Back to the issue at hand. Is it a problem for Obama to be a socialist and / or a muslim?
If he is a socialist…which seems to be the case, than yes it is a problem. This new information has surfaced from an interview in 2001 about his beliefs on “redistribution of wealth” ANd in this case it is not anyone putting words into his mouth. He said the very things that everyone has accused him of. In 2001 he did an interview, and the audio is out in the news.
Here is the core of what he Obama said.
Barack Obama, in 2001:
*You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the civil-rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be okay, but the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.
And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [It] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.
And that hasn’t shifted, and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil-rights movement was because the civil-rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.*
A caller then helpfully asks: “The gentleman made the point that the Warren Court wasn’t terribly radical. My question is (with economic changes)… my question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative work, economically, and is that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to change place?”
Obama replies:
*You know, I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way. [snip] You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues, you know, in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time. You know, the court is just not very good at it, and politically, it’s just very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard.
So I think that, although you can craft theoretical justifications for it, legally, you know, I think any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.”*
The entire article is found at this link.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmFhYzIzMGQ1Y2FlMTA4N2M1N2VmZWUzM2Y4ZmNmYmI
This is serious stuff gang. Obama is still talking about it now, as he described to Joe the plumber.
I for one do not want a redistribution of wealth, and neither would you if you finally made it to the top after a life time of hard work.
This does not dismiss the necessity for christian principles of helping the poor and the widow. But this is not forced giving, it is giving based on moral instruction from God. It is not even compulsory giving, through guilt. It is simply the normal morally driven impetus to take care of the less fortunate.
The same way we can not legislate the moral choice in abortion or life. We can not legislate Joe Schmoe to get so many tax dollars from Mr. Successful Smith.
You can not have it both ways democrats. Big government needs to go away, and morality needs to restored to this nation so we will act in the compassion of God, not in the contraints of government.
But our compass is so off track morally.