Polite conservatives grow nervous when their less inhibited brethren suggest that President Barack Obama does not feel warm and fuzzy when contemplating pre-Obama-inauguration America. But considering the mounting evidence, the burden of proof has certainly shifted to the polite group to demonstrate otherwise.
Obama should not get off the hook in just one short news cycle for the shots he took at this nation in his shameful first speech to the United Nations General Assembly.
In his opening salvo, he said, "For those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months." Then he proceeded to tick off those "concrete actions," such as prohibiting torture -- as if to suggest that prior to his ascension, it had been official U.S. policy.
Note that he didn't say, "For those who question America's character, I cite to you our record of international philanthropy, benevolence, peacemaking and peacekeeping, liberating nations from brutal dictators, promoting democracy throughout the world, and leading the world in technological innovation and the very advancement of civilization."
Instead, he made it clear that he shares the view of the world's leftist critics that America has acted "unilaterally without regard for the interests of others," "arrogant" and "sometimes dismissive."
But if you nervous types still believe it is "over the top" to suggest Obama is not particularly fond of America's founding principles and freedom tradition, could you at least concede that he disdains American exceptionalism and prefers that this nation not be the world's sole superpower? Or that he believes Americans possess an immoral amount of the world's wealth and is not especially protective of America's national sovereignty?
Obama isn't content merely engaging in a scheme to radically redistribute the income and wealth of Americans internally (to the tune of some $1 trillion from the top 30 percent of income earners to the lower 70 percent through his proposals on taxes, health care and the environment, according to the Tax Foundation). He also believes Americans should be compelled to redistribute their resources to the world's poor, as well.
Is that over the top, too? Well, do you remember when Obama said the following in Chicago on Oct. 2, 2007? "In the 21st century, progress must mean more than a vote at the ballot box; it must mean freedom from fear and freedom from want. We cannot stand for the freedom of anarchy. Nor can we support the globalization of the empty stomach. We need new approaches to help people to help themselves. The United Nations has embraced the Millennium Development Goals, which aim to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015. When I'm president, they will be America's goals. The Bush administration tried to keep the U.N. from proclaiming these goals; the Obama administration will double foreign assistance to $50 billion to lead the world to achieve them. In the 21st century, we cannot stand up before the world and say that there's one set of rules for America and another for everyone else."
True to his word, though barely reported, Obama made this statement in his U.N. speech: "We have fully embraced the Millennium Development Goals." I'm not sure where he got the authority to make that unilateral declaration, but he nonetheless made it. I guess now that he's president, he can sometimes just issue fiats instead of having to deal with the cumbersome legislative process -- such as when he had difficulty as senator getting his Global Poverty Act passed. That bill would have committed the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of the U.S.' gross domestic product on foreign aid, amounting to $845 billion more than the U.S. already spends.
So why do you suppose the evil Bush administration opposed the innocuous-sounding "Millennium Development Goals"?
Well, how about its multi-pronged assault on America's national sovereignty? It commits participating nations to be bound by the International Criminal Court treaty; support regional disarmament measures for small arms and light weapons; and press for the full implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which Wikipedia describes as "an international legally binding treaty" that includes among its goals a "fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources," the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, described as "an international bill of rights for women," and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which purports to be a "legally binding international instrument" that gives children the right to express their own opinions "freely in all matters affecting the child" and requires those opinions be given "due weight."
The Millennium Declaration also affirms the U.N. as "the indispensable common house of the entire human family, through which we will seek to realize our universal aspirations for peace, cooperation and development."
Indeed, under President Obama, "We Are the World."