States Visited

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Can someone call an interpreter?

Just a few hours ago, as he was about to board the train that will taken him from Philadelphia to Washington for his coronation, Obama had this to say:

"...while our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not. What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that our founders displayed. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives - from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry - an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels."

I have read the entire speech several times and read this particular line at least twenty times and I am not sure exactly what he wants.

Here are the few lines that contain the ideological foundation for our original Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

It is our natural instincts that lead us to the conclusion that all men are created equal because, by virtue of being human, we are all governed by Natural Law. Now Obama is calling for us to ignore our natural instincts and replace the Declaration with something new, something based on our "better angels." I can find no other meaning for those words that our love for our fellow man. This is the specter of Communism - self-sacrifice for the betterment of our brothers.

A man who seeks to emulate the Presidency of Lincoln - a man who butchered the Constitution - is now calling for an abandonment of the words of Jefferson.

What have we done?

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