From 2010: Obama’s irreversible damage
[NOTE: I first published this in March of 2010, over five years ago, in response to the question, “Has Obama does any irreversible damage so far?”
I think it’s time to repeat it.]
I believe the answer is “yes.”
But the reason I say this may surprise you. It’s not any one action or decision, or even several. It’s not even whether health care reform, if passed, can be reversed. It’s not the terrible precedent set by using reconciliation for a bill that is unpopular, not a budget or deficit measure, and has no bipartisan support. It’s not even Obama’s foreign policy, that insults our allies and emboldens dictators and fails to scare Iran in the least, although all of the above matter very much and they are all very bad.
I think the worst damage Obama has done is that, until now, America has always been a solid and somewhat predictable commodity, both domestically and internationally. There have been many fluctuations, of course. Presidents came and presidents went. Some were Republicans and some Democrats, some conservative and some liberal. But there remained a certain commonality and dependability that Americans and the rest of the world—our allies and our enemies—could depend on.
Allies would remain allies, and when the chips were down we would defend them. Enemies would remain enemies, even if we sometimes got closer to them and sometimes backed away from contact. We would get into debt, but not too much. Our economy was solid. And so on and so forth. But Obama has become a loose cannon, and American is suddenly not the rock it used to be. And I wonder if we ever again will be regarded in the same way.
That was where the post ended in 2010. The only thing I would amend is that the notion that “our economy was solid” was threatened during the 30s by the Great Depression, but we recovered and the Depression was seen as an anomaly and not as a purely American phenomenon by any means.
However, I would add that I don’t wonder any more. I’m relatively certain that will be considered undependable long into the future, and that the world will reflect that instability. Right now the strongest are jockeying for position, and does anyone on earth believe that the end result will be a safer, better world?
The damage will be irreversible on January 20, 2017. That’s the day Iran tests its nuke.
To answer your question, NO.
The last few months have been particularly brutal. With the exception of today’s ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme court, I have felt a bit bereft. I read a book once by Iain Pears called “The Dream of Scipio” and one of the characters in the book, Manlius Hippomanes contemplates the end of the world as he knows it. “it was Manlius who lived in a dream world, and his bubble of civility was becoming smaller and smaller. Caius Valerius , powerful member of a powerful family, had never even heard of Plato. A hundred, even fifty years before, such an absurdity would have been inconceivable. Now it was surprising if such a man did know anything of philosophy, and even if it was explained, he would not wish to understand.”
I feel like this is what is happending to the traditional beliefs and morality I grew up in. It is like cursive handwriting, a marker of another age. Mostly scorned and valued not at all.
Agreed. Obama, actually the American voter, has shown that America has become “fickle.”
I can never tell what Obama will do or say; even though I say nothing he does will surprise me; he still does or doesn’t do/say something that still surprises me.
I can only imagine what our allies/enemies must be thinking. “We just can’t figure out those crazy Americans!
Charles: So long as Obama is president, our allies/enemies will know exactly how to “figure out” those crazy American leaders.
I can only imagine what our allies/enemies must be thinking. “We just can’t figure out those crazy Americans!
That’s not what they are thinking.
Japan and other countries look to see how much sovereignty and status they lost by bowing down to American leadership, in return for security. Only to see that America only ever saw it as a tool to enslave those weaker than them, and at the end, wasn’t even good enough to do much security to begin with. Many people counseled against allowing foreigners, like America, too much say in domestic and foreign affairs, because that influence would only weaken the body politic of the natives.
Used to be Leftists were the Soviet’s weapon, used to discredit America and promote communism. Now a days, there’s nothing to promote, so they might as well discredit America by taking America over. There’s nothing that convince lesser nations that America is evil, than the Left making America into the Evil Empire that they said we were. A lie that becomes Truth, is a Truth.
Your ultimate question: Answer is, No, but a hell of a lot are pretending.
Who, of those around my age who had witnessed first hand, in the first decades of their lives, normality, convention, tradition, patriotism, dignity, honor, spirit, elegance, loveliness, charm, – a nation, would not now think they are living in the midst of a Juvenalian farce/satire? It’s one thing – the inmates taking control of the asylum; its altogether another for the delusional, the psychos, the fruits, and nuts, and the criminally insane – to run the country.
It should come as no surprise that the greater the height the greater the fall. That which had been bequeathed us by that first generation of colonials/citizens, the most sublime of socio/political organizations as ever was, has fallen with a thud and become ridiculous. Every time my anger gets the better of my sweet disposition, and I find myself in the mood for hanging culprits, I am left to consider, whom to hang? The insane (criminally)? Or those who’d given them superintendence?
“I’m not optimistic enough to be a socialist or a libertarian, but I do have fantasies about the government and big business killing each other in a knife fight.”
– Ann Sterzinger
But a prescription. That great sucking sound heard in 1972 was not the first legal abortion; it was the creation of a moral vacuum. When the moral argument for life, the value of life, the sanctity of life lost, ultimately, to an argument of convenience it ceased to be a weapon, utterly useless in ethical/moral combat. Does not, for the last fifty years, convenience trump… everything. Isn’t debt more convenient than thrift, the dole more convenient than work, victimhood more convenient than responsibility, passing the buck more convenient than accepting blame and on, and on, and ad infinitum.
I would guarantee it with my freedom and life. Rid the country of abortion. Our fall, despite all the Progressive inroads up to that time began with countenancing abortion. Take seriously the first of Life, Liberty, Happiness (perhaps the Founders’ only blunder — that word – Happiness). And watch as things turn, and things thought to be irretrievably lost are found. Retrieve morality from the dustbin and retrieve the country.
The recent revelation that Planned Parenthood was selling fetus body parts suggests that we have gone pretty far around the bend.
On the plus side we have great amounts of freshwater, oil and gas, navigable rivers, and agricultural lands. With the right leadership we might pull out, but the damage caused by education and the media could be long term.
When people migrate they take their culture with them. There are large numbers of people entering the U.S. that come from really ugly places.
Our former allies don’t trust us and our enemies laugh at us.
Ray,
Worse, a lot of people in Iraq who staked their lives and the lives of their loved ones on American leadership with the COIN “Surge” under Bush have suffered and died under Obama. Worse, those living are told by many Americans claim that the Iraqi suffering and death consequent to the American abandonment justify Obama abandoning them.
A lot of people around the world rely on the hope that US soldiers will stand by them as pledged, but if the US can abandon Iraq as Obama did, despite our commitment and stakes there, then the US can abandon anyone.
The morality writ large is the people who self-righteously justify the bystanders – including men! – who cowered at the end of the subway car and watched while Spires kicked and stabbed Sutherland to death with a 2-inch knife as Sutherland cried out for help and died a loud protracted death in the July 4 DC Metro incident.
Afghanistan was a dumping ground for patriots, that Hussein and other Leftists used to conveniently get rid of people. People they couldn’t have the guts to kill, but they could get killed conveniently.
That knowledge came from certain sources I had and deductions I made, around 2007. That would be how many years, 8 by now.
Try going that long and see what’ll happen to the often touted “bipartisanship deals” and “compromises with politics” for this once United States.
Afghanistan was a dumping ground for patriots, that Hussein and other Leftists used to conveniently get rid of people. People they couldn’t have the guts to kill, but they could get killed conveniently.
Hmmm … that exact same thought had come to me but I was told that I have a tendency to exaggerate and be somewhat extreme …
It comes down to pain and discomfort. Only when the level is high enough will they start noticing …
Sheep have been known to get lost, simply while nibbling on the grass — and never looking up….
Not retrievable by any means short of violent revolution.
The USA of old is a flame that has been extinguished, modest and obvious victories like the WI Supreme Court decision (below) notwithstanding.
We are polyglot, multiculti, multicolored, variously sexual, non-family, non-religious (except for mighty Islam), and getting poorer by the minute. In other words, a marvelously diverse welfare state.
Yahoo.
As noted in many comments, he has done long term, possibly irreparable, damage to our American stature, and to relations with important countries around the world. The brand, as the saying goes, is badly tarnished.
Beyond that he has driven wedges between segments of American society that may take generations to repair; if it is even possible.
President Quisling has exposed the fact that the Constitution is a gentlemen’s agreement: as in “gentlemen of honor.”
It doesn’t bind rat-b*stards very effectively, does it? And now they all know it. And will act accordingly from now on.
Evil has never been bound by the agreements of men.
That’s why they are evil. Did people think evil was going to abide by the agreement?
When they are in a position of weakness, they beg for mercy and it is given to them. When they are in a position of conqueror, they give no mercy. That is the rule this world has run on for a long time. America was only a mere exception, not the rule.
That is why the ancients said that to be kind to the cruel, is to be cruel to the kind. It takes guts to override logick.
Amen. On the level of international politics, there are very few true deal breakers. Oppress your people, torture your political opponents, even eat lobster with ketchup, there’s very little that can make you a pariah as long as you have any strategic value.
But the one, most important, deal breaker is to renege on your agreements. Once a nation does that, and especially when they do it without the excuse that it would have been too difficult to uphold the promises they broke, that nation proves for the rest of living memory that nothing they agree to can be trusted. Even ruthless pragmatists like Putin won’t even try to negotiate, because the actions of a nation that breaks its promises as egregiously as we have can’t be predicted.
If we were a tiny nation, we would be ignored by everyone until our government changed from top to bottom, and then treated as “barely trustworthy” until we rebuilt our reputation from nothing. As it is, we have ceased to be a force for good and are now a natural disaster that the rest of the world must weather, or be destroyed in the chaos of our fall.
Also for those that watch the Batman movies, you know what I’m talking about because you subject yourself to the same temporal and ethical paradox whenever Batman refuses to not only kill the Joker, but also refuses to disable the Joker by breaking his body, mind, tongue, or eyes. Even if a hero is restrained from killing, that doesn’t mean all their options to gutting evil is out. It just takes guts to do it.
To US allies, America is like the federal government. You must obey them… or else.
Your house blows up. SWAT raids you. The feds shoot you out of your land. They do a WACO on you and nothing bad happens to the executioners.
That’s how the world looks at America, in fear, awe, or some other strange mix of emotions. That’s why Europe wants to vote in American elections.
Once people saw that there was a people and a nation who could sacrifice so much, not for the present, but for the future generations, they naturally felt like it was okay to obey such a country. For they would be protected, just like in welfare. They would be protected, just like the feds protect us. In return for that protection, they are enslaved, they must obey America, or else. Some are fine with that, others hate it for they are patriots, and still others are traitors and wish for Communists to take over instead.
In this world, what would happen if America was taken over by evil overlords, and the world denizens saw what america’s power would be used for?
Do people really understand that Iraq and Afghanistan were America’s Last Chance at redemption coming from Vietnam? Do they really understand what was at stake?
No, they don’t, and never will.
Vietnam? Didn’t they attack Pearl Harbor?
Ymarsakar:
Actually, I think a lot of people understand exactly what was at stake. It was certainly talked about many years ago.
I wrote this about it in January of 2007:
And this is from November of 2006 [I’m leaving out the links, because they don’t go anywhere now, but they were to a column by David Warren]:
I’d say that David Warren was an excellent prognosticator. He was not alone. It was a deep fear of mine at the time, and it came true.
Our present rickl (I assume) is shown to be (not at all surprisingly) amazingly astute in the old thread (as is neo the keel).
Pablo (then) a voice of objectivity.
The human aspiration, meaning the hope and far less often struggle to be free, requiring both insight and charity, is too subtle for a BO.
The goodness and the depth of mind are beyond him (and his ilk).
BO does deserve credit. He may very well be a world historical figure. There may be no other close to his treachery.
The head of Syria years ago was an Israeli agent born into the job. He was defending.
BO is setting back humanity with his narcissism.
For years I have agreed with David Warren about many things, most of the time – and indeed, he was right about Iraq. But what else is new; America has not tried, really tried, for a clear cut victory in war since 1945. Whether it’s April 30, 1975 or July 14, 2015, the result was always the same. And now, of course, since 2009 it is perfectly predictable.
Neo, a few people here, which might become a relative majority, doesn’t mean the humans in the country consist of a “lot” of those who know this. They are vanishingly small and in the minority. Even the Swift Boats were a mere slice of the veteran community, which is a slice of the overall military community, which is a slice of the civilian world.
As for the leadership and the “elites”, it is less than a minority there.
A nation that is riddled with traitors and criminals at all levels, has two choices. Either change the world, and thus change themselves (Vietnam and Iraq attempts), or change themselves (by purging the traitors.
Of the two options, the former was the easier. Now that the former is unavailable, the latter becomes inevitable, even as a failure. The harder one has become eminent. The one Americans didn’t like to look at, because fighting at home is something they think foreign shock troops have to worry about.
In the 2010 post, nobody mentioned the existence of the Leftist alliance or any other such organization. People talked about nuking foreign enemies, but they weren’t ready to do it against a greater threat, an internal enemy.
That shows quite clearly the immaturity and “readiness” of America to deal with the threat and state of things, if even the most advanced and educated people on the internet didn’t even become aware of what was going on.
As a Canadian, I can agree with this. Conservative allies of the United States have indeed been disillusioned by the Obama presidency. Back in 2003 I disagreed with our government’s (Chretien, Liberal) refusal to support the Iraq invasion. After seeing the sacrifices the US and its allies made in Iraq being wasted by Obama, apparently with the approval of the American people, I would not be in favour of supporting the US in such an endeavor again. Nor can I see people in trouble zones like Iraq in the future being willing to assist the US, when they know that the Americans will eventually get tired and leave them to their fate.
Obama’s treatment of Canada in regard to the Keystone XL project too has hardly endeared him to Canadian conservatives. Conservatives in other allied countries (especially Israel and the UK) no doubt have similar feelings. Liberals in Canada and other countries, by contrast, still think Obama is doing a great job and, for them, America’s favourability ratings are probably higher than they have been for a while. But they won’t lift a finger to help in a crises. They never do.
Obama’s first term could have been forgiven, but when he was re-elected, the taint got transferred to the US as a whole I am afraid. Nothing is irreversible, but it will take a long time to rebuild the level of confidence that we used to have in the United States; however I am sure that allies like Canada and the UK will eventually get back to that level.
Not sure if Israel or America’s Arab allies like Egypt ever will though. Israel will stick around because it has no where else to go, but I can see Egypt switching sides at some point. The next administration should make it a top priority to try and reverse Obama’s treachery before it is too late.
Ymarsakar:
People might not have mentioned leftists in that thread, but the Left certainly was discussed before and after that, on this blog and others.
For example, many of my posts on changers involve the left (see this, for example) and how to try to combat it. Here’s another about the way the left works, and this, and this, and this, to take just a few examples. It was always a big topic here, and the prolific commenter “FredHJr” was an expert and especially into discussing it with many others.
These days, of course, commenter “eric” is very focused on it, and “Artfldgr” always has been.
Neo, there were individual exceptions, of course. The narrative wasn’t developed at a high level here, though. Things like that take time and community support. If Neo Neocon’s blog, that have people that have eyes that reach farther than anyone else in the elite halls of American government could, was at this low level of development back in 2010, what did that mean for the rest of the country?
There wasn’t any kind of agreement on what consisted of the Left’s logistical and military power. People read the comments there and here, but they didn’t agree with them openly. There were reasons for that, perhaps. But they didn’t disagree either, not that this blog gets much of that. There were people who had begun to lose faith in humanity and their fellow citizens, like G6 in the comments 2010. There were others like Geoffrey or M2, who were optimistic about their fellow Americans recovering or fighting to the “death” to preserve liberties.
There was no narrative, no consensus, no agreement. For the rest of America, it would be natural to assume that they were even more ignorant and fractured. Exactly how the Left likes to conquer, fracturing people.
People might not have mentioned leftists in that thread
The Left were mentioned and Lefty people were mentioned. What I’m referring to is the Leftist alliance being recognized as an actual entity, with its own intel, executive, logistical, and strategic levers in society. Recognizing a bunch of political kooks like the KKK and recognizing that the KKK is merely a terrorist organization of the Democrat totalitarian system in the South, are two different strategic positions to be in.
Ymarsakar:
Most people I know (most liberals) have no idea about the left, its strength, and its plans. Nor do they understand how they are used by it. Of that I agree.
But I certainly think most people on this blog are aware of the left as a group, and its power. I certainly was, although I am even more aware of it as time goes on. I think if people didn’t talk about the group aspects here explicitly, it was more because it was implicit. Whenever I write “the Left” (particularly when I use the upper case, which I don’t always remember to do), I mean the organized activist left.
Actually Lech Walesa, President of Poland said the same thing when Obama was elected in 2008. He, as well as all of us, recognized that his election was a disaster for the free world. That said let’s give the man credit. He recognized a rot that the rest of us never saw. Democracy is for a virtuous people as the foundling fathers said. It is certainty not for a people whose President is unafraid to present the public a plan for providing a-bombs to terrorists. The rot is from the bottom up. Obama just represents what the sad thing the US has become. And like a person, a society can only be changed by trauma. Unless something dramatic happens hedonism and cowardice, rather than freedom and might for right, is America’s new identity.
Considering that history is speeding up whatever happens may happen soon. Who thought that ten years ago we would be here.
Obama has instilled doubt. But to paraphrase a line from The Devil’s Advocate, “[doubt] is like a bag of bricks. All you have to do is put it down.”
We can’t make the doubt of foreign countries go away except by action. That builds trust. But we can eliminate our own paralysis instantly, if we wish.
I would add that maybe the rest of the world had become a bit too dependent on American “stability.” This might be for the best. Who knows?
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2015/07/america-is-new-carthage.html
Doubt?
They are certain we have lost. Many in that blog are foreigners, not Americans, even though they speak English.
VoxDay isn’t American either.
I would add that maybe the rest of the world had become a bit too dependent on American “stability.” This might be for the best. Who knows?
Giving a child room for independence is good. Selling the child to homo activists and having them rape the child every day for a decade, to “train them up”, isn’t good.