But the larger issue is not Obama’s position on America’s behavior in World War II. It is, rather, his feelings about America tout court. In many ways, he acts more like a British colonial administrator circa 1850 than a citizen who was democratically elected by his own people. Obama and his extended entourage — the politicians, professor, and pundits who share his progressive outlook — treat most Americans as unenlightened charges who require a paternalistic guiding hand. This is not a new current among Democratic elites. Nor is it new for Obama. Remember how he almost sank his campaign when he patronized those small-town folks who “cling to guns and religion” because they have nothing better occupy their lives.
The problem is, most Americans don’t see themselves as children or semi-savages in need of a paternalistic hand-up or hand-out. They see the humor in Ronald Reagan’s observation that the nine most frightening words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” They like the story of Calvin Coolidge (at least, I think it was Calvin Coolidge) saying to some government busybody: “Don;t just do something, stand there!” They basically want they government to stay out of their lives, their businesses, their pocketbooks.
This basic discrepancy highlights another way in which Obama’s tenure in the White House is historically unprecedented. We’ve had plenty of Presidents who have been out of touch with the people. But has any President whose liberal self-infatuation made him so ostentatiously out of touch, not just with the people but with implacable exigencies of economic and political life?
Look again at those headlines I began with: On the one hand, you have the voice of the market: “Jobless Claims Jump to 6-Mo High,” “Market Signals Fears on Economy,” “Big Trade Gap Sign of Weak Growth,” “Analysts Predict Market Malaise.” On the other hand you have Obama assuring us (and maybe himself) the “Worst of Recession is Over.” It’s the difference between theory, according to which massive government spending “stimulates” the economy, and reality, in which massive government spending stimulates massive government debt. In the world according to Keynes, a “fiscal multiplier” takes over from all those government-directed dollars lifting the economy on a tide of new investment and higher employment. In the real world, unsustainable debt drags down the economy because the market sees that, after all, what is unsustainable cannot go on. Its the difference between fiction, between what we would like to happen because it accords with our wishes about they world should be, and fact, which accords with the way the world actually is is.
It’s not only that Barack Obama deep down doesn’t like America. There’s also the fact that he doesn’t understand it, or us. Odd, isn’t it, that an American would say “us” in such a way as to exclude the people elected to represent them?
The fact that more and more people are doing just that has yet to penetrate the corridors of power. I have every confidence, however, that come November those rarefied purlieus will be brought face to face with the awful truth that most Americans have wearied of the malodorous fairytale that cast them as perpetual, semi-helpless dependents and the country they love as an insufficiently enlightened atavism.
Dear Roger:
The US started modern total warfare with Grant and Sherman and continued with the bombing of Cities and civilian populations in Germany and Japan in the Second World War capped by the drop of the two atomic weapons. Obama is finally right on something. Both the natural law and the Church condemn this as a violation of just war theory. Some day we will pay for it in this country. It is never permissible to directly kill innocent people. The end does not justify the means. Shame on us.
I’m a firm believer in the concept of total war. There is no such thing as a limited engagement, only an engagement that leaves the enemy alive to fight another day. There is no such thing as a conflict where choosing NOT to press an advantage increases ones chances of victory. Fighting to lose, fighting a defensive war, only guarantees that that the conflict will be extended, costing more lives and more resources. Fighting to win, fighting to utterly destroy the enemy and his ability to wage war upon you, results in conflicts that are relatively short, and decisive.
The reason why killing civilians is a bad tactic is because they aren’t generally the ones shooting back at you. In warfare, you destroy those enemies who are most dangerous, not those who are least. If the enemy surrenders, they will be spared. Otherwise you save them for last.
There are exceptions to this however. If destroying centers of heavy industry will reduce the ability of the enemy to supply its front line forces with weapons and other resources, then you do so. You bomb them until the rubble is reduced to rubble. The fact that there are civilians in the area, living in their homes, or working in those factories, is irrelevant. Women, children, all dead. You do what it takes to win, no matter what that is, and without apology. Apologizing for winning is a good way to find oneself in another war. Our enemies must never question our resolve. They must never question our willingness to kill every m*****f******g last one of them, and grind their bones to make our bread.
People like Obama foolishly believe that our enemies are our enemies because they don’t like us. Bullshit. Our enemies are our enemies because they are evil. We are part of the free world, a world that stands together. The nations of the free world don’t always agree on everything, but at the end of the day we support one another because liberty promotes virtue. We are good. Our enemies are comprised of the not-so-free world. Dictatorships, oligarchies, prison states. It is better to be feared than loved when you cannot have both. Doing what is necessary to be loved by those who are evil means becoming evil ourselves, and that is non-negotiable. Support our friends and allies, undermine and destroy our enemies, and maintain the strength necessary to do both, and there will be peace on earth. Fail to do this and there will be endless war.
the real tragedy of the atomic bomb is that it was not available two or three years earlier–think how many lives would have been saved in europe and asia if the u.s.a.
had been able to drop one on berlin in 1943
“Obama is a “post-national” or “trans-national” political figure. In this, he mirrors the left-liberal, “progressive” consensus the world over—well, in Europe and the North America, which pretty much defines the habitat of that consensus.”
You’re missing that the current government of Japan is part of that group, too.
http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/are-japans-dpj-really-democrats/
The overseas English-language press likes to describe the DPJ government as “center-left”. The three most important people in the government today are Prime Minister Kan Naoto, whose political career started with the Socialist Democratic Federation; Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku Yoshito, whose political career started with the Socialist Party; and Secretary-General Edano Yukio, who hangs out with people in the Kakumaru Faction, a radical Marxist group.
You have it backwards, CJ. Total war leads to total victory. The Confederacy, supported by my kin, knew it was all over. The Third Reich knew it was finished. Peace. No DMZ, no guerrilla resistance in the mountains. Limited war keeps war going. Korea, Israel, etc.
Gary O, you have it exactly right. “Just” wars with evenly matched opponents burn up a lot of lives. Wars that are over quickly because they are so unevenly matched, save lives. That is why saving money by cutting back the defense budget is a false economy.
We seem to have entered one of those periods where the elites have decided that they can thoroughly redesign a fiendishly complex system of human interaction and account for every effect of the changes. Right up there with “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.” is, “I have a brilliant Idea. It will solve all our problems. Don’t worry, I’ve thought of everything.”
I am surprised that before apologizing to Japan’s leftist government over the dropping of the atomic bombs Obama did not consult the even more leftist government of China. The Chinese have interestingly different views on the course of World War II ( for them 1937-45)
Why does Obama not also apologize to Germany over the fire-bombing of Hamburg in 1943 when more civilian lives were lost in a night than due to either atomic bomb.OK that was the British RAF but,hey, does Obama care about history…or indeed know any?