Okay, I’ve been trying to understand why Barack Obama won re-election to the Presidency.
On one hand, it IS frustrating for us common people to watch the Warren Buffetts, Mitt Romneys, and Donald Trumps of the world live in luxury while our parents, grandparents, and own selves have slaved in some rathole of a job, training for this certification or that one, still barely able to make ends meet – not to mention actually try to save money for our children’s college or a real vacation – and failing to complete those goals year-after-year. There seems to be a perpetual unfairness about the American capitalistic system and many believe that this system keeps us down. That part is understandable even though it is probably an inaccurate perspective based on a misunderstanding of the capitalistic system, including its merits and pitfalls (more on that later). It is also based on a lack of appreciation for all we DO have compared to other countries. We are somewhat spoiled by our success and sometimes do not realize how fragile it is.
On the other end of the spectrum, Obama has promoted ideas that fly in the face of what many Americans live and die for. He has implied in one way or another, that America is not to be seen in the following manners: America the Beautiful; America the compassionate country that gives food, aid, and assistance to millions of needy peoples; America, land of opportunity; America, the strong, who will protect and fight against tyranny and oppression; and last-but-not-least, America, land of the free. "Freedom" seems to be considered a dirty word for Obama and his supporters. "Success" seems to be something bad and those who are successful are portrayed as greedy and heartless and immoral. In George Orwell’s book, 1984, images were flashed repeatedly to people in order to brainwash them. One of those images was, “Freedom is Slavery.” This belief is now a reality with the majority of our population.
Why do I say this? Am I making up these opinions about the President? No. I attempt to teach Social Ethics and also Political Philosophy to mostly twenty-something year-olds. I’ve created discussion forums that ask about how much freedom they need or want, how close the safety net should be under a person, and what should the extent of government be. I’ve had literally thousands of responses to these questions over the years. Out of any given class of about twenty students, only one or two expresses the opinion that government should just leave them alone unless there is some great threat, such as an invasion. All the rest of the students make comments such as, “Without government there would be chaos! Anarchy! Craziness!” I keep reminding them that we are not talking about NO government; we are talking about the extent and purpose of government. But I seem to have a difficult time getting through because they repeat their similar responses again and again, as if the question is about all or nothing – total nanny state or total anarchy. The nanny state wins every time.
Most of the students say they only want a simple life; they will be happy if: the government can give them a job; the government can give them a decent wage; the government can help them find a place to live and a loan for a car. For the most part, that’s all the modern young adult seems to want.
This is diametrically opposed to the Ellis Island immigrants who worked doing anything they could, including buying and selling hot dogs for a profit, buying cloth and sewing clothes then selling those clothes; and saving every nickel and dime to purchase a machine to create products for profit. The Asian “Boat People,” who escaped communist countries because they had little-to-no freedoms for upward mobility, speech, religion, or marriage, these people learned to take advantage of freedom. Immigrant after immigrant learned to ply a trade and create something from little. That kind of freedom has disappeared – not because of the super-rich folks oppressing them or under-bidding them out of the market -- but because of the governmental licensing, fees, certifications, and taxes now imposed on even the smallest of businesses. Even neighborhood child-lemonade stands are being shut down.
The Obama voters were angry because they seem to believe there is a fixed amount of wealth to be distributed out to everyone. Each time they see one rich old white man (such as Romney), this somehow contributes to another person being poor, usually some poor person of color. They describe wealth as if wealth was a cookie jar filled with a certain number of cookies; and cookies are taken or dispensed by individuals or groups. The rich must be “taking” more than their fair share of cookies, which leaves less for others. This view of economics is a complete misunderstanding of the system of capitalism; this perspective of economics comes from a socialistic/Marxism viewpoint. In fact, their opinions would be right on the money in a socialist/Communist country. Prices are fixed, amounts are fixed -- everything is standardized regardless of the market demands or value of a product.
Capitalism, on the other hand, CREATES wealth by someone or some group producing something that has value (or increasing the value of an existing thing). The more the rich person makes, the more everyone benefits; the more any person makes, the more taxes paid and the more governmental programs can be supported. The way a capitalist thinks is NOT to cheat others out of their fair share but to get as much value (profit) for their merchandise. The more other people want their stuff, the more profit is made; the more profit is made, the more taxes are paid; the more profit is made, the more people can be hired and paid salaries; the more people make, the more taxes they pay; the more people make, the more stuff they purchase – all of which grows the pie so everyone makes more, even though the people at the top can make ten to a million times more.
When liberal politicians pass laws that increase taxes (to pay for more government programs and employees), the capitalists tend to spend less, invest less, research less, and produce less. Liberal economists and politicians accuse Republicans and Libertarians as using "Trickle-down" economics,where the breaks are all given to the rich in hope that they will pass some of their breaks along to their employees. What these liberal thinkers are describing, however, is not the dirty-named trickle-down economics but CAPITALISM itself.
Capitalists find shortcuts and offshore accounts to save money and increase profits; in capitalism, that is considered smart; in Marxism, that is considered immoral -- and the liberal press has convinced people that we should look through a Marxist perspective. The capitalists do not produce wealth for the same reasons as a non-profit government entity; they are producing wealth because people want to make their own stuff and because they like having control over their own livelihoods. If the government is going to try and determine how much money they can make, how much is taken from them, and even what they can make – then why should the capitalists even dream of great things?
The Obama voters believe in other false – but understandable -- liberal perspectives, such as the GOP wanting to end abortions, end unions, end same-sex marriages, destroy the environment, and keep the poor down. Yet abortion is a Supreme Court issue not made by the President or his administration; most conservatives simply want to stop public/tax-payer-funded abortions. Most conservatives support unions, only not out-of-control, tax-payer funded public unions whose members make twice the market average salary. And finally, regarding same-sex marriage, only a few states even allow same-sex marriage; most GOP members want a states-decide referendum – not a “one size fits all” law mandated to those states that are mostly against it.
If you belong to the Sierra Club or GreenPeace, you are probably liberal and say you want to protect the environment. I've belonged to these clubs and they do very little to really help. If you go to a "Beautification Day" to volunteer and pick up trash, you'll find most of the people who show up to be conservatives. Isn't that odd? The media portrays conservatives as environment killers because of "Drill-baby-drill" proposals yet conservatives want to protect the parks and natural beauty of the world -- but in a practical sense, knowing that we need energy to run the economy and protect our way of life. Liberals seem to lose rational thinking and run on ideology. OF COURSE we want clean energy! But don't ruin the country hoping that money will create it out of thin air. Provide incentives for companies to develop it -- not demands that oppress companies. If companies know they will benefit in the long run, they will invest more and we'll all benefit from their "greed."
In other words, if my students and the general blogosphere are any indication, they have misconstrued almost every perspective that a Mitt Romney kind-of-person believes. What about the misconstrued notions about President Obama? Some believe he is a Muslim; some believe he is a communist; some believe he is deliberately destroying the American economy in order to declare martial law and create a new government; some believe Obama is not an American citizen, was not raised as an American, and does not understand what it means to be an American.
The facts about Obama are mostly clear: his mother was for the most part an Atheist and believer in Marxism; his original father (Barack, Sr.) was an Atheist; his step-father was a Muslim; Obama was raised in a Muslim environment in Indonesia for a very short period then came back to America; Obama was then raised by his grandmother in Hawaii in an elite environment (Punahou High school, while she was a bank vice-president); then off to college on the mainland. In his two books, most of the people mentioned as his great influences were anti-white or anti-capitalist Marxists. He states this repeatedly, in his own words. He began to identify himself with Black-America in Hawaii, and later as a globalist, rather than as an American. Frank Marshall Davis and others were some of his early influences. Obama himself describes his dilemma about his dual race and makes it clear that he identifies with his African/black side. Davis and others that he admired were proud Marxists. Why would Obama himself praise and even claim to be a student of numerous avowed Marxists unless he was at least a little sympathetic to the cause of Marxism and its manifestations: Communism and Socialism? These are not my opinions; these are all things Obama openly writes about.
Are the conservatives being irrational by bringing up these issues? Why are Obama supporters convinced that Obama is a true-blue American who believes in capitalism and “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”? They must since they praise his realness and authenticity, and his looking out for them. What evidence do they have, other than his words?
Can we conclude that Obama himself is a racial activist, hating white people? Probably not, even though he makes a number of disturbing anti-white comments in his books. Can we conclude that Obama is a Muslim because of his background in and around Muslim countries and his own relatives being Muslim? Probably not, since he describes his spiritual journey and claims to be Christian, which is all a person can really do. His allegiance with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, an anti-white, Black Liberation Theology pastor, whom Obama listened to for 23 years and called his spiritual mentor, is disturbing – at least it should be for any white person. To be preached that the white European culture is evil year-after-year can have a powerful effect on a person’s psyche and world view. I attended a few similar gatherings in Hawaii, thinking we were all fighting against racism but instead, each meeting was simply an anti-white, anti-European, anti-capitalism tirade.
Whenever a conservative person says that they are for or against something, the liberal seems to interpret that as meaning the conservative will impose those beliefs upon the liberals as well. Why would a liberal believe this? Maybe it is because that is what liberals do when they are in power so they project their own behavior onto conservatives. The idea behind liberalism is to protect some people from other evil, greedy people. The reason government gets large when liberals are in power is because the liberal government is trying to manage everything possible, making sure that people play fair, that rules are being followed, that the rich and powerful are not polluting the environment and exploiting the masses. What this means is that the mindset of a liberal is to control others; whereas the mindset of a conservative is to release control over others and empower the individual.
But what about things such as abortion, same-sex marriage, women and minority rights? Don’t republicans want to control other people’s choices and freedoms regarding these issues? No, actually, they don’t. Republicans have been one of the most active parties in ensuring those rights, contrary to popular belief. The Republican party was created just before Abraham Lincoln’s election mainly as an anti-slavery party. All one has to do is look up who proposed which laws (banning slavery, civil rights, etc.). Republicans proposed and sought equal rights much more often than Democrats; however, nowadays, since Democrats propose more benefits to women and minorities, they have become the party of choice for liberals. Liberals believe that these benefits are necessary for the normal decency of life. Liberals believe that the Democrats are the party of compassion. Lincoln was a Republican for the reasons of freedom and limited government and the goodness – not the evil – that resides in all people: black; white; male; female.
The abortion issue has to do with life, as in Life, Liberty…. Conservatives revere innocent life and abhor evil life. They want to protect the innocent and punish the guilty, who choose to do bad. What about same-sex marriage? They want to preserve the institution of marriage, based on Natural Law. What’s natural law? The implied law of nature that says it takes one man and one woman to bond and make a family so that is the natural marriage. Even if people cannot or will not have children; even if a couple divorces; even if there have been occasional multi-person examples, it does not affect the natural law of marriage. Liberals can argue about fairness and equality of love until the cows come home but natural law will always be considered the same for a conservative – one man, one woman. I suspect this will be an even trickier moral dilemma in the future.
Foreign affairs differences between Obama and Romney are interesting. Obama projected a traditionally Democratic position of defense: smile and Kowtow to the real bullies in the world, then sneakily bomb those same bullies with drones (Clinton’s preference was Tomahawk missiles). Democratic presidents have been brutally murderous via our military but always try to project an anti-military position to the American population. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson all pushed for massive attacks on usually-undeclared enemies. The GOP, on the other hand, chooses to have a Big-Dog military with big sticks approach. The GOP idea is to prevent aggressive behavior by our enemies by threats of slapping the aggressor upside the head if they get out of line (e.g., Iraq after they invaded Kuwait). The world and liberals promote the idea of the U.S. as being the bully, the wolf – but we have more often been the strong sheepdog protecting the sheep from the wolves, not the wolf. We could have taken oil, countries, goods, and many other things if we wanted – but that is not who we are. Most modern History books, and history teachers, focus on the evil that the United States has done, and include only token lessons about the good we've done. Contrarily, most of us who've studied history from a different perspective see the U.S. as a hugely positive force in the world, with some embarrassing and negative moments.
The recent Benghazi incident in Libya, on the anniversary of the 9-11 attack, was something new. I suspect the White House action was a uniquely Obama-esque, modern liberal, technique. They seem to fear offending the new Muslim Brotherhood governments so apparently wanted to stay out of the way once the attack on our Ambassador began. The fighting went on for seven hours, with our people pleading for assistance or evacuation as they valiantly fought. The President and his Cabinet insisted that an anti-Islamic video was the cause – now we know that it was a planned attack by Al-Qaida. Regardless the reason for the attack, in the past we had a, “No man left behind,” policy. We are all still waiting for the explanation why these Americans were not saved. During the election season, the Network television stations and other mainstream media outlets either rarely mentioned the deadly event or twisted it up into bizarre, pretzel stories – so the public rarely knew about the inept – if not criminal – behavior of the Administration.
So why did Barack Obama win not only the Presidency but the majority of people’s confidence and the hearts of the non-rich minorities? I can only think that most people have gross misperceptions of Mitt Romney and the Republicans and equally gross misperceptions of Barack Obama and the Democrats. The comments read and interviews listened to from liberal voters shows a lack of knowledge about history, economics, and politics. Of course, there are pockets of racism, arrogance, and ignorance on the right but it is not systemic throughout the party -- as is the ignorance promoted by the left. On the other hand, based on what liberals see on television, what they’ve learned in public anti-American History classes, and what they are reading from the mainstream media, none of us should be surprised. They make rational decisions based on the bits of information they have received. It makes sense that President Obama is looking out for the common American while mean-old Republican Mitt Romney is only thinking about himself and the rich -- who want to cut all the benefits for the poor and women while lining their own pockets. This is what is pushed by the media day-in and day-out. So it is not surprising that people buy the liberal agenda even if it flies in the face of facts or most people's personal beliefs.
Many Americans do NOT know where wealth comes from; they do NOT know why our founders created a republic based on enumerated freedoms; and they certainly do NOT know when they are being bamboozled by those who wish to create a weakened United States and what dangers that weakening will attract from our enemies. Our enemies are clearly waiting in the wings, loving ever moment we self-implode.
These are some of my thoughts about why Barack Obama won the election.
