In New York City’s Village Voice, Roy Edroso has a go at bloggers on the right, laughing all the way. Included among his critique is yesterday’s challenge to Barack Obama and his supporters here at Wizbang, Tell Them They Can, Senator Obama.
Most piquantly, Steve Schippert at Wizbang said he was “growing very tired of being accused of being some sort of racist because I am white and I oppose Barack Obama…” Schippert, who teaches school, said Obama is hurting his students by “leading them to support another man” — presumably himself — “rather than believe in themselves” — because if they believed in themselves, they would surely vote against Obama, who “could use 13 weeks of Marine Corps boot camp.” There’s real change! To prove his point, Schippert provided a video of a black guy who agrees with him.
No, Mr. Edroso, they would surely vote for Obama – but for the right reasons steeped in individual liberty and responsibility rather than for a belief in false promises that the government can cure their ills and grievances if only Barack Obama were president to give such to them. Individualism over collectivism. One would think that the Village Voice, of all sources, would champion that.
And, for the record, I was not stating that “Obama is hurting [my] students,” but rather that he is limiting those who support him by transferring belief and self-determination from themselves and entrusting such to a federal government headed by a man making bold promises that even he now is backing away from as unrealistic expectations. Obama is the one who allowed those expectations to grow. Now that he has those voters, he can slowly back down toward reality. And he is already cushioning the landing. That is a sad commentary.
At least the Village Voice doesn’t include me among the “[o]ther, less imaginative rightbloggers [who] continued to peddle the old stories.” There is that.
Worth repeating from yesterday’s challenge is the greater point of demagoguery peddled relentlessly.
Barack Obama is obsessed with telling people why they can’t but for him and the change he will bring about, why they can’t because others have more than them, why they can’t until he can direct the federal government into a form which redistributes from one group to another.
That is not what inspires people. That is not what elevates people. That is not what breeds success or equality.
That is demagoguery and the cementing of a victim class which requires a villain – in this case the rich and, subtly through absurd charges of racism, the white.
That is demagoguery and the cementing of a victim class which requires a dispenser of justice – Barack Obama and a federal government molded into a form of socialism.
That is demagoguery and the cementing of a victim class which, by definition, requires blaming another class or classes, expecting relief from others, and doing nothing for it in exchange beyond a vote.
This is class warfare and collectivism abetted by racial divisiveness. And the victim of collectivism and class warfare is always the individual and personal liberty, not simply “the rich,” with both the suggested victim classes and villain classes beholden to the central distributor.
What the Village Voice and others have missed is that I am endorsing the individual more than opposing Barack Obama. It is that belief in and support for the individual which drives my opposition to Barack Obama, not the other way around.
