Obama and the failure to protect
One of the most glaring hallmarks of the Obama administration is its failure to protect the American people and their representatives. I don’t mean a failure to protect perfectly and completely—that can never be accomplished. I mean the failure to even attempt certain of the basics of protection, and the eagerness to withdraw protection where it once existed.
The motives for this come down to the old “fool/knave” question, although the answer is almost certainly “knave.” What particular sort of knave is Obama in this regard? Is it his leftism, or his anger at America and desire to humble it, or PC considerations, or a drive to increase Democratic power (i.e. encouraging illegal immigration) that is the driving force behind the failure to protect? Or some or all of the above?
If you look at this entire administration and its history, you can view many if not most of Obama’s initiatives in the light of failure to protect. He was elected in a time a great economic peril, and early on promised to “focus like a laser” on the economy and to keep “pivoting” towards it, but that never happened. In fact, he seemed instead to spearhead legislation and policies that actually would harm the economy (Obamacare, cap and trade, anti-coal programs). Regarding Obamacare itself, he promised to protect Americans’ relationships with their doctors, hospitals, and health insurance policies, and instead began to destroy all of that. In 2011 he failed to negotiate or even try to negotiate a deal with the Iraqi government that would leave some American forces there to protect our hard-won investment of blood and treasure, as well as our interests in the region. Right before the 2012 election, the Benghazi killings reflected his refusal to protect the embassy and its people.
After 2012, the problem accelerated, if such a thing were possible. The Bergdahl swap freed five important and dangerous Taliban in exchange for a deserter. The rescue of James Foley was botched or not even really attempted, and Foley’s beheading gave a ghastly and human graphic to Obama’s failure to protect. The rise of ISIS, likewise, in an escalating horror show. And then there’s ebola. Need I say more?
Americans will forgive a lot, and in the case of Obama they have forgiven way too much. He should never have been re-elected, but he was, in part because of this tendency to forgive. I keep thinking (or at least hoping) that the American people may have passed the point of forgiving him and I’ve been disappointed before, but this time it feels different. It feels as though many more people (including many former supporters) are disgusted with, and much alarmed by, Obama’s behavior.
Too little, too late. And unfortunately, much of this feeling is specific to their view of Obama himself, who is increasingly seen as being “in over his head” rather than mistaken in a deeper way or actively malevolent. Nor do they extend their judgment to the left in general, whom they probably will be only to happy to vote for in 2016.
With the “migrant surge” where DHS was actively assisting illegal immigration and his (and the CDC’s) greater concern with assisting Africans than protecting Americans, it’s become abundantly clear that Obama cares less for his own citizens than the rest of the world.
You could probably add to this his constant treatment of Republicans.conservatives as bigger enemies that ISIS, Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, etc.
Excellent summary!
Obama wants to fundamentally transform America and open borders is a big part of his plan.
And wait to his unconstitutional amnesty; after the election.
If he does that and Ebola gets worse, he should be impeached.
Remember another one of his first decisions, to withdraw missile protection from our new NATO allies in Eastern Europe?
Remember Fast and Furious where he dumped guns into Mexico drug cartels? He didn’t protect any Mexicans by doing that.
Now that you’ve brought it up, I can see it’s a real theme of his presidency.
I think you are spot on and I too find my thoughts go back and forth between malevolence and ignorance. I used to say it didn’t matter, because the result is the same. However, now I find myself thinking it is important because we are perilously close to disaster and if we don’t recognize the fact that it is Leftist ideology which has brought us to this point the result will be Hillary. This will assure the Leftist march to centralized power for themselves and Washington.
My thoughts focus on trying to find the Conservative who is able to articulate our ideas without Republicans, Democrats and media destroying him or her before it is too late. This is as frightening as the Left itself.
I read recently (can’t remember where) an article by a professed psychiatrist who posited that Obama is an ideologue who takes seriously his stated position as a globalist, a “man of the world”. In this he sees that countries don’t have (shouldn’t have) borders, that wealthy and prosperous countries should not be protected from the woes of the third world in the name of social justice, and that there is no such thing as American Exceptionalism. That would seem to explain some of what most of us would see as bizarre behavior.
When you add his obvious narcissism and a heavy dose of normal liberal cynical nastiness, you can account for most of what he has done over the past 6 years.
If a republican wins the White House in 2016 (a big if), denazification is not too strong a term to describe the imperative for sweeping the bureaucracies of the czars and their minions, all knaves and fools.
Responsibility to Protect is not what you think it is.
R2P means the responsibility of the MSM to protect Obama and his cronies and thugs.
By all necessary means.
With all the tools (and lies) at their command.
At all costs.
“unfortunately, much of this feeling is specific to their view of Obama himself, who is increasingly seen as being “in over his head” rather than mistaken in a deeper way or actively malevolent. Nor do they extend their judgment to the left in general, whom they probably will be only to happy to vote for in 2016”
Whatever combination of white guilt, black racial animus, Hispanic and Asian self interest, ignorance, indoctrination, pride, gullibility and naivete or plain stupidity that motivated 65 million Americans to vote for Obama in 2012, they have through their votes imposed the consequences upon all of us.
Any Representative Republic / ‘warm-body’ democracy rests upon the foundation of the aggregate wisdom and common sense or lack thereof, of its citizens. Wisdom and common sense are in short supply these days.
I am not hopeful that the 2016 election will reverse America’s societal seppuku.
“Political ideas that have dominated the public mind for decades cannot be refuted through rational arguments. They must run their course in life and cannot collapse otherwise than in great catastrophe…” Ludwig von Mises
Report today that a Yale student/ researcher returned from Liberia and was admitted to the hospital with possible Ebola like symptoms.
If this person, has Ebola then all hell breaks loose.
Why?
New Haven is close to NYC and the elites send their kids to Yale.
What matters is whether they are evil, the question of knave/fool is meaningless. Since an evil fool is far more important than a non evil fool.
Collaborators have no right to jump the fence to some other faction, after they got theirs. They should be terminated for their twice and thrice betrayal, whether the US Regime’s occupation forces do it or the rebels do it matters not.
Ymarksakar-The concept of evil has by and large been removed from the civic psyche. It is even being challenged in the Christian sphere. Determinism is the belief system of our times, but with an interesting concept that somehow the panacea of “education” (and the meaning of that word is up for grabs), can change everything for the better.
Neo said:
” Is it his leftism, or his anger at America and desire to humble it, or PC considerations, or a drive to increase Democratic power…”
Neo left out the most obvious motivation. Obama comes from a Muslim family and although he is a nominal Christian and attended a Christian church, the church he attended has a friendly view of the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan. Obama also identifies with his Muslim father who was an African Muslim.
Obama’s Muslim roots explain this infamous statement:
“The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”
Superficially, the UN speech which contains this infamous sentence appears to be protest against sectarian violence of all types. Unfortunately, in line with the knave theme, the entire speech was based on a lie in which he blamed Benghazi on a youtube video. He then created a false moral equivalence between those who “slander Islam” and incite to violence and the Muslims who actually commit violence in the name of Islam including the Muslims who Murdered our ambassador in Benghazi.
There is no conflict between Obama’s lefty beliefs and his identification with Islamists because the two are allies. We don’t have to chose whether he is a leftist or a Manchurian agent for Islam – he’s both.
As per George Soros the big picture is to visit all the misery of the 3rd World on Americans, in their warped view the 3rd world miseries will stop when America solves them ! Quite a reckless gamble !
Is it “a failure to protect” or a decision not to protect?
I cannot but conclude it to be the latter.
There is one aphorism that I have never liked with regards to Obama and a number of other Liberals. It goes something like this:
“Never attribute malice when incompetence suffices.”
In contrast, one Jewish aphorism that I do like goes like this:
“To be merciful to the cruel is cruelty to the merciful.”
Combine the two and it is a terrible thing to misattribute incompetence to Obama and his administration when sinister malice is afoot.
A final aphorism: Obama lied, people died.
I don’t have anything to add to the discussion that I have not said many times before; but do wish to reinforce Matthew M’s above comment. Electing a moderately conservative president in 2016 will be a flash in the pan if the entrenched leftists inside the beltway bureaucracies are not purged and a special prosecutor is not named to bring to light the corruption of team obama.
parker,
I agree that, “Electing a moderately conservative president in 2016 will be a flash in the pan if the entrenched leftists inside the beltway bureaucracies are not purged and a special prosecutor is not named to bring to light the corruption of team obama.” but… even that will not be enough without a fundamental change in cultural perspective by a substantive minority of the electorate. I think that change unlikely without a huge dose of reality.
Yeah, as many here before me have said in these very words, for him and his kind, “it’s a feature not a bug”.
Until his own family is bleeding from the mouth and nose from ebola, it’s all good.
GB,
I agree about the “dose of reality”. It will happen, the question is whether it will lead to the awakening we long for or a fascist nanny state. Dark days ahead. But today I picked 2 quarts of raspberry, the last of the green beans, and hauled 17 winter squash into the basement under a beautiful blue flyover country sky. I still live in a mostly 1950s world.
A lot of O’s New Left homeys are Maoists. I don’t know enough about commies to understand the ideological nuances between them and garden variety Leninists, Marxists, etc.
I know it’s not good.
Obama has always been misunderestimated. Remember the Mao ornament on the O’s Xmas tree his first year in office? Just a little “in your face” jab. Nah, it didn’t mean nothin. Right, Anita Dunn?
Illuminati: agree that leftists and Islamists are allies. (funny how Leftists are too stupid to realize they’ll be the first killed if the SHTF scenario occurs in America).
But I disagree on whether he is a Muslim (other than technically because of his father). O practices his religion every time he looks in a mirror and attends the church of Our Lady of the Fairway.
“Political ideas that have dominated the public mind for decades cannot be refuted through rational arguments. They must run their course in life and cannot collapse otherwise than in great catastrophe…” Ludwig von Mises
In Yom Kippur prayers, the supplicant prays for mercy that the punishment be less than catastrophic. In other words, that survival with happiness is possible.
If I had a hawk’s eyes view, I wonder what that eye would view as the most egregious of our sins. Surely the burdening of future generations with debt would rank high, yet no one even cares to categorize that as a sin. Surely, abandoning Israel and deserving others (the green revolution in Iran) to terrorism and bondage when we have within our power easily the might to determine otherwise, has to rank high. Surely, the sacrifice of children to sex trade and homosexual couples has to rank high. With all those high rankers, the Yom Kippur prayer is surely not expected.
From his book where he declared clearly he would stand on the side of muslims, the pro/muslim Cairo speech, and the latest interview on French TV where he declared the U.S. to be a muslim nation, I don’t think it is wise to discount his obvious muslim background in the discussion of his “failure to protect.”
“Surely the burdening…”
That burdening will result in a crash and burn beyond anything witnessed in all of human history. Its so gargantuan that few can appreciate the magnitude of the debt that will one day hit the fan. Its not billions or trillions, its hundred of trillions. There is no way to grow out of this deep, deep hole of debt unless we are willing to take the pain and pick up the pieces slowly over 1 or 2 decades. Indeed, none dare speak of this in the msm. To do so is to be labeled as a survivalist whacko and instantly dismissed. Water, food, fuel, seeds, and lead. Let it come, me and mine are ready.