Taking Down Obama

The day after the 2008 elections I placed the front page of the Deseret News high on the wall of my class room. The majority of the page is filled with a picture of Barack Obama; arm extended in a wave or salute, below a huge headline – Obama Wins, “Change Has Come to America”. I put it up next to my pictures of Kenneth Starr, Horatio Hornblower, and George W. Bush on my wall of heroes. I told my students Obama would stay there until I knew whether he would be a hero or not. I am thinking of taking him down.

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It has been a gradual process. For over a month now a flood of oil has been spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. For a long time this disaster did not seem to affect us directly, we were assured that it would be handled, given hope that it would soon be over, distracted by party politics and political partying. Now the slime is washing ashore, things are dying, the suffering has begun, and we are told there is nothing we can do but suffer the consequences of this obscene neglect. The Gulf Oil Spill is more than Obama’s Katrina, it is a metaphor for his presidency. A disaster we have been lulled into ignoring until, at last, the unrelenting and unstoppable filth fouls America from sea to shining sea.

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Here are ten failures of Barack Obama:

1. The failure to act to stop the Gulf Oil spill or to protect the American coast line from the oil slick now befouling the beaches and wetlands of the Gulf of Mexico.

2. The Iran Hostage crisis. Three American hikers have been held for months in Iran – they are as much hostages as those of Carter’s disaster – yet Obama does nothing. At least Carter tried; Obama trumpets his weakness, America’s limitations.

3. Iranian nuclear weapons. The fanatic Islamic rules of Persia beard Uncle Sam and beat us about the head – demonstrating to the world our impotence, while Obama holds out his hand. Obama looked the other way as Iranians demonstrating for their freedom were shot down in the streets of Tehran and continues to remain dumb as protestors are executed.

4. The American Economy is far worse off than it was when Obama came to Washington. Unemployment at 10%, banks failing, trade in record imbalance, gasoline prices shooting back up, a debt that is four times that of the entire eight years of the Bush administration; the list goes on and on.

5. North Korea commits open acts of war against our allies, confident that with Obama as Commander in Chief, they have nothing to fear from America.

6. National Health care was crammed down the throats of the American people, ignoring their will, saddling the U.S. with a crushing entitlement this country cannot afford and spelling the end to American excellence in medical advancement and care.

7. Failure of immigration policy. Ridiculing the state of Arizona’s attempt to curb an invasion of illegal aliens, Obama stands shoulder to shoulder with the President of Mexico as he condemns America for doing what Mexico and every other nation does to defend their national integrity.

8. Failure in the War against Terrorism. The Obama Regime remains impotent in its actions against the mounting terrorist assault on America. They failed to deter the murder of 13 American service men in Texas, lucked out with the Christmas Day panty bomber and the Times Square truck bomber.; Obama emboldens our enemies by playing word games, tying the hands of our military in Afghanistan and Iraq and bringing aid and comfort to the Taliban by promising to desert our Afghan allies within the year.

9. They offered a bribe to Joe Sestak and now refuse to answer questions about it in a way that would make Nixon blush. Remember Blagojevich?

10. Shutting down the manned space program. Turning the exploration of the last frontier over to the Russians and placing the space station and the future of science in the hands of our enemies.

The relentless spew of failure creeps in with the tide. I am forced to wonder if it is time to take my picutre of Barakd Obama down from my wall of heroes and consign him to the wall of shame, along with Bill Clinton, Saddam Hessian, and the Three Stooges.

I Don’t Believe in Atheists – Three

Reason and Faith

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Neither sense, experience, nor logical evidence have been able, as of yet, to prove or disprove the existence of God. There is hope that on some higher “level of consciousness” the truth of all things can be known but, for now, we are left to live by Reason and Faith.

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Reason is not the contrived exercises of postmodern philosophy called Logic, with its formulaic equations of P’s and Q’s or Ts’ and F’s; rather it is man’s natural ability to discern between right and wrong, to recognize the truth.

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I love an example of man’s ability to reason given by Cicero. It involves Pericles and the Athenian mob. On page 13 of my 1998 Oxford World’s Classics edition of On the Law, Scipio tells how Pericles explained an eclipse of the sun which had brought fear to the people by telling them: “That this thing invariably happened at fixed intervals when the entire moon passed in front of the sun’s orb; and so while it did not occur at every new moon, it could not occur except in that situation. By pointing to this fact and backing it up with an explanation, he released the people from their fear.” It is this power, held by the most common of men and held in common with the gods, if Cicero is to be believe, that lights our way to truth. I see the same power of reason revealed in Mark Twain’s story of Huckleberry Finn. Huck has been taught that black men are inferior, that they are property and that God wills them to be slaves. But when he comes to know a black man he rejects his superstition and is willing to go to Hell to bring freedom to his friend.

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Faith is not a synonym for religion or any particular religious sect. Faith is not just believing in things not seen, true or not. It is acting as if one knows things one cannot know. For example, I don’t know that my school will still be standing on any given day, yet I prepare my lessons and head off to class each morning in faith. I do not know that anyone will ever read these words, yet I write them to the world, in faith.

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With these definitions or parameters set, I will give reasons for my faith.

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1. Men want to be free, for as Cicero says, “Nothing is sweeter than liberty”. Man values freedom above life. Men will fight for the freedom of others, at the cost of their own. This driving force, above biology or physics, indicates to me that there is something beyond the ken of the test tube and the textbook, universals which I can contemplate and strive to comprehend.

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2. Just Laws: I tell my scouts the story of rules – the ropes that set us free. Each summer at camp, hundreds of young people rappel and climb for the first time. Before they back over the cliff, the staff member aiding them in their rappel or climb ties them up with ropes. These “bonds” set them free to do thing they would never attempt without the ropes. It is the same with rules at camp or the laws of the Universe. They bind us in order to set us free. This is the common thread running through all religious, ethical, or philosophical systems that approach truth. The blessings come by obedience to Laws, not contrived statutes of men and moment, but universal Laws that have always been. This order evinces to me an organizing force which motivates my actions.

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3. Service, even sacrifice, for others creates love which brings happiness to the one who serves. One of my favorite stories is Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities. In the final scene Sidney Carton goes happily to the guillotine, he is glad to die for the happiness of those he loves. This joy through sacrifice, represented in the atonement of Christ and in the risk our mothers took to give us life gives powerful reason to live in accordance with these principles. I find joy in working for the comfort and protection of my family and in service to my friends, and students. I stand all amazed at the soldiers who give their lives for people they don’t even know – greater love has no man than this. It is reasonable to have faith in a god who teaches that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

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4. Good things come by art and art does not come easy. This is from a favorite quote found in Norman MacLean’s A River Runs Through It. His description of the need to understand the laws of fly fishing and its relation to mastery in other aspects of what is good gives me a reason to believe in a God that is the ultimate manifestation of good. If one works, one will grow – and infinite growth implies God.

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5. Nature is beautiful on all levels. That beauty, goodness, and truth exist gives me reason to act in faith that such beauty is divine. When I look into the night sky above Camp Loll I see the beauty of galaxies, in the summer sun I see the beauty of the Teton Range, on another day I contemplate the beauty of Union Falls and on the next the beauty of a single flower by the edge of Polar Bear Springs. If I could see the cells, they would be beautiful. I have faith that the molecules and atoms are beautiful as well. This omnipresence of beauty gives reason for faith in a God that is everywhere.

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6. Mans’ universal recognition of beauty in nature and art. Not all cultures create the same objects of admiration – but all admire the best of each.

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7. Man’s ability to recognize right and wrong.

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These are not proofs, they are just reasons. Other reasons, no doubt infinite in number, exist for my faith. I have not yet had the time to think of them all, let alone write them down here at the Agora