Messianic Pretensions
I'm glad I took time to read this. I've copied the second half of the article here. For the full thing, click the link below.
From http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/messianic_pretensions.html
McCain is a man of action and accomplishment, Obama a man of "charisma" and pretty words, whose only real accomplishment has been his remarkable self-advancement. And Obama's policy outlook, so far as it can be discerned from the usual electoral pronouncements, consists of the same snake oil the pre-Clinton Democrats had been selling continuously since they chained the Great Society to America's ankle: that is, a constantly expanding Nanny State. I am hardly reassured by Obama's last-lap rhetorical reassurances: you don't send a man to Washington with a trillion dollars of candy-shop promises on medicare, education, government job-creation, "spreading the wealth" -- especially when the economy has just tanked.
I wish that were the worst I could say about the man, who has survived nearly two years of campaigning for President without serious cross-examination from either the media or his media-chastened opponents. A man who, should he win the election and serve one term, will have been President of the United States longer than he has held any steady job.
In my world, you don't humour a politician who presents "Change," "Unity," and especially, "Hope," as hypnotic mantras, with the power of enchantment over very large crowds. And you especially don't humour such a politician at a time when both country and world are unstable, and hard decisions will have to be made.
Deeper than this: Obama has presented himself from the start as a messianic, "transformational" leader -- and thus played deceitfully with ideas that belong to religion and not politics. That he has done this so successfully is a mark of the degree to which the U.S. itself, like the rest of the western world, has lost its purchase on the Christian religion. Powerful religious impulses have been spilt, secularized.
In this climate, people tend to be maniacally opposed to the sin to which they are not tempted: to giving Christ control over the things that are Caesar's. But they are blind to the sin to which they are hugely tempted: giving Caesar control over the things that are Christ's.
"Faith, hope, and charity" are Christ's things. They apply, properly, outside time -- to a "futurity" that is not of this world. They must not be applied to any earthly utopia. A Caesar who appropriates otherworldly virtues, is riding upon very dangerous illusions. Follow him into dreamland, and you'll be lucky to wake up.
From http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/messianic_pretensions.html
McCain is a man of action and accomplishment, Obama a man of "charisma" and pretty words, whose only real accomplishment has been his remarkable self-advancement. And Obama's policy outlook, so far as it can be discerned from the usual electoral pronouncements, consists of the same snake oil the pre-Clinton Democrats had been selling continuously since they chained the Great Society to America's ankle: that is, a constantly expanding Nanny State. I am hardly reassured by Obama's last-lap rhetorical reassurances: you don't send a man to Washington with a trillion dollars of candy-shop promises on medicare, education, government job-creation, "spreading the wealth" -- especially when the economy has just tanked.
I wish that were the worst I could say about the man, who has survived nearly two years of campaigning for President without serious cross-examination from either the media or his media-chastened opponents. A man who, should he win the election and serve one term, will have been President of the United States longer than he has held any steady job.
In my world, you don't humour a politician who presents "Change," "Unity," and especially, "Hope," as hypnotic mantras, with the power of enchantment over very large crowds. And you especially don't humour such a politician at a time when both country and world are unstable, and hard decisions will have to be made.
Deeper than this: Obama has presented himself from the start as a messianic, "transformational" leader -- and thus played deceitfully with ideas that belong to religion and not politics. That he has done this so successfully is a mark of the degree to which the U.S. itself, like the rest of the western world, has lost its purchase on the Christian religion. Powerful religious impulses have been spilt, secularized.
In this climate, people tend to be maniacally opposed to the sin to which they are not tempted: to giving Christ control over the things that are Caesar's. But they are blind to the sin to which they are hugely tempted: giving Caesar control over the things that are Christ's.
"Faith, hope, and charity" are Christ's things. They apply, properly, outside time -- to a "futurity" that is not of this world. They must not be applied to any earthly utopia. A Caesar who appropriates otherworldly virtues, is riding upon very dangerous illusions. Follow him into dreamland, and you'll be lucky to wake up.
It boggles my mind that this man even has a chance of winning. He'd probably think Bill Ayers would be a great Supreme Court justice, based on his comments about what he thinks are qualifications. The thought of a "REPO" administration - Reed, Pelosi and Obama - ought to scare the crap out of everybody.
I can only hope the polls are wrong and that ACORN hasn't done the job it appears they're trying to do.
Posted by
Anonymous |
12:07 PM
You're preachin' to the choir, Sistah!
Have you looked into Obama and that Erickson conversational hypnosis thingy? I might post about it tomorrow.
If I'm not Googling Vera Baker.
Posted by
Hillbilly Mom |
2:58 PM
I'm currently reading this book, "The Case against Barack Obama". It just confirms what I have thought all along, that Obama is essentially an emperor with no clothes on.
http://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Barack-Obama-Unexamined/dp/1596985666/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225154781&sr=8-1
No one really knows who he is and the mainstream media are so anti-Bush/Republican that they are reporting nary a critique of the chosen one because they see McCain as a continuation of Bush and golly we can't have that now, can we? Nevertheless, the mainstream media has always been anti Bush and he still managed to get himself re-elected so McCain cannot be written off yet. That being said the Republicans are in a bind at the moment because there appears to now be such a massive divide between the moral and physical Conservatives in the party, one cannot survive without the other and hence it looks like the party is on the point of implosion. It's not a pretty situation no matter what way you look at it.
Posted by
Anonymous |
6:54 PM
FISCAL, not physical, conservatives. Oops.
Posted by
Anonymous |
6:56 PM