Obama's vision far from that of Founding Fathers

Star Parker - Syndicated Columnist - 11/3/2008 9:35:00 AM

Pushing back on accusations from John McCain that he's a socialist, Barack Obama said, "I don't know what's next. By the end of the week, he'll be accusing me of being a secret Communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

Once again, we get the Obama oratorical fog. The problem isn't what he does with his toys or sandwich, it's what he sees as legitimate to do, under authority of government, with mine and yours.

"[McCain] has called me a socialist for wanting to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we can finally give tax relief to the middle class."

Obama's plans go much further than using the tax code to redistribute wealth.

He's got about $700 billion in so-called refundable tax credits in mind, direct money transfers to individuals, to finance his social engineering ideas in education, childcare, and environmental policy.

We're talking about a trillion dollars in new government spending to pay for his government-directed schemes to deal with just about every aspect of our lives.

Don Boudreaux, chairman of George Mason University's economics department, says it's more accurate to call Obamanomics "Socialism-lite," rather than outright Socialism, because we're not talking about overt government ownership of our manufacturing and financial entities.

But the line of distinction is fine, and the slope to overt and blatant socialism, as Boudreaux points out, is pretty slippery.

The real question is "So what?" Okay, so our country becomes more socialized and, by definition, less free. What difference does it make? After all, voters will have transmitted power to Obama in open and free elections. Isn't that what it's all about?

Thomas Jefferson said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free...it expects what never was and never will be."

Obama will have succeeded in selling a vision of America that has little to do with the vision of its founding because so many Americans are now detached from and uninformed by the documents that defined the country -- the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bible.

If we randomly surveyed voters and asked, "How is the role of government defined in the Declaration of Independence?" how many could answer the question?

How many could answer that the Declaration talks about our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and, "That to secure these rights governments are instituted among Men..."?

Government's job, according to the founders, is to protect individual liberty and guard against intrusions on our life and property -- the very wholesale intrusions that Barack Obama will begin in earnest once he is empowered by American voters.

There is no freedom without law and courts. And what is law for Obama?

He'll appoint judges who have "the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old."

The Bible tells us, regarding courts and justice, "Do not glorify a destitute person in his grievance."

Our biblical tradition, which is clear that we should love our neighbor and give charity, is also clear that courtrooms are the place to objectively apply law and not for politics.

History is filled with the dismal lessons of nations where law was turned into molding clay and citizens who abdicated personal responsibility for their lives to messianic sounding demagogues. But when we stop reading, thinking, and taking seriously the eternal truths of tradition, the only thing left is to re-learn through experience what history has already taught.

Apparently this is where much of America stands today.

And the rest?

Recall the words of Samuel Adams. "It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate and tireless minority keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."

Star Parker (parker@urbancure.org) is president of CURE, Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education and author of three books.