Posted by
jarhead on Friday, February 29, 2008 4:38:17 PM
I'm just reading Plato's 'The Republic'. The definition of leaders is quite interesting and has a great deal of value in addressing the probable contenders for the Presidency. Plato proposes that the rulers must be those most concerned with good of the community and with its continued existance. He also proposes that it is most wise to have had the passage of time, replete with experiences, with which to determine if such leaders truley possess the character and ability to carry out the leadership role. Plato even proposes that such leaders must be tested and not found wanting.
First we must understand that America is the greatest nation on earth by any measure to be taken. While it has traveled a flawed path littered with slavery, the oppression of Indians and and any number of other misteps it has succeeded steadily in remedying, and if not redressing at least accepting, those flaws and moving on. The means by which it has succeeded over the centuries has been to, by and large, follow the concepts set forth by our Founding Fathers. Plato would also have us understand that making substantial changes to a communities founding principles is the best way to assure its eventual downfall. What are these founding principles and what have they to do with Obama?
The principles are elegantly simple and, in the Declaration of Independance, "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", our Founding Fathers were seeking to establish a nation consisting of Men and Women who were independant in spirit and independant in their Pursuit of Happiness. Our Founding Fathers, should you care to read their various papers, had every intention that government be limited, that government be responsive to the will of the people and that it would be up to each and every one of its citizens to succeed or fail based upon their own merits and abilities looking to government only for those basics as set forth in the Preamble-'establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity..". Nowhere is it set forth that those who do succeed, the Rich, are to be punished and have their assets taken for distribution to those who have less success, an idea which both Obama and Clinton propose in their 'tax the rich' agenda. And that taxing, while intended to fund many well intentioned programs, will accomplish only two possible outcomes. First of course the wealth of the successful, rather than being put to work for the good of the community, will instead be put into the coffers of the government from which there is largely never any benefit to anyone but the self promoting bureauracracies that spring up to spend the new found money. Second, and most un-American of all, is the fact that we are all human and the more we are given the less we need and less we feel the need to work for our own greater success. These sorts of tax and spend schemes only serve to undermine and discourage that great foundation of our nation-its independant hard working citizens.
As to testing Barack Obama, while possessing little experience of value in judging his capacity to lead this nation, has been tested. He has been tested in the political arena by those he has chosen to associate with. In Mr. Ayers, who should be serving multiple life sentences for the random murder and attempted murder of our citizens and public servants, Barack has found a political ally and fellow traveler. How can one possibly believe he is serious about protecting America from terrorism when his associates include terrorists? How could anyone beleive he holds the basic principles of our great nation in high esteem when he associates with those would promote anarchy and destroy this great nation from within? So to with his church, its pastor and their elevation of Louis Farrakan. The concepts of a nation of laws, of a nation of equality of opportunity for all regardless of race, creed, color or gender lies in stark contrast to what Ayers and Farrakan stand for.
Contrast Barack, his associations and his lack of any otherwise defining acts with those of John McCain, a man who served his country long and well under arms, who refused to accept a return to freedom from his tortured years long imprisonment because he would not leave his fellow service men behind. McCain also has a long and storied record of achievement in the public arena stretching over decades during which he has always kept the best interests of his community uppermost (although I do disagree with some of his positions). He has held his positions steadfastly regardless of political damage and that integrity, his faithfulness to our founding principles and his proven courage in the face of supreme mental and physical challenges clearly meet with Plato's tests. Barack Obama has no qualifications, no experience and, by virture of his very dubious associations, not the character to be President of the United States.