Palmer Pops Off
Yesterday, at a press conference, our President said some stuff. The kind of stuff no American President should ever be saying about his constituents in a speech in another country. The kind of stuff a person only says about a people he despises, our President said; about you, me and every other American citizen.
“We are not well served when in response to a terrorist attack we descend into fear and panic,”
“We don’t make good decisions if it’s based on hysteria or an exaggeration of risks."
Our President is not implying that we are a bunch of cowardly ninnies. He is declaring it boldly on the world stage, in full view of a known enemy. Our President is using SHAME to get us in line with his goals. "Look at these little babies, look at them; scared of a three year old girl. I am not afraid of a three year old girl. I am brave, compassionate, and wise. Join with me, World, to laugh at these frightened backward rubes." You can practically hear his eyes rolling.
Historically, past presidents have used exhortation, calling upon the fine qualities they have known America to possess, to meet challenges facing our nation. Not Obama. No, Obama does not have a basis to justify encouraging us, so he can only talk down. Obama thinks he represents a unenlightened backwards country that, frankly, he is embarrassed of. He is ashamed of Americans, and he wants the world to join him in shaming us into more progressive behavior.
That alone would be bad enough. But as I said, he declared this on the world stage. He signaled to our enemy (an enemy looking for weakness) how weak and lily-livered we are. Terrorist do not go looking for hard targets to bring down; they seek weak ones. Obama,in his infinite wisdom, declared us one. Terrorists seek to create and exploit an atmosphere of fear (hence TERRORism). Obama, by his words, declared their actions effective - and by extension invited them to continue in the same vein. "It's working guys!"
As if that was not enough, our President went on to say this:
" When individuals say we should have religious tests, and only Christians, proven Christians, should be allowed, that’s offensive and contrary to American values."
Obama deliberately misses the point. He knows, as well as you and I, that ISIS has been targeting Christians in the region as a matter of course. The first refugees from that area were indeed Christians. Christians are being slaughtered for being Christians, and Christian refugees are in the most danger. Putting them at the front of the list is not a religious test, but a test of who is in the most need of refuge. Triage, as it were.
Then, to make sure we, and the world, fully understood just how disappointed Obama was in us, he continued with this,"I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the rhetoric coming out of here in the course of this debate,"
Our country was founded upon many wonderful principles, one of the foremost being freedom of speech. Free speech includes rhetoric. If, as the president is implying, all it takes are people exercising their 1st Amendment rights, for Muslims to take that determining step to join ISIS, perhaps subjecting them to copious amounts of free speech would cause a mass conversion like no one has seen before. And his reasoning is that maybe we should avoid that.
Never before in our history as a nation has the one man tasked with the job of leading her said so much to disparage her in the eyes of the world.
The President, with his own rhetoric, is echoing the anti-West sentiment that pervades ISIS. He was elected to represent us, yet sets himself separate and above us when speaking for us. Like the parent of an unruly child at a fancy dinner, he makes his apologies for us, while agreeing with the hosts that our behavior is atrocious and will be dealt with at a later time. Or worse, the teenager paid to babysit us. His reputation is harmed just by our proximity to him, so he must distance himself from us as much as possible so he can still sit at the table with all the other cool kids, tomorrow at school.
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