Posted on 08/31/2012 4:11:52 PM PDT by jazusamo
After reading Barack Obama's book "Dreams from My Father," it became painfully clear that he has not been searching for the truth, because he assumed from an early age that he had already found the truth — and now it was just a question of filling in the details and deciding how to change things.
Obama did not simply happen to encounter a lot of people on the far left fringe during his life. As he spells out in his book, he actively sought out such people. There is no hint of the slightest curiosity on his part about other visions of the world that might be weighed against the vision he had seized upon.
As Professor Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago Law School has pointed out, Obama made no effort to take part in the marketplace of ideas with other faculty members when he was teaching a law course there. What would be the point, if he already knew the truth and knew that they were wrong?
This would be a remarkable position to take, even for a learned scholar who had already spent decades canvassing a vast amount of information and views on many subjects. But Obama was already doctrinaire at a very early age — and ill-informed or misinformed on both history and economics.
His statement in "Dreams from My Father" about how white men went to Africa to "drag away the conquered in chains" betrays his ignorance of African history.
The era of the Atlantic slave trade and the era of European conquests across the continent of Africa were different eras. During the era of the Atlantic slave trade, most of Africa was ruled by Africans, who sold some of their slaves to white men.
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
“There is no hint of the slightest curiosity on his part about other visions of the world that might be weighed against the vision he had seized upon.”
Less than sixty years after the teachers unions began the methodical dumbing down of our culture, half of the country is ignorant enough to have blind faith in the hate driven “vision” of an ignoramus to whom logic and objective fact are meaningless.
You are absolutely right.
Though I would say that Obama is possessed of his own great measure of malice and vindictiveness, which makes the total creation all the more dangerous.
Exactly correct. But just try asking the typical Obama stoner how voting for a guy who is a product of a marriage between slave traders and slave owners help us atone for slavery.
If that ain’t hittin’ the nail on the head, don’t know what is
His is not the limited field of knowledge and understanding possessed by ideologues who form opinions without the benefit of honest inquiry, diligent study, and objective analysis. America's youth need leadership which sets an example of such diligence and intellectual honesty, especially as it concerns the great principles underlying America's constitutional history.
The following is a synopsis of the enormous contributions America's Founders made toward eradicating slavery from these shores and creating a constitutional republic which could, ultimately, affirm and protect the rights of ALL people:
Jefferson's Autobiography, contains the following statement:
"The first establishment in Virginia which became permanent was made in 1607. I have found no mention of negroes in the colony until about 1650. The first brought here as slaves were by a Dutch ship; after which the English commenced the trade and continued it until the revolutionary war. That suspended...their future importation for the present, and the business of the war pressing constantly on the (Virginia) legislature, this subject was not acted on finally until the year 1778, when I brought a bill to prevent their further importation. This passed without opposition, leaving to future efforts its final eradication."
Jefferson also observed:
"Where the disease [slavery] is most deeply seated, there it will be slowest in eradication. In the northern States, it was merely superficial and easily corrected. In the southern, it is incorporated with the whole system and requires time, patience, and perseverance in the curative process."
He explained that, "In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of the county in which I live [Albemarle County, Virginia], and so continued until it was closed by the Revolution. I made one effort in that body for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected: and indeed, during the regal [crown] government, nothing [like this] could expect success."
One more quotation, cited in David Barton's work on the subject of the Founders and slavery, which also cites the fact that there were laws in the State of Virginia which prevented citizens from emancipating slaves, (can be found at Barton's web site shown later herein) is this one from Jefferson:
"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. . . . The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded who permits one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other. . . . And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep for ever. . . . The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest. . . . [T]he way, I hone [is] preparing under the auspices of Heaven for a total emancipation."
For an excellent and factual record of the Founders' views on the matter of slavery (especially those of Washington and Jefferson} visit David Barton's site. A review of the factual, written history of the period in order to understand the tremendous contributions of the Founders to the "extinction" of slavery in America is essential to any meaningful discussion. Barton has has utilized the record in writing that exists to inform any who wish to arm themselves with knowledge. One source he does not quote, I believe, is the famous "Speech on Conciliation" by Edmund Burke before the British Parliament, wherein he admonished the Parliament for its Proposal to declare a general enfranchisement of the slaves in America.
Burke rather sarcastically observed that should the Parliament carry through with the proposed Proposal: "Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation (England) which has sold them to their present masters? from that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic?" He continued: "An offer of freedom from England would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel, which is refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes. It would be curious to see the Guinea captain attempting at the same instant to publish his proclamtion of liberty and to advertise his sale of slaves."
It's amazing how knowledge of the facts can alter one's opinion of the revisionist history that has been taught for generations in American schools (including its so-called "law schools"!!!
Human beings are allotted ONLY A TINY SLIVER OF TIME ON THIS EARTH. Each finds the world and his/her own community/nation existing as it is. If lawyers and judges educated themselves (in this day of the Internet) on the history of civilization and America's real history, and if they used that knowledge and the resulting understanding, to do as much on behalf of liberty for ALL people as did Thomas Jefferson and America's other Founders, the world in the next century would be a better place.
Remember, Thomas Jefferson was only 33 years old when he penned our Declaration of Independence which capsulized a truly revolutionary idea into a simple statement that survives to this day to inspire people all over the world to strive for liberty!
I just saw 2012. One of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen. It explains why and how obama came to his beliefs.
This country is in great peril. I will contribute money I can’t afford to Romney. And I’ll do whatever it takes to pull the lever for him in November.
Meant to type 2016,
Bookmark
Sowell, though he never makes direct reference to it, bases his observations on the solid rock of biblical objective Truth.
That is the source of his wisdom. Rejection of this objective truth is the basis of Obama’s folly.
Remember “sin is being out of alignment with my values”.
Thank you for the ping.
Here’s a BUMP!
Thank you for your most interesting and excellent post, ll2.
Thanks for posting this excellent history lesson. I may have known it, but I never before correlated the dates sufficiently to realize that the slave trade from Africa occurred before the European occupation of Africa.
That really does make a difference.
I trust that Dr. Sowell is talking about a time in the not-too-distant past when universities really had differences in their "marketplaces of ideas" to explore and compare and contrast, yes? Obama is not much older than I am, and when I got around to college, a hefty majority of faculty at the state school I went to wouldn't have much problem with Obama's world-view. Probably be the toast of a lot of post-grad parties.
Instead, ever since so-called "progressives" began their steady and ongoing censorship of the ideas of liberty from which America's Declaration of Independence and Constitution were derived, students have been abandoned to seek out sources for such ideas in remote and dusty library stacks, or in rare book stores.
Those who called themselves "progressives" have worked like termites to erode and destroy America's foundations in liberty by censorship of school textbooks, laws to prohibit such ideas from public political discourse, and in various other ways--an effort more far-reaching that 1933's "burning of the books."
But for the advent of computer technology, they might have succeeded.
Now, every senior citizen and every school child with a computer can read the great writings which make up the literature of freedom. A movement called "the Tea Party" may be the result of that technology's impact on ordinary citizens.
Once again, a fresh breeze of ideas is blowing around us, and the "planners," "redistributors" of the earnings of others, and arrogant small minds will feel that breeze as it awakens both young and old to a conviction that "our life, rights, liberty and laws to protect them" come from a Creator, and that makes them "unalienable" by any temporary power we allow to our elected officials. That was the idea encapsulated in our D of C and structured into a document which limited our grants of power.
"The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth. A legislature must not obstruct our obedience to Him, from whose punishment they cannot protect us. All human laws which contradict His laws we are in conscience bound to disobey." - George Mason, Delegate from Virginia & Signer of the Constitution
Congratulations to Ryan and Romney as they remind us of the Source of our rights, and we must hold them to the underlying premise of our election of them to uphold that central idea underlying their duties under our Constitution.
Thanks. Please see response to another poster - #34. We have a terrific opportunity here, and we must not waste it! The future liberty of our great-great-grandchildren relies on what we do here, and how we follow up on our duties under the Constitution.
It never fails that EVERY time I read Sowell I learn something I didn’t know or look at what I did know in a different way. He’s a truly great teacher.
Bump and Amen to the Internet and Tea Party movement.
Excellent, potlatch and thanks!
Thank you jaz, you are always so kind!
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