Below are excerpts from Obama’s victory speech early Wednesday in Chicago, with comments added by the blog author. This speech is remarkably clear about the anti-individual communitarian society Obama would like to build.
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OBAMA: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward.
COMMENT: So his opening statement praised American anti-colonial and anti-British history.
OBAMA: …while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.
COMMENT: This is a philosophy of groupthink and communitarianism.
OBAMA: But despite all our differences, most of us share certain hopes for America's future. We want our kids to grow up in a country where they have access to the best schools and the best teachers.
A country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation, with all the good jobs and new businesses that follow.
We want our children to live in an America that isn't burdened by debt, that isn't weakened by inequality, that isn't threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.
We want to pass on a country that's safe and respected and admired around the world, a nation that is defended by the strongest military on earth and the best troops this - this world has ever known.
But also a country that moves with confidence beyond this time of war, to shape a peace that is built on the promise of freedom and dignity for every human being. We believe in a generous America, in a compassionate America, in a tolerant America, open to the dreams of an immigrant's daughter who studies in our schools and pledges to our flag.
To the young boy on the south side of Chicago who sees a life beyond the nearest street corner.
To the furniture worker's child in North Carolina who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or an entrepreneur, a diplomat or even a president - that's the future we hope for. That's the vision we share. That's where we need to go - forward.
That's where we need to go.
COMMENT: This means even more money for schools and teachers, government research and government technological emphasis, somehow with less debt, less socio-economic inequality, and free from global warming (with an absolute insistence that such warming is a scientific fact). He emphasizes maintaining a country with the strongest military on earth, but also a country that is generous and compassionate and tolerant, exemplified by making immigrant children in American schools American citizens. Obama also wants to extend federal help to children on street corners, federal help to children of blue-collar workers with big dreams. Federal help in these circumstances is "where we need to go – forward." All of these communitarian goals are in sharp antagonism to the quick mention of reducing the deficit. Either reducing the debt comes first or expanding socio-economic federal spending comes first. There can be no waffling nor compromise for this nation now that debt exceeds gross domestic product, a reality that came true on Obama’s watch on August 2, 2011.
OBAMA: …I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together. Reducing our deficit. Reforming our tax code. Fixing our immigration system. Freeing ourselves from foreign oil.
COMMENT: The parties did not work together in 2011 to reduce the deficit, and as a result the problem was kicked forward and an ineffective "super Committee" was established which accomplished nothing whatsoever. Now, late in 2012, less than two months remain before the "fiscal cliff." Obama ties this issue with freedom from importing foreign oil, an issue that takes years of consistent policy to address and is therefore irrelevant to the enormous and nearby deficit reduction policy decisions.
OBAMA: This country has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military in history, but that's not what makes us strong. Our university, our culture are all the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.
What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on earth.
The belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations. The freedom which so many Americans have fought for and died for come with responsibilities as well as rights. And among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That's what makes America great.
I am hopeful tonight because I've seen the spirit at work in America. I've seen it in the family business whose owners would rather cut their own pay than lay off their neighbors, and in the workers who would rather cut back their hours than see a friend lose a job.
I've seen it in the soldiers who reenlist after losing a limb and in those SEALs who charged up the stairs into darkness and danger because they knew there was a buddy behind them watching their back.
I've seen it on the shores of New Jersey and New York, where leaders from every party and level of government have swept aside their differences to help a community rebuild from the wreckage of a terrible storm.
And I saw just the other day, in Mentor, Ohio, where a father told the story of his 8-year-old daughter, whose long battle with leukemia nearly cost their family everything had it not been for health care reform passing just a few months before the insurance company was about to stop paying for her care.
I had an opportunity to not just talk to the father, but meet this incredible daughter of his. And when he spoke to the crowd listening to that father's story, every parent in that room had tears in their eyes, because we knew that little girl could be our own. And I know that every American wants her future to be just as bright. That's who we are. That's the country I'm so proud to lead as your president.
COMMENT: Obama is falsely saying that what holds Americans together and makes it exceptional is compassion put into action by government commitments and government actions.
But this is not the exceptional power and unique nature of America. What makes America unique and successful is rule of law exemplified in "due process,"
in which the process of legal disputes and decisions is a process for which even the government itself is subservient. The American Revolution, specifically, was a revolt against backtracking on due process and denying it to overseas colonies by the crown of Great Britain. These are the complaints listed and explained in the declaration of independence.
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OBAMA: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward.
COMMENT: So his opening statement praised American anti-colonial and anti-British history.
OBAMA: …while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.
COMMENT: This is a philosophy of groupthink and communitarianism.
OBAMA: But despite all our differences, most of us share certain hopes for America's future. We want our kids to grow up in a country where they have access to the best schools and the best teachers.
A country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation, with all the good jobs and new businesses that follow.
We want our children to live in an America that isn't burdened by debt, that isn't weakened by inequality, that isn't threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.
We want to pass on a country that's safe and respected and admired around the world, a nation that is defended by the strongest military on earth and the best troops this - this world has ever known.
But also a country that moves with confidence beyond this time of war, to shape a peace that is built on the promise of freedom and dignity for every human being. We believe in a generous America, in a compassionate America, in a tolerant America, open to the dreams of an immigrant's daughter who studies in our schools and pledges to our flag.
To the young boy on the south side of Chicago who sees a life beyond the nearest street corner.
To the furniture worker's child in North Carolina who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or an entrepreneur, a diplomat or even a president - that's the future we hope for. That's the vision we share. That's where we need to go - forward.
That's where we need to go.
COMMENT: This means even more money for schools and teachers, government research and government technological emphasis, somehow with less debt, less socio-economic inequality, and free from global warming (with an absolute insistence that such warming is a scientific fact). He emphasizes maintaining a country with the strongest military on earth, but also a country that is generous and compassionate and tolerant, exemplified by making immigrant children in American schools American citizens. Obama also wants to extend federal help to children on street corners, federal help to children of blue-collar workers with big dreams. Federal help in these circumstances is "where we need to go – forward." All of these communitarian goals are in sharp antagonism to the quick mention of reducing the deficit. Either reducing the debt comes first or expanding socio-economic federal spending comes first. There can be no waffling nor compromise for this nation now that debt exceeds gross domestic product, a reality that came true on Obama’s watch on August 2, 2011.
OBAMA: …I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together. Reducing our deficit. Reforming our tax code. Fixing our immigration system. Freeing ourselves from foreign oil.
COMMENT: The parties did not work together in 2011 to reduce the deficit, and as a result the problem was kicked forward and an ineffective "super Committee" was established which accomplished nothing whatsoever. Now, late in 2012, less than two months remain before the "fiscal cliff." Obama ties this issue with freedom from importing foreign oil, an issue that takes years of consistent policy to address and is therefore irrelevant to the enormous and nearby deficit reduction policy decisions.
OBAMA: This country has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military in history, but that's not what makes us strong. Our university, our culture are all the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.
What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on earth.
The belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations. The freedom which so many Americans have fought for and died for come with responsibilities as well as rights. And among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That's what makes America great.
I am hopeful tonight because I've seen the spirit at work in America. I've seen it in the family business whose owners would rather cut their own pay than lay off their neighbors, and in the workers who would rather cut back their hours than see a friend lose a job.
I've seen it in the soldiers who reenlist after losing a limb and in those SEALs who charged up the stairs into darkness and danger because they knew there was a buddy behind them watching their back.
I've seen it on the shores of New Jersey and New York, where leaders from every party and level of government have swept aside their differences to help a community rebuild from the wreckage of a terrible storm.
And I saw just the other day, in Mentor, Ohio, where a father told the story of his 8-year-old daughter, whose long battle with leukemia nearly cost their family everything had it not been for health care reform passing just a few months before the insurance company was about to stop paying for her care.
I had an opportunity to not just talk to the father, but meet this incredible daughter of his. And when he spoke to the crowd listening to that father's story, every parent in that room had tears in their eyes, because we knew that little girl could be our own. And I know that every American wants her future to be just as bright. That's who we are. That's the country I'm so proud to lead as your president.
COMMENT: Obama is falsely saying that what holds Americans together and makes it exceptional is compassion put into action by government commitments and government actions.
But this is not the exceptional power and unique nature of America. What makes America unique and successful is rule of law exemplified in "due process,"
Obama, a former lecturer on Constitutional law at the University of Chicago, must know this. Yet what he praises about America is the continental European philosophy of an activist government involved in detail in the lives of its citizenry, and this is praise for paying government to act compassionately, a goal that has never been achieved, anywhere.
To this enormous extent, Obama is dishonestly praising the philosophies of continental Europeans, especially nineteenth century Germans, rather than the anti-utopian limitations on power and the necessity for making government itself subservient to due process that are the heart of American exceptionalism. Insofar as Obama means what he says, his victory speech is dangerous to the continuance of a free America, because it subordinates due process to a kind of sentimental bureaucracy in which the agents of the government are paid to be compassionate.
OBAMA: America, I believe we can build on the progress we've made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you're willing to work hard, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn't matter whether you're black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you're willing to try.
COMMENT: The founders didn’t promise Americans success if they worked hard, nor were they promised help if they were divorced or out of a job or unable to provide for their children. They were promised a government limited in power and subordinate itself to due process, promises this president (and his predecessor, George W. Bush) have minimized and stripped at every opportunity, through defense authorization legislation and through the Patriot Act and its revisions. Obama is baiting-and-switching on the topic of patriotism and on the nature of the American experiment by the founding fathers.
OBAMA: I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We're not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America.
COMMENT: What is this language? Is the President worried about secession?
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Afterword by the Blog Author
What Obama is doing is substitute a communitarian ideology for the limited-government, anti-utopian empiricist legal structure of Magna Carta, the restoration of William and Mary and the philosophy of John Locke as perfected by the American Revolution. Obama’s philosophy and ideology are abruptly contradictory toward the the genuine exceptionalism of America, the world’s oldest revolutionary republic.
Instead, what Obama worships as an idealogy is summarized below.
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Communitarianism is an ideology that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. That community may be the family unit, but it can also be understood in a far wider sense of personal interaction, of geographical location, or of shared history…. Central to the communitarian philosophy is the concept of positive rights, which are rights or guarantees to certain things. These may include state subsidized education, state subsidized housing, a safe and clean environment, universal health care, and even the right to a job with the concomitant obligation of the government or individuals to provide one. To this end, communitarians generally support social security programs, public works programs, and laws limiting such things as pollution.
A common objection is that by providing such rights, communitarians violate the negative rights of the citizens; rights to not have something done for you. For example, taxation to pay for such programs as described above dispossesses individuals of property. Proponents of positive rights, by attributing the protection of negative rights to the society rather than the government, respond that individuals would not have any rights in the absence of societies—a central tenet of communitarianism—
and thus have a personal responsibility to give something back to it. Some have viewed this as a negation of natural rights. However, what is or is not a "natural right" is a source of contention in modern politics, as well as historically; for example, whether or not universal health care, private property or protection from polluters can be considered a birthright.
Alternatively, some agree that negative rights may be violated by a government action, but argue that it is justifiable if the positive rights protected outweigh the negative rights lost. In the same vein, supporters of positive rights further argue that negative rights are irrelevant in their absence. Moreover, some communitarians "experience this less as a case of being used for others' ends and more as a way of contributing to the purposes of a community I regard as my own"
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-- redacted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communitarianism
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