Posted on 06/01/2010 3:58:16 AM PDT by Zakeet
Would someone remind us again why the nation elected this man to be president? A man with no resume, a man with no experience in running anything other than a political campaign, a man who is ignorant of history, economics, and technology? A man who is shallow and lazy? A man who shares neither character nor temperament with the American people in this vast republic? How did this happen?
Voters were smitten by the ideological handmaidens of identity politics and the promise of big government. The identity politics substituted a cosmetic profile for character and experience. The promise was that big government has the benevolent power and enlightened expertise to remake America from the top down into a more capable, more caring, kinder, gentler, and more respected place.
What we've received instead was on display at the president's long-awaited press conference in the last week of May. Only a partisan or a fool could deny the irredeemable failure of these ideological handmaidens, the genius of Obama's shrinking presidency. No amount of posturing, buffing up, or Q&A briefing book drills could hide the reality that this man is on a raft at sea accompanied by an equally bewildered boatload of companions who have no idea how they arrived in such deep water, hundreds of miles from land, and with no clue that they are in trouble, let alone what to do about it.
What we've received instead from the ideology of identity politics and big government has been the spread of competency and accountability so thin that the federal government is utterly incapable of defending our shores and borders from invasion -- one by sea in the form of a massive crude oil slick, the other by land in the waves of illegal immigrants flooding Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. In utter exasperation, the citizens of Arizona finally took matters into their own hands, only to be vilified by Obama and his cohorts, who have neither the will nor the capacity to do anything about it.
Identity politics is where grievance-mongering and class resentment intersect with entitlement agitation and representational profiling. Those who use the currency of identity politics appeal to the ideals of justice and fair distribution of resources and outcomes. But in reality they prey on those who are underprivileged and dependent, making claims of dispossession against those who have enjoyed success and independence derived from their own sweat, equity, and competence.
Leaders who devote all of their energy and emotional capital to identity politics instead of creating a competent, skills-based organization soon discover that when critical decisions need to be made and highly skilled resources need to be mobilized, nobody is around who knows how to do it. Such leaders, eventually tuned out and abandoned by even their former acolytes, become irrelevant, easily overwhelmed by events and rivals, taking their organizations -- even a nation -- down with them.
ObamaCare was the progeny of a shrinking president preoccupied with identity politics accompanied by big government ideology and not much else, floated on the emotional chaise of justice and fair distribution. Yet its proponents thoroughly disregarded the vast, complex, and highly skilled bureaucracy needed to attain those ideals in a brand new, centralized, top-down social engineering monstrosity. It will require a bureaucracy ten times the size of the Pentagon.
And now we are watching in slow-motion agony the failure of identity politics and big government unwilling and unable to cope with the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, gradually revealed like a developing image from a Polaroid instant print. Identity politics assured that no one with any skills or experience would occupy the top jobs in Obama's administration needed to navigate a crisis of this magnitude.
And where oh where is the president, anyhow? Playing another round of golf and hosting the Duke University women's basketball team.
So what's the alternative? Simple. The ideology of limited government. Why? Because limited government is the antithesis of identity politics. The ideology of limited government wouldn't need to rely on overextended organization competencies to manage vast and complex bureaucracies because those bureaucracies would be unnecessary and wouldn't exist. Without identity politics, people who actually know what they're doing could occupy key jobs.
Limited government has to assemble and target just those competencies needed to carry out the limited duties envisioned in the U.S. Constitution, such as providing for the common defense, facilitating interstate commerce and a monetary system, and defending the rights reserved to the people. Everything else can be better-managed by private enterprise, where distributed self interest can gather competencies in units small enough to accomplish something useful.
Identity politics combined with incompetence have exposed the absurdity in the ambitions of big government and made Obama the weakest, most anemic and flaccid president in the modern era. The Latinate word would be diminutive. In simple Saxon tongue, the word is small. This is Obama's presidency.
He’s the Dems Messiah!! He can make the oceans not rise....that’s what HE said....and they BELIEVED him!! IDIOTS!!
Flaccid - probably more apt description than small....I like it!
Our only hope is to replace the Congress we have now with people who will not bow to this idiot’s liberal obsessions.
And he had a campaign manager to do that as well!
And you wonder why one Sarah Palin is so attractive (in more ways than one!). Her list of accomplishments make President Obama look totally poor in comparison.
Americans are stupid, extremely selfish, ignorant of history, economics, the fundamentals of American government, and utterly morally corrupt.
Ears was easy to project beliefs onto and most Americans are too unable to think critically that they never questioned his vague pronouncements.
I didn’t vote for him. I voted for the other loser, the one who ran with Mrs. Palin.
Good article, as far as it goes - but any discussion of this nature is incomplete if it omits mention of the current regime’s (I’m talking president *and* congress, here) strange bedfellows on Wall Street...
The rise of Crony Capitalism is an inseparable part of everything that’s brought this once-great nation to its current sorry state....
“The demagogue is one who preaches things he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.” HL Mencken
In a nutshell, this is the Dem playbook and mantra. Obama is the demagogue and his supporters are all idiots.
Good article.
Obuma - a small president. A tiny insect tumbling in the winds of unknown change. A speck of detritus circling the sewer drain. A miniscule brain cell looking for another to rub up to and spark an idea.
This is an EXCELLENT read ... don’t miss it. This is probably the best dissertation I’ve read on “Identity Politics” and why it fails so badly. The author is not “speculating” but rather looking at actual facts. Worth a bookmark.
Elected by people who wanted something for nothing.
Well, they got nothing and the hope that it will change is gone gone gone.
Too bad they took America down with their stupidity.
Give us a chance and we, who understand the real values of American competence and willingness to work hard will be the true change from this nightmare.
WHY was he elected?
1. Many in this nation have turned their backs on God.
2. Pop culture and relativism rule.
3. Superficial education which does not ADEQUATELY teach
history, economics (and many other subjects).
4. Poor work done by several Republicans.
5. The breakdown of family
6. A governmental system that has grown far too big and
fosters dependence, rather than independence.
Ding, ding! We have a winner!
Comrade Zero and the commie/socialist trash that support and advise him in Washington are not the problem. We knew who they were going in, because they told us. They are the natural result of the real problem.
The real problem is the current state of the American electorate, which you so accurately described as “stupid, extremely selfish, ignorant of history, economics, the fundamentals of American government, and utterly morally corrupt”.
Unfortunately, I don’t see this situation improving, even if there is a temporary change of leadership in Washington. The America that we knew was a great experience while it lasted, but it is on it’s death bed, and it isn’t coming back. As the saying goes, the cow is out of the barn.
not fit to assume responsibility
generally incompetent and ineffectual;
"feckless attempts to repair the plumbing"; "inept handling of the account" wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Truely, Barack Obama is a feckless leader. That is why I refer to him as "Feckless Leader". Sweet Hubby has warned me to be careful when pronouncing "Feckless Leader" because some folks might think I was cursing.
Sarah, thune, or petraeus are the only ones I can see going for in 2012.
Great post—right on the money.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.