Understanding President Obama

'Few Presidents', says Victor Davis Hanson, 'have dashed so many illusions as Obama.'

In the last three years, the president has taught us a great deal about America, the world, and himself.

Before Obama, many Americans still believed in massive deficit spending, whether as an article of fairness, a means to economic growth, or just a lazy fallback position to justify an out-of-control federal government. But after the failure of a nearly $800 billion “stimulus” program — intended to keep unemployment under 8 percent — no one believes any more that an already indebted government will foster economic growth by taking on another $4 trillion in debt. In other words, “stimulus” is mostly a dead concept.

As a country, we've been able to see actions to compare and contrast with the campaign rhetoric of Barack Obama from 2007-2008.  We've seen and experienced the effects of his economic agenda and policies in addition to his other domestic and foreign priorities.  We've seen examples of of why this country is bereft of leadership at a time of economic and foreign crisis.  The failure of the Congressional Supercommittee to take a leadership position to address even token budget cuts are complained about - but where was the leadership from the President?  We're told that 'We Can't Wait' on passing free trade and jobs bills - while in the case of the free trade bills, they date back to his predecessor and were sitting on the President's desk, untouched until it became a political tool for him to leverage.  'Jobs bills' are nothing more than new half trillion stimulus bills - doing the same thing as the original $800 billion failed stimulus - but with the expectation that this time it will 'work'.

His political rhetoric is filled with the base accusations towards the GOP that their primary aspirations and actions are based on putting politics and campaign advantages before the immediate needs of the country - while he brazenly does just that again and again.  Afraid of risking the disapproval of the hard left environmentalists by choosing to support the Keystone XL pipeline to bring more oil into the US from it's closest neighbor and ally? But equally afraid of the alienating union workers who will get jobs building the pipeline, working in the refineries, or manufacturing cars to run on the fuel brought in via the pipeline?  Easy - punt the decision until 2013 even if that forces Canada to sell it's oil in Asia.

Our country is in the midst of one of the most anemic economic recoveries of all time.  Unemployment is reported as 8.6%, but when one eliminates the 'tools' used to skew the employment numbers (like the 315,000 no longer working dropped from the count, the underemployed, etc), we are far closer to a 15% - 16% effective unemployment rate. 

Last month, the national debt for the US exceeded $15 trillion dollars.  We are running an average annual deficit of $1.4 - $1.5 trillion per year - and are projected to average at least a $1 trillion deficit across the next decade.

These fiscal challenges are blamed on his predecessor, President George W. Bush.  During Bush's 8 years in office, his Administration, particularly in the last 2 years, basically doubled the debt that was accumulated from President Washington to President Clinton.  But, in less than 4 years, President Obama has exceeded that done by his predecessor.  Yet, we are told that we don't have a spending problem, we have a revenue problem - insufficient revenues resulting from an unfair tax system that 'favors the wealthy'.

This is the same tax system that has half of the population paying no federal income taxes, and the top 10% of federal income tax payers account for 70% of all federal income taxes paid.  Where is the 'fairness' when 10% pay 70% of the total and 50% pay nothing at all?

Whether it's the illusions of Obama that his own actions are running in stark contrast with or the contrast between his rhetoric, actions, and results or the conflicting nature of his claims for 'fairness' and class warfare invocations, the President has not suddenly changed or morphed from what he once was into the person he is today.  Barack Obama is the same Barack Obama who sought out and embraced the Marxists, the militants, the radical Latinos, and the Alinsky method when he was in college / adulthood.  His viewpoints and ideology were clearly influenced by his hard left grandparents, his hard left mother, 'Dreams of My Father' communist Barack Obama, Sr., and his communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis.

Barack Obama has been indoctrinated pretty much from day 1 that capitalism is an 'unfair' and 'unjust' system.  Even the 20 or so years that Obama spent in the 'church' of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama continued to learn and embrace values which run entirely counter to what anyone would consider 'traditional American values'.   In a candid, and unguarded moment, President Obama has been caught on tape speaking very candidly about his 'real' values - many of which were learned from Rev. Wright, a liberal fascist, anti-Semite, black nationalist, progressive Jacobin.

Key to these values are the focus towards the collective above the individual, the need to transform the world (fundamental change), and the importance / necessity of 'collective transformation' where man, in the collective, triumphs and transforms the world into a social, economic, and political utopia on earth.  Also taught, that someone who prefers to embrace or advocate the individual, then one is cynical, self-centered, and only interested in the 'easy' and selfish path.

The focus on the collective is evident throughout the entire Administration of this President and the multitudes of Jacobin's, liberal fascists, progressives, and neo

The collective of a strong central government is imperative in order to enact this change.  Under President Obama, the Federal Government has grown in an unprecedented manner.  When change is believed to be needed or forced on the citizens of the US - and the legislative branch is unable or unwilling to create legislation to do so, there is no hesitation to use executive powers to obtain the end result.  According to this President, the marketplace is completely inadequate for the 'selection' of winners and losers - that is more properly the role of the Administration and central government.

Individuals lack the knowledge to make effective decisions - those decisions are always self-centered and self-serving, so the Administration's elite experts and academics have to decide that the only way to bring upon proper environmental behavior by the collective is to invoke cap and trade via regulation and executive fiat.

A collection of like-minded Marxists, Jacobin's, progressives, and liberal fascists form a 'movement' to promote their collective solutions, called OccupyWallStreet.  Promoted as the 'right' answer to the conservative Tea Party Movement (which promotes traditional American values like limited government, limited taxation, individual rights, accountability, responsibilities, and the free marketplace to determine winners and losers), OccupyWallStreet represents the issues and why Barack Obama decided to run for the Office of President.

To this President, the most valuable equality that is needed in this country is the guarantee of the equality of results - as opposed to the conservative approach which calls for the equality of opportunity.

Despite the utter social and economic failures of his ideological beliefs and values wherever and whenever it has been attempted - and in many cases an unprecedented cost in human lives - there is still the belief that those who failed before did so because they weren't aggressive enough, firm enough, or complete enough in their efforts to break the individual.  Each generation since the Jacobin's of France, we've seen a new group who embrace this bankrupt theory and think that they are the enlightened ones who can do this successfully - totally forgetting about human nature and the individual.

The United States faces itself at an existential crossroad when the 2012 elections arrive.  We are going to be asked to decide which path we will take.  Are we to embrace the collective Jacobinism of President Obama - where we become fundamentally transformed to forgetting ourselves as individuals with individual rights in favor of the collective - or are we going to reject these values in favor of those which provided the foundation for the unique and exceptional nation known as the United States of America?

The President knows that despite the efforts he and his cohorts have taken towards their ideological vision for the US, he will need at least 4 more years to finish the job he started.  We cannot give him those 4 years...and just denying this second term will not guarantee our success to defeat the continued efforts to fundamentally transform this country.  Vigilance and activity will still be required by all of us individuals to oppose the agenda President Obama wholeheartedly has embraced.