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Final Review of "Rediscovering America."
In Chapter 6, entitled: "Liberty, Equality and the Character of American Life," Agresto discusses how American character has been shaped by the language and precepts of our Constitution. The Founders understood human nature could only be improved so much and that political forms would not deeply change man's nature. However, they hoped what they were seeking to devise would enable us to live more peacefully and in a more just society.
Yet, during his tenure in Iraq, John failed to persuade in Iraqis the incident at Abu Ghraib was more an aberration, than a reflection of American duplicity when it came to adhering to our expressed principals of equal liberty and personal rights.
He goes into some detail discussing the fact that our emphasis on personal rights and freedom to pursue our own interests actually has led to a nation whereby many are committed to the protection of the rights of all. He cites instances where under tragic circumstances neighbors respond in myriads of self-sacrificing ways disregarding their own safety etc.
I found his conversation with an Iraqi who could not accept Americans were in his country to help rather than to plunder and control their oil fields interesting. The Iraqi readily acknowledged they would not die or comparably sacrifice to help America.
John argues as we part from the language of our Constitution, turn our back on its principles our national character also changes. We are becoming a more dependent people as we find the blessings of liberty less attractive. Much, in our society, has changed as a consequence of the expansion of new rights dealing with privacy, sexual freedom etc. These new rights are changing our culture. We are becoming a more vulgar society and, ironically, the enjoyment of other previous rights are being displaced and/or undermined.
John finds increasing attacks on religious beliefs are causing tragic results because the underpinnings of morality, which have led us to be more selfless, is being challenged along with our belief in the equality of all men which led to our deep respect for individual rights. Alas, religion and traditional morality are now deemed antithetical and the enemy of freedom.
All too often, those who adhere to 'fundamental' views of morality and belong to various organized religions, ie. Presbyterians, Catholicism etc., are now accused of being fanatics. Though they are not engaged in be-headings and other heinous acts nevertheless, they are accused of being anti-women, intolerant because they adhere to more traditional views which do not accord with modern life and values. Polarization and intolerance of different views is becoming the norm.
Whereas, Madison hoped our Constitution would bring about moderation and compromise, Goldwater's campaign slogan created an ironic challenge and fortunately,was rejected. Then, the '60's and the '70's brought extremism in action as well as speech and we saw the rise of the New Left, Black Panthers etc. Eventually there was a retreat from these events only to be resurrected by the Afghan and Iraq Wars.
Agresto traces the Supreme Court's rejection of Madison's ideas of large diverse electoral district as unfair to minorities and alleges it helped to spawn identity politics and many of the negative and harming consequences have resulted in citizenry's disgust with politics and American governance. Consequently, more and more accomplished have turned away from public service.
Worse than the above is the growing current belief liberty should be unbounded. The spread of this extreme view is leading to the crushing of compromise and moderation so necessary for democratic life to survive and function. Individualism and personal freedom must not be allowed to trump every other good. A rigid understanding of justice and a non-negotiable attitude can only lead to strife.
America today is in conflict over its values and when those of a more traditional view are castigated for them we have reached a dangerous cross road More importantly, we seem to have lost sight of the fact that the promotion of liberty does not rest solely on one pillar but rather on all the six pillars enunciated in the Preamble..
We have elevated opposition and castigate and/or mock those who adhere to traditional values, express support of the Constitution and patriotism as being politically incorrect, not progressive and opposed to embracing the new rights of extreme individualism etc, Americans are increasingly conflicted by variance and may no longer have a proper respect and/or understanding of our heritage.
Agresto concludes by hoping his book will cause parents and teachers to become better teachers, realize understanding is critical and that patriotism cannot stand if built on ignorance or the embrace of false principle. Therefore, rediscovering and understanding the Founder's principles, is critical.
Personal commentary:
Returning to the various Republicans candidates it is evident why many are turned on by Trump because he speaks his mind but it is equally important for them to know what he believes in, how he would specifically solve the problems he identifies and where he stands on the principles of the Founders..
I submit that whether Agresto intended his book to reflect on Obama's presidency the reader cannot help but realize though Obama may have been an adjunct professor on The Constitution, his actions and words suggest he is abysmally ignorant of what The Founders intended. His petulant attitude, his monarchical approach to the Executive Office and, above all, his arrogance and many lies make him unqualified to hold the office he has occupied for over 6 years. Furthermore, his failed presidency is most evident whether it be viewed in the context of the economic recovery, his foreign initiatives and/or how Americans have come to relate to each other. Obama's language has been divisive for political purposes, he has been unwilling to compromise and moderate his views, has failed to protect our nation's borders and has persistently acted in a peremptory fashion and beyond the lawful restraints of the Constitution.
After reading; " Rediscovering America," I am reminded of what a glorious document our Founders achieved in constructing our Constitution and what a miserable job politicians of late have done in upholding its principles. America is in crisis and its survival, as the democratic nation Madison envisioned, is open to question. (See 1 and 1a below.)
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Dick
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1)---I Too Have Become Disillusioned
Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, the result of a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, direct the world's most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential job?By Matt Patterson (American Thinker Web Site on August 18, 2011.)
Imagine a future historian examining Obama's pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League, despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a community organizer; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, less often did he vote present ); and finally an unaccomplished single term in the United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions.
He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as a legislator. And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama's spiritual mentor; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama's colleague and political sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected president?
Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in the Wall Street Journal: To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers, would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberal Dom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass. Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass “ held to a lower standard because of the color of his skin.
Podhoretz continues: And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also so articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) non-threatening, all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?
Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon affirmative action. Not in the legal sense, of course. But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.
Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat themselves on the back. Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools for which they are not qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable poor performance and high drop-out rates which follow. Liberals don't care if these minority students fail; liberals are around to witness the emotional devastation and deflated self-esteem resulting from the racist policy that is affirmative action. Yes, racist. Holding someone to a separate standard merely because of the color of his skin that's affirmative action in a nutshell, and if that isn't racism, then nothing is.
And that is what America did to Obama. True, Obama himself was never troubled by his lack of achievements, but why would he be? As many have noted, Obama was told he was good enough for Columbia despite undistinguished grades at Occidental; he was told he was good enough for the US Senate despite a mediocre record in Illinois; he was told he was good enough to be president despite no record at all in the Senate. All his life, every step of the way, Obama was told he was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary.
What could this breed if not the sort of empty narcissism on display every time Obama speaks? In 2008, many who agreed that he lacked executive qualifications nonetheless raved about Obama's oratory skills, intellect, and cool character. Those people conservatives included ought now to be deeply embarrassed.
The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest of cliche's, and that's when he has his Teleprompters in front of him; when the prompter is absent he can barely think or speak at all. Not one original idea has ever issued from his mouth
it's all warmed-over Marxism of the kind that has failed over and over again for 100 years. (An example is his 2012 campaign speeches which are almost word for word his 2008 speeches)
And what about his character? Obama is constantly blaming anything and everything else for his troubles. Bush did it; it was bad luck; I inherited this mess. Remember, he wanted the job, campaigned for the task. It is embarrassing to see a president so willing to advertise his own powerlessness, so comfortable with his own incompetence. (The other day he actually came out and said no one could have done anything to get our economy and country back on track). But really, what were we to expect? The man has never been responsible for anything, so how do we expect him to act responsibly?
In short: our president is a small-minded man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job. When you understand that, and only when you understand that, will the current erosion of liberty and prosperity make sense. It could not have gone otherwise with such an impostor in the Oval Office.
1a)
Obama and the 'Amen Corner'
This week President Obama sealed his legacy as the most divisive president in modern times, who will leave behind both worsened race relations and a set of arguments about Iran that will surely feed anti-Semitism.
That race relations have worsened under Obama is crystal clear, as even publications like The New York Times have acknowledged. A Times/CBS poll conducted in July revealed that “nearly six in 10 Americans, including heavy majorities of both whites and blacks, think race relations are generally bad, and that nearly four in 10 think the situation is getting worse. By comparison, two-thirds of Americans surveyed shortly after President Obama took office said they believed that race relations were generally good.” And Americans did link the downturn to the president: “almost half of those questioned said the Obama presidency had had no effect on bringing the races together, while about a third said it had driven them further apart.”
Think of that: a third of the American people, over a hundred million Americans, hold the president responsible for worsening race relations in the country. Why would that be? It’s reasonable to say the Mr. Obama’s close relationship with people who make a living from bitter race relations, such as Al Sharpton, plays a part. And so does Mr. Obama’s repeated insertion of himself into divisive racial situations even before the facts were fully known—starting with the famous case of the Harvard professor, Skip Gates, arrested in 2009.
But now, Mr. Obama is adding another item to this legacy of deeper divisions among Americans. The administration is scrambling to defend its Iran nuclear deal, which polls find is rejected by about a third of all Americans—the same number who support the deal. And the trend is downward: as people learn more, they are more skeptical.
The administration’s arguments on the merits are failing, so Mr. Obama has started arguing that the opposition comes from people who are in the pay of big donors, or who put Israel’s security first. This practice actually began in January, when the president met with all Democratic senators and discussed the Iran negotiations. According to The New York Times’s report, “The president said he understood the pressures that senators face from donors and others, but he urged the lawmakers to take the long view rather than make a move for short-term political gain.”
The statement would have been bad enough had the president referred only to “short term political gain.” By doing so he was saying critics of the coming Iran deal had no real principled objections and were simply playing politics with national security. It was vintage Obama: there’s no real debate here, just my principles and the dirty political motives of those who disagree.
But that’s not all he said, and “Donors and others” was a clear reference to opposition from AIPAC and the Jewish community. Lest anyone misunderstand, the president and his close supporters have been even clearer as the debate has gotten hotter.
The basic idea is simple: to oppose the president’s Iran deal means you want war with Iran, you’re an Israeli agent, you are in the pay of Jewish donors, and you are abandoning the best interests of the United States. So Dan Pfeiffer, senior political adviser to Obama until this winter, tweeted that Senator Charles Schumer—who announced his opposition to the Iran deal last week—should not be Democratic leader in the Senate because he “wants War with Iran.”
Obama himself set the overall tone in his speech last week at American University:
Between now and the congressional vote in September, you are going to hear a lot of arguments against this deal, backed by tens of millions of dollars in advertising. And if the rhetoric in these ads and the accompanying commentary sounds familiar, it should, for many of the same people who argued for the war in Iraq are now making the case against the Iran nuclear deal.
As to the criticism that the United States should have negotiated longer and harder and gotten a better deal, the president said, “Those making this argument are either ignorant of Iranian society, or they are not being straight with the American people.” Again: these are not principled disagreements, it’s just that the other side is ignorant and dishonest. And if that side wins, “Congressional rejection of this deal leaves…one option, another war in the Middle East.”
And then he gets to the nub of the argument: “Does anyone really doubt that the same voices now raised against this deal will be demanding that whoever is president bomb those nuclear facilities?”
Who are these people who will be “demanding” war? The “voices being raised against this deal” are those same big donors he mentioned back in January. And AIPAC. And the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress. And Jewish members of Congress like Chuck Schumer and Eliot Engel and Ted Deutch. And it’s not just that war would be inevitable, you see: it’s that those people would be demanding war, and are behind what he called “the drumbeat of war.”
Why would these people opposing the deal be doing that? It’s their “affinity for our friend and ally Israel.” But we have to resist their arguments: “as president of the United States it would be an abrogation of my constitutional duty to act against my best judgment simply because it causes temporary friction with a dear friend and ally.” It is implicit, and very close to explicit, here that the other side wants the U.S. president to act not on our own country’s behalf but on Israel’s. This is an echo of the old “dual loyalty” charge that has been lodged against American Jews since the day the State of Israel was established.
The president is not ignorant (the accusation he lays against his opponents) and must know he is here feeding a deep line of anti-Semitism that accuses American Jews of getting America into wars. Of course this goes back the World War II and the accusations against Franklin Roosevelt, whose anti-Semitic critics called him “Rosenfeld;” the Internet is filled with such accusations. More recently, there was Pat Buchanan and his comments about the 1991 Gulf War: "There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in The Middle East – the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States." Buchanan then called Capitol Hill “Israeli occupied territory.”
The same accusations were then made about the second Gulf War, in 2003: Jews, and especially Jewish “neocons,” dragged America into that war. In their infamous tract The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer wrote that as what to do about Saddam Hussein was debated “there was another variable in the equation, and the war would almost certainly not have occurred had it been absent. That element was the Israel lobby….” And that view is widely spread across the Internet as well, and is a staple of anti-Semitic sites and organizations.
And now Barack Obama joins the chorus—or shall we call it his own “amen corner.” His American University speech was an eloquent denunciation of those who disagree with him as warmongers with dual loyalty, who will be “demanding” war with Iran. This speech divides Americans not according to principled opinions, nor even by party, but mostly by religion. It shows disrespect for critics and lowers the tone of the important debate over Iran, but that is not its worst attribute. Once again, it shows Mr. Obama as the divider—willing to use arguments that may or may not help him win this summer’s argument but will surely leave an ugly mark on American politics.
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