Photo courtesy Joe Crimmings Photography, flickr
Time magazine has named Barack Obama its Man – sorry, scratch that – “Person of the Year.” Some, particularly conservatives, might balk at this. I disagree. I can’t think of a better choice than Obama.
He’s the perfect symbol of modern America.
Like the president, America refuses to lead.
As the world crumbles around us, the United States has been sitting on the sidelines, idle, watching it all happen. Sure, we send an emissary every now and then. We may drop a few bombs here and there. And we talk a good game about “peace processes.” But in reality, we’ve done nothing of substance.
Depending on the day, our president seems either eager to side with our allies’ enemies – or he is disinterested in the plights of our international friends. He backs radical Islamist uprisings, while at the same time claiming to “have Israel’s back.” He demands a solution to the fiscal cliff, yet offers no ideas of his own. Even in the gun control debate, he refuses to put forth any sort of plan, opting instead to pass the buck to that national comedy treasure, Joe Biden.
Like the president, America is dependent.
The president’s reelection was an endless parade of dependence. His ideas alone were not enough to push him across the electoral finish line, so he relied on fear, ignorance, class warfare, and racism to do the job. He depends on a complicit media to sell his lies, depends on union leadership to guide the votes of their members, and depends on corporate cronyism to fill his coffers.
America’s dependence is obvious. Record numbers of U.S. citizens now rely on government handouts to feed their families and make ends meet. If we learned anything from the last election it’s that, for much of the country, welfare has become preferable to a job just as ignorance is preferable to ability.
Like the president, America is disinterested in the Bill of Rights.
Obama’s shown he prefers to rule by executive order, rather than deal with the headaches of those pesky checks and balances. Upon taking office, he continued and expanded the worst parts of the Bush Presidency by trampling the 4th Amendment via the patriot act. Then, he shredded the 5th Amendment by signing into law the indefinite detention – without due process – of U.S. citizens. Now as we enter his second term, he’s targeting the 1st and 2nd Amendments by exploiting the Sandy Hook shooting.
. . . and America doesn’t seem to care. As long as they’re promised safety in return, and get to claim some kind of false moral high ground, the country is more than wave goodbye to their rights.
Like the president, America seems to despise success.
The central theme of Obama’s 2012 campaign was jealousy. Those who have more than you, have it because you were exploited. A millionaire like Romney (despite the fact that Obama is a millionaire himself) can’t possibly understand the difficulties faced by the average man on the street. Tax the rich, punish their success, and you’ll bring about a new golden era.
That’s what we were told, and the majority bought it. The concept of the “1 Percent vs. the 99 Percent” was sold well, took root, and has spread through nearly every corner of American life. As their president spends their country into oblivion, Americans eagerly decry the capitalist system that built it – even as it remains the best chance to revive our failing nation.
We now view the best of us as our enemies, and our global enemies as victims of our hubris. We’ve become a culture, government, and country without a moral or economic compass. More importantly, we’re not where we are due to some kind of error. It’s what we’ve chosen to be.
Obama deserves his “Man of the Year” title not because he’s managed some kind of great achievement, but because he’s the perfect embodiment of our decayed national identity.
(Robert Laurie is a Michigan-based political writer. Follow his work on Twitter @RobertLaurie. Originally posted on The Michigan View.)
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