Osama bin Laden Killed

[Libertarian Muslim]

We are all human beings, of that there is little doubt (well, except for some) but each of us follows a philosophy of one kind or another. Islam imparts a philosophy which shapes the person, as does Objectivism. Islam teaches that an adherents first loyalty should be to the Ummah, which transcends geographical and political boundaries. Islam has its own politics, a politics that is contrary to the principles of the United States. It is a valid question, especially seeing as I saw LM's post as being nothing but more of his moral equivalence.

I'm not sure where you got this idea.. But Islam doesn't teach that an adherents first loyalty should be to the Ummah at all.. Islam teaches us that we're supposed to have a loyalty to God and that the measure of our loyalties and the sides we choose on particular issues should be justice and not our connection to our family, our tribe nor fellow Muslims if those Muslims are in the wrong..

Justice is the measure of our loyalties.. Not whether someone is Muslim or not..

[Jonathan David Leavitt]

As for Kant's motives, Rand said repeatedly that Kant deliberately set out to destroy the efficacy of man's mind. This is why she did not regard him as merely mistaken, but as evil. As she put it in the "Age of Envy":

On the basis of his works, I offer Immanuel Kant in evidence, as the archetype of this species: a system as consistently evil as his cannot be constructed innocently.

Ghs

Many thanks for the links. George.. I haven't followed them all yet, bit I found what I was looking for. So, we have, in effect, Kant saying, "To the gas chambers, go!"

OK. Rand, then, was misrepresenting him? Where, I wonder, did she get the idea that Kant set out to destroy the efficacy of man's mind?

So, at one end of the spectrum, we have a continuum of evil, with Kant at the extreme maximum-evil end. (Yes, a continuum at the end of the continuum. I meant that.) On the other end of the larger continuum, we have moral subjectivism, where good and evil are not valid concepts, in fact, where valid concepts are not valid concepts.

I will refrain from calling Kant evil until I have read and digested all of his works in the original German, a project that is not among my plans for this year or next.

However, I will insist on calling the Obamacare bill evil, without reading all 2000+ pages. Well, perhaps not evil, but sort of bad. Very bad. Fair enough. Am I sounding civil now, Mr. President?

[George H. Smith]

As for Kant's motives, Rand said repeatedly that Kant deliberately set out to destroy the efficacy of man's mind. This is why she did not regard him as merely mistaken, but as evil. As she put it in the "Age of Envy":

On the basis of his works, I offer Immanuel Kant in evidence, as the archetype of this species: a system as consistently evil as his cannot be constructed innocently.

Ghs

Many thanks for the links. George.. I haven't followed them all yet, bit I found what I was looking for. So, we have, in effect, Kant saying, "To the gas chambers, go!"

OK. Rand, then, was misrepresenting him? Where, I wonder, did she get the idea that Kant set out to destroy the efficacy of man's mind?

So, at one end of the spectrum, we have a continuum of evil, with Kant at the extreme maximum-evil end. (Yes, a continuum at the end of the continuum. I meant that.) On the other end of the larger continuum, we have moral subjectivism, where good and evil are not valid concepts, in fact, where valid concepts are not valid concepts.

I will refrain from calling Kant evil until I have read and digested all of his works in the original German, a project that is not among my plans for this year or next.

However, I will insist on calling the Obamacare bill evil, without reading all 2000+ pages. Well, perhaps not evil, but sort of bad. Very bad. Fair enough. Am I sounding civil now, Mr. President?

You should read David Gordon's review of The Ominous Parallels. Originally published in Inquiry (1982) under the title of "The Butcher of Königsberg?" (one of the great titles of all time). It can be found here.

As for where Rand got her views on Kant, I cannot say. Years ago, however, I owned a copy of a book titled From Kant to Hitler. I don't recall much about it -- I don't even recall the author's name, though I think the last name was something like "McGovern" -- but it was a thick book published in the 1940s or early 1950s. I sometimes wondered if Rand ever read this book. I searched the title on the internet, but nothing showed up immediately. Maybe someone more proficient than I in searching can locate it somewhere. (It's possible that "From Kant to Hitler" was the subtitle rather than the title; it's difficult to recall after 30 years.)

Ghs

Correction: I located the book, but I had the title wrong. It is: William M. McGovern: From Luther to Hitler, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1941. Kant stuck in my mind because it does include a discussion of Kant as a supposed precursor to Nazism. I could be wrong, but I recall that McGovern blames virtually every German thinker he knew for the rise of Nazism. 1941 was the same year that America entered the war, so I took the book to be a piece of wartime propaganda -- though it does contain some interesting stuff.

Ghs

[Reidy]

I've heard that John Dewey, late in life (but before Rand or Peikoff), said that Kant's duty-centered ethics helped to bring about the Nazis. Is this accurate?

[BaalChatzaf]

I've heard that John Dewey, late in life (but before Rand or Peikoff), said that Kant's duty-centered ethics helped to bring about the Nazis. Is this accurate?

The Spartans where duty-freaks and they lived and fought and tyrannized thousands of years before Kant was born.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Robert Campbell]

Lo! those who believe, and those who are Jews, and Sabaeans, and Christians - Whosoever believeth in Allah and the Last Day and doeth right - there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve. (Qur'an 5:69)

LM,

Don't you have to read the fine print?

The Qur'an claims that Jews do not worship God alone, because they regard Ezra as the Son of God.

The Qur'an claims that Christians do not worship God alone, because they regard Jesus as the Son of God.

The second claim isn't hard to follow. Belief in the divinity of Christ or in the Trinity is not strict monotheism (although the Qur'an puts Mary in the Trinity, in place of the Holy Spirit).

The first, on the other hand, may not describe any form of Jewish belief that ever existed. But it does disqualify Jews from genuinely believing in Allah.

As for the Last Day, for centuries most Christians believed that there would be a Day of Judgment and the fundamentalists still do (because the liberal Christians of today do not, they are presumably all guaranteed a one-way ticket to Hell when they die).

How many Jews believe that there will be a Last Day, on which God will judge the quick and the dead, sending some to Heaven and dropping the rest into the Lake of Fire? My understanding is that apocalyptics have been strongly deemphasized in mainstream Jewish belief for a very long time. But other participants here may be able to correct me.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

All Idolators, for all time.

It is the case that Pagans used the Kaaba for worship when polytheism was introduced into the Arabian Peninsula, but this was long after the Kaaba was built and was an abomination.

No, we won't allow idol worship back into the Kaaba

LM,

Who are "we" in this particular case?

You don't seem to hold the current government or clerical establishment of Sa'udi Arabia in high regard.

Nor does it appear that those who control access to Mecca and Medina are inclined to listen to anyone who understands Islam as you do.

How do you know when the Ka'bah was built? Or who built it? Has any archeological work been done under it or around it?

If the original place of worship was built by Abraham and Ishmael (I'll assume for purposes of argument that they were historical figures), the Ka'bah is at least 3700 years old. It pre-dates Muhammad by at least 2300 years.

And no worship of idols or of multiple gods could ever have taken place, anywhere in the Arabian Peninsula, until some time after the founding of the Ka'bah.

Robert Campbell

[George H. Smith]

The Qur'an claims that Jews do not worship God alone, because they regard Ezra as the Son of God.

The Qur'an claims that Christians do not worship God alone, because they regard Jesus as the Son of God.

Ghs

[Robert Campbell]

LM,

From another thread, here's most of what I said about the spread of Islam through conquest:

And something needs to be said about your constant appeals to the number of Muslims in the world today.

As a matter of historical and demographic fact, there are over 1 billion Muslims in 2010 because in 630 and 641 and 711 and 712 (and long afterward) Muslim soldiers fought to conquer and build empires.

Muslims today are not at fault for that. Nor could the omelet even begin to be unscrambled after all this time. One might as well wish the Romans out of Spain and France, the Russians away from the Black Sea, and the Magyars out of Hungary.

But Muslims such as yourself who profess to oppose all empires will not be taken seriously, unless they apply the same criticisms to Islamic imperialism as they apply to other kinds.

On the now-closed thread you talk about how awful the pagan Arabs were. Well, my understanding is that they practiced female infanticide, which Muhammad helped to do away with. They also practiced slavery, which Muhammad (contrary to your rhetoric) did not try to do away with, and blood feuds and honor killings, which Muhammad did try to do away with, albeit without lasting success among many who claim to practice Islam today.

But the pagan Arabs never fought to conquer in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Spain, Turkey, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Persia, Sind, and many other parts of what was then the non-Arab world. (Which is not to say they didn't want to; perhaps they did, but simply lacked the organization necessary to build an empire.)

Muslim Arabs did fight to conquer in all of those places.

And there would be far fewer Muslims today had they not.

And here are the key passages from your response:

I definitely dislike any imperialism and that is especially applicable to imperialism from people claiming to do it in the name of Islam. I certainly don't support, never have supported and never will support any type of action which makes Muslims transgressors..

The fact is that we don't need to take countries over to spread Islam, in the West Islam is the fastest growing religion and we aren't even invading your countries..

[…]

1. Muhammad pbuh didn't just help to do away with female infanticide.. He strictly forbade it.. He changed the whole way that their society worked.. There were strict punishments for such crimes..

2. Muhammad did in fact forbid slavery and ended the type of slavery seen in the West up until only a few hundred years ago more than 1400 years ago.. .. But what we define as slavery is different to what you define it.. Although I think you pick and choose where you apply it..

3. Blood feuds and honor killings? Yes there was huge successes in this.. Complete success? No.. People have free will, if they want to revert back to tribal practices then so be it.. But it's their actions.. It's not surprising though because the Muslims after his death came under the rule of people who had no right to rule and ruled in a manner which was wrong.. The people fell back into this tribalism as a result..

[…]

No, they [the pagan Arabs] kept their tribal bloodshed in the Arab peninsula which you might think is a good thing.. And actually, the Muslims didn't start the wars with the Byzantines nor the Persians.. So the Muslims responded and won..

Robert Campbell

[George H. Smith]

How do you know when the Ka'bah was built? Or who built it? Has any archeological work been done under it or around it?

If the original place of worship was built by Abraham and Ishmael (I'll assume for purposes of argument that they were historical figures), the Ka'bah is at least 3700 years old. It pre-dates Muhammad by at least 2300 years.

I believe the information in question was revealed to Muhammad in one of his visions, so it is probably in the Qur'an. What more conclusive evidence could you ask for?

Ghs

[Libertarian Muslim]

Don't you have to read the fine print?

The Qur'an claims that Jews do not worship God alone, because they regard Ezra as the Son of God.

The Qur'an claims that Christians do not worship God alone, because they regard Jesus as the Son of God.

The second claim isn't hard to follow. Belief in the divinity of Christ or in the Trinity is not strict monotheism (although the Qur'an puts Mary in the Trinity, in place of the Holy Spirit).

The first, on the other hand, may not describe any form of Jewish belief that ever existed. But it does disqualify Jews from genuinely believing in Allah.

As for the Last Day, for centuries most Christians believed that there would Day of Judgment and the fundamentalists still do (because the liberal Christians of today do not, they are presumably all guaranteed a one-way ticket to Hell when they die).

How many Jews believe that there will be a Last Day, on which God will judge the quick and the dead, sending some to Heaven and dropping the rest into the Lake of Fire? My understanding is that apocalyptics have been strongly deemphasized in mainstream Jewish belief for a very long time. But other participants here may be able to correct me.

Robert Campbell

Hi Robert, that is an excuse that some extremists also use.. Nevertheless it's one of faulted logic..

We must remember that the Qur'an acknowledged that the Jews and Christians held those beliefs yet still stated the Christians and Jews etc would have nothing to grieve.. I will also state this, the verse I quoted before is from one of the last chapters of the Qur'an revealed to man and was not abrogated.

[George H. Smith]

I've heard that John Dewey, late in life (but before Rand or Peikoff), said that Kant's duty-centered ethics helped to bring about the Nazis. Is this accurate?

I'm not sure what you are asking here. If you meant "Did Dewey really blame Kant?" my answer is that I don't know. If you meant "Did Kant's deontologism really influence Nazi ideology?" my answer is also "I don't know" -- but with this qualification: If some Nazi ideologues did cite Kant, then they selectively distorted and mangled his ideas even worse than they did the ideas of Nietzsche.

Ghs

[william.scherk]

As for LM's understanding of atheism/agnosticism, I honestly think it is nil. He accused Xray of being a fanatical atheist (when she has honestly announced to be agnostic). I can only imagine what he thinks of my actual atheism.

I'm sorry but I don't take the time of ponder on your atheism.. It's your own business and not mine. I wish you the best.

Dude, you are asking us to entertain your vast system of ethics dubbed islam, and debate it, and hear out your blandishments and your historical interpretations and your faithful adherence to a god-given system, a cure and a balm. To hear you out, to hear of the agenda of freedom and the unity of islam and of the justice promised by the spiritual lord of the universe. To ponder your religious system of ethics. To ponder your thesis of the divine.

Thing is, we most of us here do not have lords of the universe to guide us. We do not accept the sovereignty of the lords but of humankind's reason, and we choose liberty over submission to a spirit. We do not regard any book as given by the giant cosmic architect and judge. Don't you think yours is a rather insulting response to the overwhelming atheist contingent here who follow no holy book and have no faith in spirit -- to say 'Ponder MY system, I will not ponder YOURS'?

Do these observations register with you?

LM is not stupid, not unkind, not full of unreasoning hate, but I believe he is trapped between commitments to two imaginary worlds: a wonderland of Islamic Pollyanna loveliness and a wonderland of pure, sweet Western values in action. I appreciate his rather sweet naivete about human nature, but wish he could admit to the conflicts in his mind.

I don't see the conflicts that you're referring to.

I know.

As far as I can tell you don't stand outside yourself for a moment to understand the dynamics of discussion here: faith versus non-faith, or revealed holy scriptures versus Reason.

I mean, my brother, you don't seem to acknowledge the point of view of your interlocutors -- I really wish you would make even a small attempt to understand an atheist point of view, rather than dismiss it as uninteresting and unworthy of your attention.

Do you see at least what can appear a conflict in your approach? You ask us to consider and accept your epistemology but reject consideration of ours.

He will always keep his Western citizenship, I bet. His harsh, flip denunciations of Muslim authorities (such as Hassan of Morocco) reflect his delightfully arrogant assumption that he knows better than anyone the perfect True Islam. Since he cannot read or effectively communicate in Arabic, has never received religious instruction -- while demanding that no one can speak for Islam except after a grueling formal education (viz. Hassan), his self-appointment as an authority on Islam resembles that of Richard Wiig. Absurd.

I will keep Western citizenship of course, I was born in the West and for all purposes am a Westerner.

I also don't proclaim to know everything or better than anyone the perfect true Islam, I'm still learning. I can read Arabic and can speak basic Arabic. In terms of religious instruction.. Not a formal education no.. But now 10 years of intense study and bouncing my ideas off of and asking questions of the scholars I had around me and overseas.

Of course you are Western (or, as you said, an honorary American). And correct me if I am wrong, but you have said a couple of times that the best state for islam is the USA, and you speak of 'we' (the West) and 'we' (islam).

To the subject of Hassan II, I only wished to point you back to your dismissal (in discussion of Leonid) of the qualifications of that person to interpret islamic jurisprudence regarding apostasy and the death penalty in Morocco. You wrote that Hassan was unqualified (and you did not inquire as to whether Hassan supported death for apostasy -- he did not). You also wrote this about any muslim's ability to properly interpret islam:

Next, to be able to be able to interpret the Qur'an they'd also need to go further and spend 20 years of their lives studying not only the Qur'an, but the life of the Prophet Muhammad and other Islamic sciences like hadith, fiqh etc"

Why do you raise a standard of qualifications for proper interpretation that you yourself have not achieved? How do you want us to interpret your mixed messages and apparent double standards?

According to your own statements here and elsewhere you faltered in an introductory Arabic class in Qatar in 2008. You were unable to read the alphabet and keep up with your classmates.

Do you see the difference between your claims to understanding islam and your dismissal of other people's qualifications? By 'delightfully arrogant assumption,' I meant to point out to you and other readers that you arrogate to yourself the wisdom which you deny in others. You dismiss as unqualified those who DO study what you say a qualified person needs to study. You dismiss folks who have been born and raised in Arabic, who have put in twenty years or more in the study you say is basic to understanding and interpreting islam.

I really hope you ponder these things I mention.

Edited May 16, 2011 by william.scherk

[Brant Gaede]

LM cannot step outside his edifice, William. For him there is no outside. That's the true nature of faith. You are arguing with a profound irrationalist. You lose. All you can do is tag and dress out your deer, put it on your fender and drive home. You won--for it's all displayed.

--Brant

more of the same has mild entertainment value

[william.scherk]

LM cannot step outside his edifice, William.

I disagree that he cannot, Brant. I haven't really made any change in my underlying questions or observations of his struggle since I first responded to him on SOLO. He has asked for support for his project, and I think he is fair-minded enough to acknowledge, sooner or later, that he may need to better understand atheist attitudes, that understanding atheist attitudes will help him be a better advocate for things he believes in.

For him there is no outside. That's the true nature of faith.

But, Brant, he not only has faith in islam, he also has faith in America the Just, as the very best place on earth for a muslim to freely practice his or her faith in any way he chooses that does not approach criminality.

You are arguing with a profound irrationalist.

I don't think so. I think that using this kind of invective (which I did in the past, and which I regret) locks down the gates of comprehension. I am not arguing per se -- I am inviting a discussion of points of view, asking him to consider the point of view of people who do not have faith in spirits and who are not guided by holy books.

You lose.

I win. I stay in the discussion. I raise my questions and points and trust my readers to give me feedback, and I continue to believe that LM wants a reasonable hearing for his views. I will continue to ask that he ponder my questions and observations. He is not going anywhere and neither am I. As long as we continue discussion honestly we all win.

All you can do is tag and dress out your deer, put it on your fender and drive home. You won--for it's all displayed.

Pshaw . . . I tagged out and dressed the deer kookiness of Leavitt's, and then realized that he responded with grace and intelligence. Now I have to draft an apology for my rhetoric and encourage him to continue reasonable discussion. Leavitt 'won.' He won me over to the realization that a man is not a single flawed rant. When I go over the top and rant and then later change my opinion and hope for the benefit of the doubt, I have to extend that same benefit to others if I want to pretend to myself that I have integrity.

My bar is pretty low, Brant. I just ask for applied reason. Anyone can do it -- as Rand pointed out.

[Robert Campbell]

Lo! those who believe, and those who are Jews, and Sabaeans, and Christians - Whosoever believeth in Allah and the Last Day and doeth right - there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve. (Qur'an 5:69)

LM,

Since the surat of the Qur'an are not arranged in historical order and the text usually doesn't indicate the dates, how do you decide what supersedes what?

But let's suppose that this verse does override every other one that appears to contradict it in one way or another.

There's still that awkward bit about "the Last Day."

Few Jews today believe that there will be a Day of Judgment.

Many Christians still believe that there will be, but a substantial minority do not.

So does this dispensation apply only to those Jews and Christians who do believe that God will one day judge the quick and the dead?

Or is the implication that all Jews and Christians, as long as there still are any, believe in the Last Day whether they realize it or not?

Belief in the Day of Judgment is treated as hugely important in the Qur'an. If I quoted every verse that condemns to Hell those who don't believe in the Fire which is prepared for the Unbelievers, or in the Last Day, I would end up with a post immensely tiresome for me to compose and for the folks here to read.

Historically, many Muslims, not just "extremists," have taken what I've called the "fine print" to justify derogating Jewish and Christian worship as forms of shirk (idotatry), albeit forms that would be tolerated to a limited degree when practiced by second-class citizens under Islamic rule.

I think ND asked, up-thread, whether Islam could undergo a Reformation, when the religion has never had a single clerical hierarchy or a Pope.

It still could, because while every Muslim is expected to memorize the Qur'an (in the original Arabic, which lots of believers neither speak nor understand), Muslims are definitely not encouraged to interpret it for themselves. Rather, they must defer to some form of clerical or scholarly authority, which, in turn, must belong to one among a small number of (by now) rather ancient schools of thought. When large numbers of Muslims act on their own readings of the Qur'an, challenges to established clerical authority will ensue, just as challenges to clerical authority ensued after the Bible was translated into English and French and German and so on, widely printed, and all Protestants were exhorted to read it and study it.

Such a development would not be liberalizing in the short run. Many of the interpretations that Protestants arrived at after reading their own Bibles were grossly illiberal, and some were truly loony. I'm sure that, if all Muslims were encouraged to study the Qur'an and understand it for themselves, "extremist" interpretations would multiply. But so would lots of non-extremist interpretations.

There's another problem with this "Last Day" business.

Among Christians, those who take the Book of Revelation literally are far more likely to be intolerant of Muslims than those who do not. Because those who believe there will be a Day of Judgment, followed by eternal punishment for who those who lacked faith, are the most conservative.

Yet, from the Qur'anic standpoint, belief in a Day of Judgment is a potentially redeeming factor in Christianity.

Go figure.

Robert Campbell

[Brant Gaede]

Okay, William. I am an interested observer, but I can't help you; I don't have the ability. Really. Luck.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Thanks for your speedy reply...

Jonathan,

Thanks for your level-headedness.

Sorry for the flare-up.

My opinions are the same, but had I realized you were going to play unfair and get all reasonable and stuff, I wouldn't have been so aggressive.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

When Obama was running for election, I made the comment that he was essentially not a bad man, but basically had good intentions for this country in his heart. I took a lot of flack for that back then.

Well, you can see some of this good side in the video below.

<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QPlJKKcBVUo?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I still want Obama out of office and I still think he is helping to wreck this country, but I don't believe for a minute that this is moved by malice. I think his intentions are good.

So, for a moment, I'm going to let my animosity toward him relax. Just for a moment. In that spirit, I'm glad that even a President as far left as Obama is can be a competent Commander-in-Chief against sworn American enemies--and that he sees himself as belonging to the same American family as his political enemies.

I'm actually proud of him for his part in leading the effort to get bin Laden.

Michael

Michael, I cannot understand how you can say that Obama has good intentions for this country in his heart, or that “he sees himself as belonging to the same American family as his political enemies.” Is that the family of Louis Farråkhan, of Bill Ayres, of the Reverend Wright? Is that the family that is selling Israel down the river and sanctioning the terrorist-organized and carefully-coordinated uprisings in the Arab World?

This is the man who stands before the American public and tells one barefaced, blatant lie after another -- the man who surrounds himself with and seeks the advice of only the radical left and worse -- the man who pays American taxpayers’ money to subsidize offshore drilling by Brazil, but expects America to continue functioning by the grace of windmills – who is further enslaving the medical doctors on whom our lives depend -- who redistributes the earnings of the producers so that the non-producers will continue to vote for him – the man who is spending and manipulating the greatest country on earth into helplessness and ruin --the man who speaks of ':social justice" " but never of freedom. ... I could go on and on, but you know the facts probably as well as I do.

.

What on earth would Obama have to do to convince you that he and George Washington do not belong to the same American family-- that he is, at best, a cheap Chicago left-wing politician who cares only that he get re-elected to a position he is grotesquely unequipped for -- yet doesn’t take even that position seriously enough to read Economics 101.

Barbara

[Jonathan David Leavitt]

When Obama was running for election, I made the comment that he was essentially not a bad man, but basically had good intentions for this country in his heart. I took a lot of flack for that back then.

Well, you can see some of this good side in the video below.

<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QPlJKKcBVUo?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I still want Obama out of office and I still think he is helping to wreck this country, but I don't believe for a minute that this is moved by malice. I think his intentions are good.

So, for a moment, I'm going to let my animosity toward him relax. Just for a moment. In that spirit, I'm glad that even a President as far left as Obama is can be a competent Commander-in-Chief against sworn American enemies--and that he sees himself as belonging to the same American family as his political enemies.

I'm actually proud of him for his part in leading the effort to get bin Laden.

Michael

Michael, I cannot understand how you can say that Obama has good intentions for this country in his heart, or that “he sees himself as belonging to the same American family as his political enemies.” Is that the family of Louis Farråkhan, of Bill Ayres, of the Reverend Wright? Is that the family that is selling Israel down the river and sanctioning the terrorist-organized and carefully-coordinated uprisings in the Arab World?

This is the man who stands before the American public and tells one barefaced, blatant lie after another -- the man who surrounds himself with and seeks the advice of only the radical left and worse -- the man who pays American taxpayers’ money to subsidize offshore drilling by Brazil, but expects America to continue functioning by the grace of windmills – who is further enslaving the medical doctors on whom our lives depend -- who redistributes the earnings of the producers so that the non-producers will continue to vote for him – the man who is spending and manipulating the greatest country on earth into helplessness and ruin --the man who speaks of ':social justice" " but never of freedom. ... I could go on and on, but you know the facts probably as well as I do.

.

What on earth would Obama have to do to convince you that he and George Washington do not belong to the same American family-- that he is, at best, a cheap Chicago left-wing politician who cares only that he get re-elected to a position he is grotesquely unequipped for -- yet doesn’t take even that position seriously enough to read Economics 101.

Barbara

I agree with Barbara Branden, whose critique of Obama is well thought out and articulated. My impression, based on the speeches that Obama has given, especially abroad, is that Obama views himself as a citizen of the world, of which America is only the place he was born by chance, and on his personal balance sheet between whatever good things America has done (if any) versus slavery, racism, imperialism, neo-colonialism, greed, and — yes — selfishness, he appears to believe America has done more bad than good.

Of course I can and will never know what Obama really thinks about America and his own role as an American citizen, because I believe he is an epistemological relativist, who has some core values based on faith (similar to the values of Jeremiah Wright), and whose secondary values are derived from feelings.

If I am a kook for having and expressing the aforegoing opinions, so be it.

—Jonathan

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara,

I was speaking within the context of the bin Laden kill. I don't for a minute believe Obama ordered him killed because he (Obama) hates the USA. That would not make any sense to me.

Also, I have harshly criticized--several times over months--every one of the facts you presented, including Obama's constant lying, so I don't know how to respond to this. I certainly don't support them or the left.

I just don't give Obama the grandiosity of those who think he is a monster. I think he is a small-souled pragmatic man who was brought up in a left-wing environment and studied his tail off in crowd control and persuasion techniques (which he executes really well in speeches and his backroom politics--judging from the results).

When he thinks about the USA, I believe he sincerely believes he is working toward improving the country. He's dead wrong about his vision, but in my judgment, I don't believe he is some kind of sleeper terrorist secretly masterminding the destruction of the country on purpose. I just don't see it. You'd need a bigger man than Obama for that.

Founding Father-wise, I don't see any comparison between him and George Washington, not even as Washington's enemy. They are both USA Presidents and that's about all I see in common between them. I would have to grant him stature to be a full-fledged enemy. (Woodrow Wilson was an enemy of George Washington. Ditto for Franklin Roosevelt. Obama is no Wilson or Roosevelt by a long shot. Those men made long-lasting damage. I believe Obama was inept enough to make huge changes on rocky political ground, so they will be far easier to undo.)

My remarks about temporarily being glad he functioned well as a Commander-in-Chief and properly fit himself to the role during a successful military operation were not to aggrandize Obama or ignore his shortcomings, but to preserve--in my heart--respect for the Office of the Presidency. I believe this Office is far stronger than his inept capacity to destroy it.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

The damage created by events and Presidents and their minions over the last decade and so and which is still piling up, getting worse, will take over a generation to set right and that setting right will be extremely painful for millions all driven by the inevitable economics of it all. This is assuming things don't transmogrify into something much, much worse. Superficially it began with the first oil big oil war, 1989.

--Brant

fire or ice or--but not nice

[Robert Campbell]

I just don't give Obama the grandiosity of those who think he is a monster. I think he is a small-souled pragmatic man who was brought up in a left-wing environment and studied his tail off in crowd control and persuasion techniques (which he executes really well in speeches and his backroom politics--judging from the results).

When he thinks about the USA, I believe he sincerely believes he is working toward improving the country. He's dead wrong about his vision, but in my judgment, I don't believe he is some kind of sleeper terrorist secretly masterminding the destruction of the country on purpose. I just don't see it. You'd need a bigger man than Obama for that.

I agree with Michael's assessment here. Calling Barack Obama a Communist means attributing to him a breadth and depth of vision that he gives no evidence of possessing. I doubt many people have ever ascribed to Jimmy Carter a diabolical, overweening agenda of destroying the United States. A speech like the one that Obama gave in El Paso the other day is a public exhibition of smallness of soul.

Unlike St. Woodrow and FDR, Obama has overreached so badly as to discredit key elements in the "progressive" agenda for a long time to come. He may come to be seen as the man who tried to expand the "blue social model" (as Walter Russell Mead calls it) and fasten it on us forever—at the precise moment in American history when its internal hollowness and its unsustainability were becoming apparent to nearly everyone.

Robert Campbell

[Brant Gaede]

When Obama was running for election, I made the comment that he was essentially not a bad man, but basically had good intentions for this country in his heart. I took a lot of flack for that back then.

Well, you can see some of this good side in the video below.

<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QPlJKKcBVUo?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I still want Obama out of office and I still think he is helping to wreck this country, but I don't believe for a minute that this is moved by malice. I think his intentions are good.

So, for a moment, I'm going to let my animosity toward him relax. Just for a moment. In that spirit, I'm glad that even a President as far left as Obama is can be a competent Commander-in-Chief against sworn American enemies--and that he sees himself as belonging to the same American family as his political enemies.

I'm actually proud of him for his part in leading the effort to get bin Laden.

Michael

Michael, I cannot understand how you can say that Obama has good intentions for this country in his heart, or that "he sees himself as belonging to the same American family as his political enemies." Is that the family of Louis Farråkhan, of Bill Ayres, of the Reverend Wright? Is that the family that is selling Israel down the river and sanctioning the terrorist-organized and carefully-coordinated uprisings in the Arab World?

This is the man who stands before the American public and tells one barefaced, blatant lie after another -- the man who surrounds himself with and seeks the advice of only the radical left and worse -- the man who pays American taxpayers' money to subsidize offshore drilling by Brazil, but expects America to continue functioning by the grace of windmills – who is further enslaving the medical doctors on whom our lives depend -- who redistributes the earnings of the producers so that the non-producers will continue to vote for him – the man who is spending and manipulating the greatest country on earth into helplessness and ruin --the man who speaks of ':social justice" " but never of freedom. ... I could go on and on, but you know the facts probably as well as I do.

.

What on earth would Obama have to do to convince you that he and George Washington do not belong to the same American family-- that he is, at best, a cheap Chicago left-wing politician who cares only that he get re-elected to a position he is grotesquely unequipped for -- yet doesn't take even that position seriously enough to read Economics 101.

Barbara

Obama is a very bad man. He is not a competent CIC. He is not a competent President. He is a liar on principle; it helps him get his shit done. He is so ignorant he doesn't know what ignorance means. The Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama Presidency seemlessly continues. We are likely to add another Clinton to that list. Now, a good man as President, sigh, impeached and convicted his first summer in office!

--Brant

the great American take-away now becoming Soylent Green

[Brant Gaede]

Is Obama evil? No. The media that sluiced him into office . . .--now that's another story. But if not Obama--McCain? Big war sooner--a real big war. We may get it anyway. What do Americans really understand about what is going on in Pakistan?

--Brant