Her skin color is meaningless to this editorial. She's clearly a conservative/libertarian who doesn't understand or share the platform espoused by either Obama or the Democrats, and she's certainly entitled to her opinion.
No He Can't
by Anne Wortham
Fellow Americans,
Please know: I am black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a black president to love the ideal of America.
I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival – all that I know about the history of the United States of America, all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician.
I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America..
Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century.
I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn't look like them.
I would have to wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration – political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
I would have to believe that "fairness" is the equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest.. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.
Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting "Yes We Can!" Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead – and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.
So you have made history, Americans. You and your children have elected a black man to the office of the president of the United States , the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over – and that Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men.. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like.
The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a black person. So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America . Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton , Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley. You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to – Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.
But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine – what little there is left – for the chance to feel good. There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness.
No He Can't
Her skin color is meaningless to this editorial. She's clearly a conservative/libertarian who doesn't understand or share the platform espoused by either Obama or the Democrats, and she's certainly entitled to her opinion.
I like this woman, a very well-written editorial that clearly relates her opinion. I also like her opinion, but that's a side note.
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
- -- Aristotle
Believe nothing on the faith of traditions, even though they have been held in honor for many generations and in diverse places. Do not believe a thing because many people speak of it. Do not believe on the faith of the sages of the past. Do not believe what you yourself have imagined, persuading yourself that a God inspires you. Believe nothing on the sole authority of your masters and priests. After examination, believe what you yourself have tested and found to be reasonable, and conform your conduct thereto.
- -- The Buddha
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
- -- Aristotle
Well, it's obvious she did not think so. Her points were well articulated and stated the conservative veiw on the Free Market and its being under siege by a radical who sailed into office as some sort of black/white catharsis. He is not a catharsis of any kind. I believe as she stated so much better, that he is unqualified to lead this country.
Last edited by Canceled2; 04-07-2009 at 06:25 PM.
she's obviously a racist.
A sad commentary on we, as a people, and our viewpoint of our freedom can be summed up like this. We have liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, yet those very people look at Constitutionalists as radical and extreme.................so those liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans must believe that the constitution is radical and extreme.
Again, her beef with him is clearly - as you state - ideological. It's no surprise to me that there are conservatives & libertarians who do not like what Obama is doing or proposing.
The idea that he was elected "because he's black" is very debatable, imo. I think an argument can be made that this attribute hurt as much as helped him. He won in large part because this was a change election, and because McCain ran a pretty bad campaign. But he was not elected on some sort of "smoke & mirrors" platform; nothing he is doing is a surprise to anyone who paid attention, and he won a fairly significant majority on that platform.
obama won heavily on smoke and mirrors...promised not to vote for FISA, did...promised all troops gone in 16 months...nope, maybe 19 and 50,000 to stay....
the last promise helped him heavily over clinton and mccain, most of the sheeple on the left ignored his lie about not voting for fisa
Excuse me. Who is she? A disgruntled women in today's world. Well hideeho, it's a new day, a new mandate, we all need to get over the past.
I'm energized, I'm reading the Koran and learning to love it.
And tell me exactly which candidate hasn't won on smoke and mirrors, how many champagne promises are fulfilled by each President after he has won his office?
I am not happy about Iraq or Afghanistan and like christie, I let him know, he is not perfect and he will make mistakes.
red herring...i responded directly to a claim that "obama" did not....
i never claimed other politicians do not, they all do....
if i was onceler i would start crying about how you don't know my posts and that you should know my stance on things as far back as 2002....thank goodness i'm not him
Bookmarks