Posted on 10/29/2008 2:48:32 AM PDT by markomalley
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The 2001 audio tape of Barack Obama describing the Constitution as a document of "negative liberties" reveals an utterly Orwellian Obama. How can liberty be anything other than negative? Liberty is the absence of external control. Only in our age of collective thinking and untidy language could such a thing as "positive liberty" be conceived. The state power to coerce is not liberty. Notions like "positive liberty" are part of the web of thought control by language manipulation which Orwell described in 1984. If Obama cannot think of "positive liberty" as a contradiction in terms, then he simply cannot think. The conscious surrender of language to the needs of the party creates a self-made prison from which escape is, quite literally, inconceivable. These unguarded remarks by Obama display a mind trapped in a reality in which words are phantoms.
Obama could have spoken about the limited value of liberty. Government does some things which reduce our private rights and yet which increase the common good. Politics is all about where the boundary between broad notions of promoting the general welfare by state coercion and preserving liberty should be. Politicians on the Left have often argued that liberty should be reined in more tightly so that "the people" can live better. But implying that more state power somehow increases liberty is beyond mere Leftism. It is entry into that dead realm of Newspeak in which language is pureed into nonsense, and then nonsense is presented as argument.
Obama could also have spoken about the private duty of charity, that moral imperative which makes the virtue of liberty pure. Charity, though, is private. True charity is always a free act. That does not make the moral duty of charity any less, but it means that it is a function of liberty. But it seems as if Obama's mind cannot grasp this sort of distinction.
Is the Orwellian character of Obama's mind a surprise? No. He is a man young enough to have grown up in a cocoon of semantic babble. The subliminal contradictions of popular entertainment, the indoctrinary quality of his education, the pandemic use of "politically correct" language, the nonexistence in Obama's universe of any need for critical thinking, his absorption into a parish filled with surreal anger which numb his conscience -- almost every single aspect of the life of Barack Obama dovetails into someone for whom the word "liberties" has no authentic meaning.
This is the newness of Obama in our history. Leftists like George McGovern and Jimmy Carter lived real lives. Both served in the military. Both seemed to have been genuinely religious. Both worked in private business. Both came from states that were conservative, and so they had to defend their political philosophies. Barack Obama, by contrast, has lived a life of utter sameness. There are no bumps or rough edges or hints of individuality at all.
It is not just his life, so marinated in rote theory, that makes Obama unique. He is an early prototype of a new creature in our lives: Orwell's children, if you will. These are the people who can honestly believe that September 11th was an "inside job" or that the CIA invented crack cocaine to hurt blacks. This is the generation which has grown up with no intellectual or cultural system of checks and balances.
Iron and dull control of education, destruction of the nuclear family, disappearance of religion in public life, degradation of art and entertainment into tasteless mush, and, most of all, the politicization of everything in life -- these forces have created a new sort of human being, a person who lacks from life any tools of discernment or devices to describe life outside of the realm of collectivist political rhetoric.
There is something about Obama, many of us sense, which is different from any other politician. Socialism is inadequate to explain Obama. He is both more and less than that. The Left with all its odd menagerie of causes and claims is not enough either. Obama is part of that but part of something more disturbing. He is someone who can say "negative liberties" unaware that he is saying nothing at all.
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It's not too late to fight, folks!!!
Obama’s not inventing this way of thinking. The distinction between “freedom to” and “freedom from” was key to their political analysis and legal analysis. The kind of leftism which makes you want to quit law school right away.
Yes! Finally someone is making what is the key point in all this.
Walker's observations are some of the most interesting I have seen. Obama is the product of an Orwellian manipulation of language, some of which he absorbed through contact with the ordinary US educational system. Orwell realized how important it was for a dictator or dictatorial system to be able to control language and redefine things based not on their reality, but on a manipulated and externally imposed semantic definition.
We may have laughed at deconstructionism and the many insane literary trends, usually orginating from French Marxists, that swept the academy, but they were all essentially just laying the groundwork for what we are seeing today. Divorce words from reality, make everything subjective yet not even subjective on the part of the individual, but of a control structure that picks and choses the meaning of things, and you've taken over a society.
I am always amazed at the way Obama can lie. He does it much better than Bill Clinton, calmly, no blinking, and without even pausing to think about it. But this is because he has been lying all his life and essentially severed the connection between words and reality decades ago.
Obama is a Chicago nurtured conman, another Jim Jones...with the same outcome. The thing is, any journalist worth his/her salt could write a column about the similarities between the terrible consequences of Jones’ career and what he was selling, the same old code words, the blinded followers. The only difference this time is that the MSM is in the bag. There are no disillusioned former believers willing to blow the whistle on him. No, they think they’re first in line for the gravy train.
De Tocqueville stated two hundred years ago that eventually in our form of governance, people will choose equality (unearned economic and social equality) over liberty.
Obama is dishonest on many levels, but he is not making any real effort to cover his socialist intentions. A large portion of our citizenry have accepted the price for equality; at least they think they are willing to pay that price.
I feel once the true price is actually revealed, it may be to late to turn back down the road. We may have forfeited our liberties to the degree that they are lost until some form of revolution restores them. Unfortunately, even in a revolution that does not incorporate violence, people get hurt. That will be the legacy of the ignorant that elect Obama.
Were we ahead at this point in '00 or '04?
Stop it, please.
The polls are tight -- stop drinking up the medicine from 0bama's MSM propagandists.
We're gonna kick some Democrat ass on the 4th! Get your vote on and help other's to vote if you can and we'll win this, FReepers!
It's time for some positive liberty here at FR. :) The kind of positive liberty that free people like, that is.
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This is a great article.
0bama's words are a clear indication of his interpretation of the constitution.
In short, he believes it is an unfinished symphony. Guess who the next composer is?
If it is unfinished then they are free to add to it.
With not much study at all you can learn that the founders did not "leave out" what the government "can do on your behalf".
There is really nothing they could have written that would have stopped the left from attempting to ruin it with their sorcery.
Rush Limbaugh gave a socialism primer today on his show. It was a great show. I have it on my website.
www.FreeMyRepublic.org at the very bottom.
If you aren't a member of Rush's website, it's great -- you should consider it.
This may be the best summary of this man that I have read. It helps that I have just concluded a reread (actually I listened to it) of Orwell’s “1984”.
Thanks for posting!!
I have his book about America and fully intend to read it before I die. I did read a couple of pages in between paying bills, and the Frenchman had an unabashed love for America. I hear some of the same in Hannity on the radio. Reagan had it. I think Rush does as well. Not many others, though.
The idea of ‘negative liberties’ goes back to Thomas Hobbes and John Locke (negative liberties in this sense are synonymous with Locke’s ‘natural rights’; it is a cornerstone of CONSERVATIVE political and Constitutional thought. A negative liberty is a constraint on government. The Constitution as a charter of negative liberties states what government may not do to we the people (deny us our rights to free speech, deprive us of life, liberty or property without due process of law, etc). It is NOT a charter of positive liberties (were it that it would state what government MUST do FOR we the people.)
The Constitution is “Negative Liberty” if you believe the gov’t should have 100% control of human life.
This is the same doublespeak that allowed the NJ fossil Lautenberg to replace Bob Torricelli after the cutoff date. The argument went “The rules state that the candidates must be decided upon and fixed by a certain date. It doesn’t however speak to the period after that.
In other words, suppose I tell you that my invoice is Due by November 1, you pay it a month later and argue with me over interest charges that I didn’t say to you that you COULDN’T pay me after November 1 interest free. It’s Orwellian doublespeak.
btt
needs to be read
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