Among pundits on the right, there has been disagreement for quite some time over the fundamental motives informing President Obama\u2019s agenda.\u00a0 Essentially two schools of thought on the matter have emerged.<\/p>\n
One school insists that while the president\u2019s policy prescriptions are indeed ultimately destructive, he nevertheless genuinely believes that their implementation is what\u2019s best for the country.\u00a0 This is the position taken by the likes of, say, Bill O\u2019Reilly and nationally syndicated radio talk show host Michael Medved.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Members of the other school are convinced that Obama is resolved to weaken America.\u00a0 Only a determination on his part to diminish the country\u2019s military and economic preeminence in the world and traditional liberties at home can account for an agenda that is so obviously destructive of the nation that we have always known.\u00a0 Among the most illustrious exponents of this view is Rush Limbaugh.<\/p>\n
Adherents of the first position think that the adherents of the second line are idiotic, if not \u201ccrazy\u201d (although, interestingly, they haven\u2019t dared to call out by name \u201cthe King of talk radio\u201d who has been in the vanguard of advancing it); champions of the latter believe that the former are na\u00efve and confused.<\/p>\n
This may come as a shock to both sets of apologists, but a synthesis of their perspectives is attainable.<\/p>\n
Though there have been more than a few thinkers who have quarreled with it, the thesis that no one ever chooses evil for its own sake has an impressive pedigree stretching back into antiquity.\u00a0 Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Christian theorists up to the present day have affirmed that evil is always done for the sake of some perceived good\u2014pleasure, riches, power, fame, love, and so forth.\u00a0 It is in light of this principle that we can hope to go some distance in reconciling these two competing positions on Obama\u2019s intentions.<\/p>\n
The idea that the president of the United States wakes up each morning scheming over how he may ruin the country over which he presides is, of course, the stuff of fantasy.\u00a0 Contrary to what the Michael Medveds insinuate, however, I don\u2019t think for a second that either Rush or the legions of people who share his view of Obama entertain this <\/em>view.\u00a0 Still, given the baldness with which Rush and others have stated their position, I suppose it lends itself to this caricature.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But it is similarly foolish to think that it is from nothing other than the union of an ignorance of the most basic economic principles and a comparable ignorance of history that the president\u2019s obviously destructive policies are begotten.\u00a0 Regrettably, to hear O\u2019Reilly and Medved speak, one could be forgiven for concluding that this is what they really think.<\/p>\n While discussing this issue with a friend of mine recently, he reminded me of C.S Lewis\u2019 argument regarding the Jesus who is presented to us in the pages of the New Testament: either Jesus was the Son of God, as He claimed, or else He was an egomaniac or a mad man.\u00a0 Given the self-referential remarks that the Biblical authors attribute to Jesus, there is simply no other alternative.\u00a0 Likewise, my friend continued, Obama\u2019s utterances and deeds are born of either an invincible ignorance of their consequences\u2014in which case he is without question the most incompetent president of all time\u2014or a plan to ruin America\u2014in which case he is indeed guilty of the designs that Rush and others ascribe to him.\u00a0 There is no third possibility.<\/p>\n Maybe there is.\u00a0<\/p>\n Obama knows that his economic policies are productive of neither liberty as traditionally conceived by Americans nor prosperity.\u00a0 He would have to be, not just the most incompetent president ever, but among the most dense of human beings, for given the extensive exposure that he has had to both Keynesian and neo-Marxian philosophy\u2014anyone who takes the time to read his memoirs, particularly his first, and who considers the worldview of the people around whom he has surrounded himself for most of his life would know this\u2014he could only know by now full well the fruits that these policies promise to reap.<\/p>\n But from this it doesn\u2019t follow that Obama anticipates the ruination of America as such.\u00a0 <\/em>There can be no doubt, I don\u2019t think, that he wants to preside over an America that is morally superior and, hence, better, than the country that elected him two years ago.\u00a0 The problem, though, is that the America of Obama\u2019s imaginings is radically unlike the America to which most of its citizens have an acquired affection and even more unlike the America within which their ancestors made their home.\u00a0 That is, the \u201cfundamental transformation\u201d that Obama wants to visit upon America demands nothing more or less than the death<\/em> of America as it is currently constituted<\/em>; only once America as a living reality <\/em>is eliminated can America as Obama\u2019s ideal <\/em>be substituted for it.<\/p>\n The philosopher Ronald Dworkin once said that \u201ca more equal society\u201d\u2014a society the resources of which are equally \u201cdistributed\u201d\u2014is better <\/em>than the contrary, even if its citizens prefer inequality.\u00a0 <\/em>Anyone who has paid any attention at all to Obama must know that he couldn\u2019t agree more with this thought.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, our president does indeed think that as a people, Americans will be \u201cbetter\u201d in the wake of the \u201cfundamental transformation\u201d that he wants to impose upon us. So the O\u2019Reillys and Medveds are correct in this respect.\u00a0 However, neither Rush, myself, nor the large numbers of Americans who love the liberties for which our forefathers labored indefatigably to bequeath to us are likely to receive much consolation from this. After all, the fact remains that his intentions aside, our president is determined to see the historic nation that is the real America go the way of the dinosaur.<\/p>\n Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Among pundits on the right, there has been disagreement for quite some time over the fundamental motives informing President Obama\u2019s agenda.\u00a0 Essentially two schools of thought on the matter have emerged. One school insists that while the president\u2019s policy prescriptions are indeed ultimately destructive, he nevertheless genuinely believes that their implementation is what\u2019s best for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n