Can’t Promote Freedom Abroad as it Disappears at Home

Townhall.com ^ | October 1, 2012 | Star Parker

[Kaslin]

Baseball player Yogi Berra once said “you can see a lot just by looking.”

Simple wisdom, that President Obama is not likely to heed. In order to see you have to want to look at the truth that’s actually out there.

With reality so different from how our president wishes to portray it, he has little interest in seeing things as they really are.

The president delivered a “Kumbaya” appeal this past week to the current session of the United Nations General Assembly. The pitch, about peaceful resolution of disputes, tolerance, and free speech, was clearly aimed at Muslim nations.

The following day, Egypt’s newly elected Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi stood before the General Assembly and gave his reply. No thanks.

Sure, Egypt will respect free speech, as long as it does not offend “one specific religion or culture.”

The message we got from candidate Obama in 2008 was that the rift between the Muslim world and the West was one of misunderstanding, of lack of empathy on our part toward them. Candidate Obama said he was the man, given his personal history, who could bridge that gap.

In 2009, the first year of the Obama presidency, the Pew Research Center reports that the favorability rating in Egypt toward the US was 27 percent. Now in 2012 it is 19 percent, down eight points.

More misunderstanding? I don’t think so. Egyptians are quite clear about who they are and quite clear about their distaste for the moral relativism Barack Obama peddles as freedom. Conflicting attitudes and world views emerge from different beliefs, not misunderstanding.

In the same Pew survey of last June, 11 percent of Egyptians agreed with the statement “It is good that American ideas and customs are spreading here.”

Has Mr. Obama just not had enough time, as with producing an economic recovery at home, to get Muslims to learn the words to Kumbaya?

The real problem, as I see it, is how do you peddle to others what you don’t understand, or won’t be honest about, yourself?

While our president refuses to honestly look at Muslim societies, they do look at us. They see American double standards and mixed messages very clearly.

In his UN speech, President Obama quoted South African leader Nelson Mandela saying “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

This from an American President who is now forcing American employers to buy condoms and abortion pills for their employees, even if it is against that employer’s religious convictions.

Or from a nation where poor children are forced to attend public schools where teaching traditional, religious values that they desperately need are prohibited.

Or where the people of the State of California voted to define marriage as between a man and a woman, only to have this referendum overturned by a federal court.

Can President Obama stand with credibility before any Muslim nation and claim that he represents religious freedom?

How about economic freedom? Economic freedom – which measures a nation’s respect for private property and limits arbitrary government power to interfere with economic transactions – is critical because it correlates perfectly with prosperity. Nations with more economic freedom are uniformly more prosperous.

The latest Economic Freedom of the World report, published annually by over 70 think tanks from around the world, shows that in 2010 the US dropped to number 18 in world ranking. This after years of the US being one of the most economically free nations in the world.

So why should Muslim nations take seriously an increasingly weak America that does not practice what it preaches?

They don’t and won’t.

If we want Muslims to respect us and respect freedom’s cores values – protection of life and property – America should once again represent those values.

[Biggirl]

This country is becoming more and more like a hypocrit in regards to promting the very idea of “freedom.”

[RipSawyer]

It has been going on and getting worse for decades now. One thing I have noted is that sometime in the past few years people stopped trying to argue that this is a free country, it is not and has not been for a long time. We used to be able to say that at least it was possibly the least repressed but that is no longer the case.

[Mr. Jeeves]

This from an American President who is now forcing American employers to buy condoms and abortion pills for their employees, even if it is against that employer’s religious convictions.

Or from a nation where poor children are forced to attend public schools where teaching traditional, religious values that they desperately need are prohibited.

Or where the people of the State of California voted to define marriage as between a man and a woman, only to have this referendum overturned by a federal court.

Progressives think they are improving humanity by forcing backwards redneck conservatives to embrace new realities. They argue they are creating more freedom for gays and the irreligious - that they are the advocates of liberty in these cases, not us.

So rather than simply expressing disapproval, Republicans need to be able explain why the Left is wrong and the difference between liberty and license. Republicans in general are having a very hard time making those arguments, which is one of the reasons they have completely lost states like California.