Out of The Frying Pan...



Change! This is the theme of the Obama campaign! Now call me crazy, but the way my mind works, my first questions are: From what and To what?

As troubling as the dangling proposition is that is the theme of Obama's campaign, perhaps even more troubling is the fact that no one is challenging him on it! Not the press, not his opponents, and certainly not his supporters!

I had and interesting conversation with one of the latter last weekend, and not only did she agree that Mr. Obama has not proffered much in the way of campaign promises or platforms, but he was correct, indeed brilliant not to do so, and because he has not, it is one of the primary reasons she's supporting him!

Now we had been having a pleasant enough conversation up until then, but then I went and used the "c" word to describe Obama. (Obama, not Clinton) Yes I called him a Communist. Well.......you would have thought I called him the "n" word instead! (I'm Black by the way)

Indignant, and obviously injured, she demanded to know why I would dare refer to Obama as a communist! So I explained my rationale as best I could by first defining what I thought communism was. Those whose world view was that government was the best source for the cures of the human condition, and that government should be as large and intrusive as possible to accomplish that, and that taxes should be as high as necessary (arbitrarily) in order to accomplish that, and that taxes should be penal to those who produce the wealth, in order to accomplish that! (in other words from those who have to those who have not according to their "need"! Now to me is by definition communism. And not only to me, but to the guy who wrote those words!

Then she demanded to know how I could apply such a definition to Mr. Obama. "Well," I said, "in the absence of any stance or platform in what you admit is a brilliantly run campaign, I only have to rely on his past stances, including his biography, his history of friends and associates, his legislative record, and oh yes, the recent history of the party he has chosen to affiliate himself with! When I do, I am forced to extrapolate his leanings because, on arguably the biggest platform in the world (US Presidential campaign) HE WON'T TELL ME!"

I apologized to my fellow debater profusely, because I do not wish to do harm to anyone, physically, emotionally, or most importantly spiritually. I simply wanted to make the point that we should be able to defend our beliefs so that others understand where we are coming from, even if they do not agree with us!

Critical thinking in this country is sadly being replaced with group think. Critical, independent thought is critical to liberty! Because if we do not or cannot think for ourselves, we are easy prey for the political pablum any party is more than willing to feed us!

Now I might not be the smartest person in the world, but I pride myself on critical thought, and individualism! And the only conclusion I can make about Mr. Obama, and Ms. Clinton is that based on their past performances, is while they may not be in religious agremment with the radical Islamists, they seem to be in philosophical lock-step wtih them base upon their willingness to 'destroy' those who doe not agree with them, or are percieved to be a callenge or threat to their agendas.