Sunday, October 25, 2009

Is he a Marxist? - correction

In a recent blog post I wrote about a a thesis that President Obama produced while at Columbia. I checked this report out on Snopes and found no information regarding whether it was true or false, and I have found Snopes to be very reliable.

One of my readers pointed out that this quote from Obama's thesis may be a hoax. So I checked it out further and find that it was written as "satire". So in the interest of keeping this blog accurate I now believe the thesis quote was not made by Obama, and I certainly do not want to come across as a "right wing extremist".

This does not change the other points in the blog, so I ask again - is he a Marxist? You make the call.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Is he a Marxist?

President Obama has been called a Socialist, a Marxist, and even a Communist. And of course these accusations are normally attributed to the "radical right wing" in this country. But if you look at Obama's history with Reverend Wright for 20 years, his past association with Louis Farrakhan and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, and the many left wing thinkers in his administration, it surely makes you think about his philosophy. Add to this his push for government run health care, along with his government takeover of two out of the three US auto companies, the takeover of several major banks, and the out of control "stimulus" spending that has driven the national debt to unheard of levels. But with the main stream media behind him, when Obama's policies result in accusations of promoting socialism, these accusations are just written off as "right wing rhetoric".

It's hard to find out how Obama thinks because his history, his writings, his speeches, and even his interviews and press conferences are so tightly controlled that we really do not know what this man thinks.

But recently, several pages from one of Obama's college theses at Columbia have surfaced and some of his writings in this thesis are quite interesting. Here is an excerpt from that thesis. I have put single quotes and highlighted some of the interesting thoughts:

"... the Constitution allows for many things, but what it does not allow is the most revealing. The 'so-called' Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is 'supposedly' a cornerstone of the document, the 'distribution of wealth' is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy."

These are very interesting writings by the man who was to become the President of this country:

In this thesis he refers to Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton etc. as the "so-called" Founders of our country. When I read this quote I actually sat down and read the Constitution again today. And I must say, the Founders of this country would not believe the American public elected this man President.

Second, Obama states that political freedom is "supposedly" a cornerstone of the Constitution, and that the Constitution does not even mention the "distribution of wealth".

If "distribution of wealth" is not classic Marxist or Communist philosophy, I don't know what is. Obama seems to have missed the Bill of Rights in his thesis. This country, starting with nothing, became the most powerful economic force in the world because individuals had the opportunity to show that hard work and innovation could make them wealthy - and many of them started with nothing. Now our President and his administration would like to "redistribute" that wealth.

Is he a Marxist? You make the call.