This was a memorable quote by M in the James Bond film, Casino Royale. I have often thought that it fits our president to a T. Apparently the inimitable Mr. Sowell feels the same way.
Obama's 'Confident Ignorance' At Root Of His Failure
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.
Remember when Bush was an idiot with absolutely NO intellectual curiosity? A fact irrefutably proven because he wouldn't entertain left-wing ideas.
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 arrogance and lack of curiosity is a necessary trait in leftist thinking. Since Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital, nothing he predicted has happened and nothing he theorized has worked. To continue to believe in the idea of communism is to be so deep in the drowning pool that you are no longer a floater and are rotting on the bottom. But the siren song of communism and collectivism as a whole will always be with us, for communism recognizes something within us that is intrinsically human. It recognizes the emotional needs to connect with others and to find safety in that connection. These are not needs that can ever be wished away. They are part of our humanity. The trouble lies in the impulse to enforce these needs through the power of the state.
And it has always been so.
The protection of our individual freedoms through the creation of a republic did not make these needs go away; they only demanded that for the first time in history they be met through persuasion and an exchange of value rather than coercion and force.
The left would have you believe that to desire freedom from others' coercive demands is heartless and uncaring. It is not. It is a recognition that obligations to our fellow men can only be moral if they are voluntary. This is true from both the perspective of the giver and the receiver. When relationships and obligations are voluntarily assumed between men, both sides know that the agreement can be dissolved instantly. This aspect of choice can not be removed from morality.
To know that the needed generosity or loyalty of another is entirely dependent on one's own behavior and not enforced through the authority of the state is a powerful motivator to correct the negative behavior that caused the dependency in the first place. To put it bluntly, if I'm a crack whore and I am starving, homeless and despairing, it would still be next to impossible for me to change into a valuable member of society on my own. Only the knowledge that help is available through radical personal change would be enough to force me to the conclusion that I must change.
Where there is no dependency, but only an advantage for both parties, choice is still an invaluable aspect of any arrangement because it diffuses the power gained through the partnership to both parties. When both can leave, both maintain power. Our Founding Fathers recognized this very necessary and moral aspect of human relationships and protected it in the First Amendment.
To live in a world where all association is voluntary requires a great deal of trust between men. It requires that you believe in yourself, that you believe in your fellow citizens, and that you believe in mankind.
Despite all their assertions of belief in the goodness of man, the left always betrays their contempt for mankind in the ancient impulse to use force to achieve their desires. If they believed in the goodness of man as they insist, they would never feel the need to use the power of government to achieve their goals. Force is the weapon of the fearful.
Obama and his kind are men driven by fear, arrogance, a lack of self-awareness and a fundamental contempt for their fellow travelers. There is no other conclusion. To believe that only a chosen few have the capacity to behave morally without force is to believe that other men are worthy of nothing so much as contempt.
And that's what I see in Obama's face when he speaks to us. Contempt.
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RACHEL LUCAS LINKED ME! ME! Honestly, I tried to act calm and everything like it was no big deal...but DAMN! So here's my award! Yeah, me!
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| You can't expect me not to giggle gleefully. I even thought perhaps I shouldn't award myself another award, but then thought, "Naaaah!" |
"And that's what I see in Obama's face when he speaks to us. Contempt."
ReplyDeleteWell said, Buttercup.
This, I think, is why "you didn't build that" has been so damaging to Obama: it's not just that it summarizes the worst conceits of collectivism in four little words; it's not just that it reeks of worship of all thing government; it's that it reveals his utter contempt for the makers in society -- and for all things non-government.
Earlier in that infamous quote, when Obama dismissed intelligence and hard work as having any meaningful role in success, he was dismissing not just individual initiative but, more broadly, individual liberty. Any action that is not collective action is meaningless, except for the fact that it's inherently subversive. And that cannot be tolerated.
That is what Obama's little riff unmasked. His insistence that successful people owe gratitude to the state is an implicit threat: they owe deference as well, and there are consequences for not complying.
Nice little business you got there. Be a shame if the DEA found a kilo of cocaine on the premises. Or if the IRS found an untaxed piece of chewing gum, or if the SEC found an e-mail not saved in the format Sarbanes-Oxley specifies, or if the EPA found a trace of mercury in the same hemisphere.
The government -- any government -- necessarily bears a great deal of structural similarity to the mob. Under Obama, it has taken on a moral similarity as well.
Any action that is not collective action is meaningless, except for the fact that it's inherently subversive. And that cannot be tolerated.
ReplyDeleteThat is what Obama's little riff unmasked. His insistence that successful people owe gratitude to the state is an implicit threat: they owe deference as well, and there are consequences for not complying.
Yes. Exactly. His words were most definitely a threat. And America has instinctively reacted to that threat with alarm. Thank GOD. I think he was insinuating that the gov had the right to tax all wealth away from anyone and everyone. Don't like it? Tough. You didn't build that in the first place. All your factories r belong to us.
I saw OBAMA 2016 yesterday. Chilling movie, and I knew everything that was in it. No surprises. But to see all the evidence laid out in front of you so skillfully was frightening. The one line that jumped out at me, supporting the underlying premise that Obama is motivated by anti-colonialism, was, "Anti-colonialism was not about helping the poor. It was about stripping the wealth from the producers." Or something like that. I should have written it down. I'm paraphrasing, but that's pretty close.
And that is exactly what Obama is doing. Another point the movie made was that when the OWS crowd talk about the 99% vs. the 1%, Obama sees ALL OF AMERICA as the 1%. He believes he must redistribute America's wealth and power to the rest of the world.
Scary. Scary. Stuff.
“Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history, mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us.”
ReplyDelete― P.J. O'Rourke
And Eric Hoffer sums it up: Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.
I think that's our president. Mr. Nobody. Eastwood really nailed it with the empty chair.
BTW, Jeff, your comment over at Rachel's blog about Romney's perfection and the petty vote was superb!
I should have said, Mr. Underachiever instead of Mr. Nobody.
Delete"The left would have you believe that to desire freedom from others' coercive demands is heartless and uncaring. It is not. It is a recognition that obligations to our fellow men can only be moral if they are voluntary. This is true from both the perspective of the giver and the receiver."
ReplyDeleteI have to remember this quote. It is very well put and I think one of the more important quotes you can bring to a discussion with "intellectuals". I will be interested in the parsing of it(and the fun I will have defending it).
Defending it to liberals? Bring your guns, Tuerqas. HAHAHA!
DeleteMarvelous post, Buttercup. I've long believed that the core problem in modern society is the loss of social censure, of incentive to behave well. You nailed it with this one sentence:
ReplyDelete"To know that the needed generosity or loyalty of another is entirely dependent on one's own behavior and not enforced through the authority of the state is a powerful motivator to correct the negative behavior that caused the dependency in the first place."
Couldn't agree more. And this is why leftists want more government - they don't want people acting for themselves, or making moral judgments for themselves, or whatever for themselves. Must assimilate. Jeff sums that up pretty perfectly, too.
Also, what Cupcake said: "And America has instinctively reacted to that threat with alarm. Thank GOD." - Yes! I've been amazed and relieved to see how Americans have reacted to what Obama said that day. They haven't let it go; it's growing more every day. THAT gives us hope.
It is why, IMHO, charity is so necessary for the health of a society and why, conversely, it becomes so corrosive when shifted to the "benevolent" state. The power to create change in a person's life through that charity is entirely removed.
DeleteLiberals do not see this because they insist that the state is us. They insist that because we vote in representatives to act for us, the entire system is "voluntary". They completely ignore that first not all people necessarily voted for a particular person or idea, and second, that once the votes are counted, no matter who wins, the actions taken through the power of the state are no longer applied in a voluntary manner.
I don't know that you can step that far back. The majority can make law that a minority disagrees with, but rules must be followed by all so they CANNOT be applied in a voluntary manner. I fully agree that is why charity cannot be institutionalized, though. By definition, charity is voluntary and Gov't rules are mandatory.
DeleteRedefining words, like marriage, charity, etc. is a common liberal tell these days. When a Conservative wants to change an institution, he proposes a change. A liberal knows you need a majority for that to work. So instead, they change the meanings until the law fits their purpose. Pretty smart, in a Machievellian sort of way.
I think your distinction between laws the restrict negative behavior, like laws against killing, theft and fraud, and laws that compel supposedly compassionate behavior, like progressive taxation which is then used for entitlements is an important one. That's the point. When government steps outside its role of protector of individual rights and begins granting some individuals privileges at the expense of others, it no longer is moral. But liberals, at least those I encounter, don't see this. They use the same argument for entitlements as they do for laws against murder. "We" all decided it and now "you" must participate.
DeleteI also agree with you about their ability to redefine words and thereby change cultural norms. They've been doing that since the Frankfurt School. It's on purpose.
This is what happens when you let a village raise your child.
ReplyDeleteYes, you realize that the village is full of idiots.
DeleteVillage...village. Is that new slang for villain (hey I got some new village for you from the Dexter show), or is that lib code? It could mean 'school' or, or 'white people' you racist wenches!
DeleteHa! Tuerqas means "twisted" in Spanish. Is it code for Leftist extremism ese?
ReplyDelete:o)
NO WAY! Really? I play role playing games. My second all-time favorite character was Tuerqas(I have always especially loved the 'a' following the 'q'. It had a 1 in 6 chance of beinga 'u'). I made the name by arbitrarily choosing a 20 sided die for consonants and a six sided die for vowels.(Odds/evens when either could work). So a million monkeys at key boards for a million years really could write War and Peace. Huh.
ReplyDelete