Obama and Robespierre

This is an essay my Uncle Harry wrote, enjoy.

For some time now I’ve been struck and alarmed by the flood of self-proclaimed  “intellectuals”  the Obama Administration has appointed to government positions of authority with little practical experience in the field to which they are assigned. In short, their cv’s are long on time spent in academia or political endeavors and short on executive or management background. I suppose that’s to be expected given that Barrack Obama had none , and his legislative experience both in Illinois or the US Senate had little to show for it with a  sparse voting record as he seemed to have preferred to not go on record , being recognized in legislative voting tabulations as being ” present”.  No one is really equipped to be ceo and chairman of the United States but our current President hasn’t even managed a candy store.  In short, Obama is a theorist with a determination to impose changes upon a nation which fit some idealistic , intellectually contrived model. 

I regard him as the most dangerous man to assume the presidency in my life time and the nation will suffer the negative consequences for years to come.  His recent comment that he would rather serve one term in office and be regarded as a “good” president than two terms as an ” indifferent” one clearly revealed his hand.  If he only serves one term it will be, of course,  because he is/was indifferent to the voice and beliefs of  the vast majority of the people. If the pollsters are right and the mid-term elections were held now the Democrats would lose control of the House and likely to lose 6-10 seats in the Senate. If the whispers are right, the Administration  and Democratic  congressional leaders would jam through a variety of radical legislation in the lame-duck session between the November elections and the seating of the new Congress in January. You might call it flipping the bird to the populace who aren’t smart enough to know what’s good for them !

One of my favorite authors is Paul Johnson who , about 20 years ago, wrote a book entitled Intellectuals . I’ve been re-reading it and it struck me within the first
few pages that there is remarkable similarity of political mission between Barack Obama and Maximilien Robespierre. The intellectual darling of the 18th century Europe was Jean-Jacques Rousseau who died about a dozen years before the onset of the French Revolution but had an enormous influence on the  revolutionaries , particularly Robespierre. There is no way I could concisely sum-up the philosophy of Rousseau but he was distrustful of progressive, gradual improvements of society brought about by the slow march of materialist culture. In this sense he rejected the Enlightenment and looked for more radical solutions. He held that reason had severe limitations as the means to improve society and favored the hidden insights of poetic insight and intuition. The French revolutionaries loved this , none more than Robespierre, and what followed after 1789 was disregard for law, authoritarianism , the ‘Reign of Terror’,  the guillotine,  which ultimately consumed the great carnivore Robespierre, and ultimately led to Bonaparte who crowned himself Emperor and condemned  Europe to 15 years of strife. It is still a worthwhile exercise to compare the American  with the French Revolution, and the prose of the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution which have withstood the test of time and to note that France has had 5 Constitutions under as many Republics.

I don’t doubt that Obama has read , and relishes, the Rousseau works and philosophy and somewhere in the White House library is to be  found a well-thumbed edition written by a man   dubbed by a contemporary as c “ an interesting madman ” , and an acknowledged  arrogant egotist. .  There are some strong similarities between Robespierre and Obama. From Wikipedia , a few  interesting comments: “Robespierre’s popularity and appeal to the community came out in the way he spoke. His speeches were exceptional, and he had the power to change the views of almost any audience.” The 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica described Robespierre  as ” a bright young theorist but out of his depth in the matter of experience”.

It is pretty clear after 18 months in office that President Obama is an egotist of the first order with a strong ” imperial ” style and out of his depth in the matter of experience. .Those same traits cost  Robespierre his head. But the tragedy of the revolution for France lived far beyond Robespierre’s face-up decapitation. Obama is not going to lose  his head, but is likely to lose the nation in 2012 . If I’m correct, he will have been in power about the same length of time as Robespierre. But he won’t care. He will have started a costly, European style social  upheaval that will haunt us as a nation .The irony here is that Europe has started the process of dismantling some of the theoretically driven, autocratically imposed social programs because their costs and high tax rates are sapping their growth and bankrupting them. Obama, of course,  is likely to retire to be a well-paid president of a prestigious university, or head of some politically -correct private foundation , posts which would allow him to be treated royally and to globally pontificate without restraint, leaving a mess that will take years  to overcome. I would also expect him to write a thesis that would out-Rousseau, Rousseau. Hell, he should probably dedicate it to Robespierre !

Not only is Obama a kindred sole of Robespierre , I would liken him to the Wizard of Oz  as portrayed by Frank Morgan in that wonderful film. Remember the scenes where the hidden Wizard’s stentorian voice  is heard proclaiming “whatever” backed up by  sounds of thunder and flashes of lightning? When the curtain is pulled back there is the fumbling Frank Morgan before  an organ-like console pulling levers creating the awesome background effects. The Wiz  is exposed  as a fakir with little practical skill and merit who has held Oz in thrall by his theatrics. And let us not forgot the image of the yellow-brick road
( Obamacare ? ) leading to the Wiz’s palace, which I will call Nirvana as it is oblivious to the real world.  Our President is as politically ruthless as was Robespierre and as pretentious  as the Wiz..  The lesson here is ” you can fool  some of  the people some of the time……”,  and it appears that the American people have begun to peel back the curtain to see what is making all the sound and fury and it is not a pretty picture.
Harry
July 14 ( Bastille Day ) 2010

American Politics 101, or what Representative Republican Democracy Means

In the past 10 years or so, and especially the past year, the debate over how an elected official should represent his/her constituents has increased. The one rallying point that we have seen is that our elected officials are the voice of us. But what does that mean? Some would argue that JFK had it right when he said that the elected official had a sort of carte blanch in where the people gave their consent to all his policies because they elected him into office. Others take the opposite side of this and say that the voice of the people changes as issues come up and that this carte blanch doesn’t exist. If we break both of these down we’ll find that both have plenty of issues to contend with.

First JFK’s carte blanch. The most glaring weakness of this form of representation is that it does not take changes in public opinion in to account. A glaring example of this is the current health care debate, while the majority of the American public don’t want this bill to pass our representatives in the House and Senate continue to try to pass it through under the assumption that we elected them to do our thinking for us.

The next is that our elected officials should always get our opinion on every issue. This is also a ludicrous idea because of the number of minor bills and pork politics being thrown about. If our representatives asked our opinion on everything the legislative system of our country would go slower than it already does, it would be like downgrading from a Corvette to a Yugo.

So both systems are imperfect, which do we use? Obviously we need to use a mixture of both. We can trust our representatives on minor things but when it comes to major bills, such health care reform, our officials need to listen to us, The People. Because we are the guiding force, we know whats best for us, we know when our personal freedoms are being compromised, most of all we know instinctively when something is bad for our country.

So to conclude, our system of Representative Democracy gives our elected officials a freedom of action and thought for small bills that do little to affect us, such as congressional medals of honor. But when it comes to bills that effect the majority of us personally it is the People of now that our officials must listen to, not the People who elected them in a year ago.

A Book Everyone Should Read

     I just finished reading Glenn Beck’s Common Sense and I recommend that every American read it. To summarize it is a book inspired by Common Sensewritten by Thomas Paine (another book every American should read). In it Beck gives his thoughts on the current government and where it is headed. He also argues for us to stage a second revolution, not one fought with guns but ideas.

     I happen to agree with his premise and urge you all to read this book and draw your own conclusions.

     Also for more info on this visit 912project.com

 

-Rem Publicam