- a country that I've always been proud of!
Hussein Obama's popularity is really starting to feed on itself. It's rather scary.
Anybody know any good German Tavern songs???
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It speaks volumes how far left the national thinking has gone since the seventies. In 1972 George McGovern was destroyed by a less than stellar conservative Richard Nixon. This despite the unpopular Vietnam War still going on. The people knew an arch lefty when they saw one. And McGovern had served honorably as a fighter pilot during WWII. But the people saw through McGovern and handed him one of the worst drubbings any prez candidate ever receive. Now someone like Obama, whose leftist politics mirror McGovern’s, has a good chance of getting elected. Unbelievable.
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