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Townhall...
Collapse of the Obama
Worldview
By Austin Hill
“…Today I authorized the Armed Forces of the United States to begin a
limited military action in Libya, in support of an international effort
to protect Libyan civilians…”
Thus began a press conference with President Barack Obama. It was
Saturday March 19th. While traveling in Brazil, he took a few minutes
to announce that a military response to the Gaddafi crisis was underway.
Calling the matter “a limited military action in Libya” that would
“protect Libyan civilians” was an earnest attempt at a positive spin.
But this fact remains: after spending the first two years of his
presidency insisting that the values of America and the Muslim world
are consistent with one-another, now President Barack Obama was
ordering bombs to be dropped on a predominantly Muslim country.
Might this fact suggest that some of President Obama’s philosophical
assumptions about the world have been, perhaps, a bit inaccurate?
Over the years, our current President has demonstrated an adherence to
three important philosophical schools of thought. For one, he would
clearly appear to be a proponent of economic collectivism, the
assumption that the overall economic wellbeing of everybody - “the
group,” if you will - is more important than the economic rights and
liberties of the individual. His push to make healthcare a “basic human
right,” his attempts to raise taxes on the wealthy so as to better fund
“middle class” programs, and his stated desire to “spread the wealth
around” (the goal he famously uttered to the “Joe The Plumber”
character in 2008) are all consistent with this philosophy.
President Obama also seems to adhere to “moral relativism.” In general
terms, this is the assumption that ideas, values, and cultures are not
objectively good or bad in and of themselves, but instead are all very
subjective, and relative to one-another. Evidence of the President’s
moral relativism is especially apparent in the ways in which he seems
to view the tensions that exist between the Muslim world and those of
us in the West.
From the earliest days of his presidential campaign in 2007, Barack
Obama made it clear that there was nothing objectively bad or wrong
about the propensity towards terrorism of the Muslim nations, but
rather, Muslim terrorism had to be understood in the context of
American “hostility” and President Bush’s aggression. This relativistic
view led to some amazing policy pronouncements, in particular, Obama’s
declaration that as President he would plan a diplomatic meeting with
the Holocaust denying Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Since the days of the Carter presidency, America has recognized Iran as
a nation that sponsors “state terrorism,” and as such, the past five
Presidents have refused to engage with Iran’s “leader.” But if there is
nothing objectively good or bad about nations, then the U.S. has no
reason to ostracize a nation that sponsors terrorism. Thus, candidate
Obama proffered a plan for a new, “post-Bush” approach to Iran, and
announced that he would meet with Ahmadinejad.
Along with his convictions about collectivism and relativism, President
Obama also seems to adhere to “internationalism.” This is the
assumption that global wellbeing is more important than the interests
of any one, particular nation, and that global good is achieved only
when individual nations operate in concert with one another. These
three philosophical assumptions likely led to candidate Obama’s promise
that the “first thing” he would do as President would be to end the
“senseless war” in Iraq.
But running for the presidency is one thing, and actually being
President is another. And while the three philosophical platforms of
collectivism, relativism and internationalism made for some enticing
campaign rhetoric, they have not made for a better world – not for
America, and not for anyone else.
The President has found that the war in Iraq is pragmatically
impossible to end right now. Iran has responded to our President’s
friendliness with taunting, jeering, and insults. And despite the
President’s sharp increase in U.S. foreign aid to Hamas and the
Palestinians, the Muslim world is as dangerous, and as hostile to the
West as it has ever been (an effigy of President Obama was stamped on
and beaten in the streets of Tripoli last week).
This flawed worldview has been painfully apparent in the midst of
several recent world events. When the Egyptian uprising began earlier
this year, President Obama initially urged “calm” while Vice President
Biden insisted that Hasni Mubarak was a “good guy.” Yet the people of
Egypt, longing for freedom and to have a voice in how they are
governed, thought differently from our President and Vice President,
and continued to protest until Mubarak was gone.
And now the “broad coalition” of the United Nations has done what
President Obama could not: they made the moral judgment that the
murderous tyranny of a Muslim dictator named Muammar Gaddafi was
objectively wrong, and needed to be stopped. The President’s commitment
to internationalism necessitated a military decision that his own moral
relativism would have never allowed. Indeed, the Obama worldview has
collapsed. But what does this mean for American influence in the future?
Read it at Townhall
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