President Obama’s Remarks at Ohio State

by Tina Grazier

The President spoke to Ohio students recently and it’s clear from his remarks that he listens to his critics. Well, I doubt he actually listens himself but his support team certainly does. Those who oppose his policies need only repeat a current theme and the President will show up in some venue, usually in front of college students, to explain how what they are hearing from his opponents is all wrong. I think it makes him appear small but as we have seen, it seems to work pretty well for him. After four years of an economy that stinks this man was enthusiastically reelected with about 60% of the youth vote. This is incredible! College grads are working for minimum wage at Taco Bell…if they can even find a job…they are living back home with mom…I would think this generation would be seeking out alternative ideas! Yet they still show up to applaud the soaring rhetoric that has become the mainstay for the eternal campaigner.

President Obama was elected to lead our nation, not his party. He promised to bring people together, not divide them. Yet at every turn he has worked for his party over the nation using his, now famous, divisive approach. Since campaigning and agitating are this man’s resume we shouldn’t be surprised by his constant campaign style, but I’m not sure everyone who voted for him expected him to be such a poor leader. I think they believed him when he spoke of bringing people together. I think they believed him when he said he would cut the deficit and create jobs. But he has broken these promises…and he always resorts to class or race warfare; he always positions himself as smart and his opponents as “other”. I expect this in the midst of campaigns but not in the leader of the nation. I’m particularly affronted when our President speaks in this way before young people. An example can be found in recent remarks to Ohio State College students:

Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.
We have never been a people who place all of our faith in government to solve our problems; we shouldn’t want to. But we don’t think the government is the source of all our problems, either. Because we understand that this democracy is ours. And as citizens, we understand that it’s not about what America can do for us; it’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government. And, Class of 2013, you have to be involved in that process.

The founders trusted us with this awesome authority. We should trust ourselves with it, too. Because when we don’t, when we turn away and get discouraged and cynical, and abdicate that authority, we grant our silent consent to someone who will gladly claim it. That’s how we end up with lobbyists who set the agenda; and policies detached from what middle-class families face every day; the well-connected who publicly demand that Washington stay out of their business — and then whisper in government’s ear for special treatment that you don’t get.

That’s how a small minority of lawmakers get cover to defeat something the vast majority of their constituents want. That’s how our political system gets consumed by small things when we are a people called to do great things — like rebuild a middle class, and reverse the rise of inequality, and repair the deteriorating climate that threatens everything we plan to leave for our kids and our grandkids.

First things first, Mr. President, we have a republic, not a democracy. Our republic was founded to serve and unify the various states: providing for a common defense, securing liberty, and providing a legal structure to settle disputes. Some of your more communal friends have made sure that students have been misinformed about that for more than a couple of generations but, it is still a republican form of government we were given:

The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” – Benjamin Franklin

I have to ask, does our President know we have a republic or does he simply choose to ignore that we are a republic? Is the fact that we are a republic a problem, given his agenda to fundamentally transform this country? Is it responsible for a man serving as president to misinform and misrepresent the nation he serves before a group of college students? It is, at the very least, factually errant.

But let’s examine some of the remarks the President made in Ohio taken from the excerpt above.
He begins by denigrating some of his fellow citizens for having different views. He then whines that people who are opposed to big government solutions and oppose his ideas are only “gumming up the works because they have the nerve to say so! Does the President not understand the value of free speech and petition?

President Obama goes on to implore these students to reject opposing voices. Is this really a grown up thing to say to college students? Wouldn’t it be more adult to suggest students should examine all political positions and decide for themselves? These words are unseemly for a sitting president. Unfortunately, they don’t represent the worst of his remarks:

And as citizens, we understand that it’s not about what America can do for us; it’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government.

The President suggests that government is the route by which everything that “can be done by us, together” is accomplished. This is, pardon the expression, a tyrannical view of our Republic. Our republic was founded on individual liberty, the right to be free from authoritative kings, to have the space to freely pursue happiness as we see fit. We are not compelled by our Constitution to “work together”. In fact, it was expected that we would be at odds and disagree which is why we were given a republic and separate branches of government rather than a democracy. The President attempts to incorporate the idea of freedom into his communal message when he asserts “hard” and “frustrating” work “together” is the necessary stuff of “self-government”. But this is such an arrogant machination that presupposes the Presidents views are, by their very nature, always right. One might say it’s downright kingly on his part to twist the meaning behind the words of our founding.

But there’s more to consider; let’s move on:

Because when we don’t, when we turn away and get discouraged and cynical, and abdicate that authority, we grant our silent consent to someone who will gladly claim it. That’s how we end up with lobbyists who set the agenda; and policies detached from what middle-class families face every day; the well-connected who publicly demand that Washington stay out of their business — and then whisper in government’s ear for special treatment that you don’t get.

Is he kidding? Does he not recall his promotion of green energy businesses like Solyndra? Does he believe no one noticed when he awarded a large share of GM and Chrysler to the unions, fleecing bond holders in the process? How about the waivers that were granted certain businesses in ObamaCare? Or his appointment to the National Labor Relations Board, a former union head? Wasn’t it the CEO of one of the biggest companies in the country, General Electric, that had his ear representing business interests? And then there’s good ol’ Warren Buffet who gladly played the clown to hock tax hikes for the President, knowing his company would benefit. How about the corporations that donated to his relelection and paid for his inauguration?

Does this man think he’s invisible?

Finally, our President resorts to the only thing he knows and we’re back to campaigning:

That’s how our political system gets consumed by small things when we are a people called to do great things — like rebuild a middle class, and reverse the rise of inequality, and repair the deteriorating climate that threatens everything we plan to leave for our kids and our grandkids.

Mmmm…sure…what-ever! Just throw a few billion more at green energy companies that go bankrupt and a few billion more into the college loan fund and the middle class will be magically “rebuilt”!

The President’s soaring rhetoric attempts to mimic the leadership of former President Ronald Reagan but this toy replica lacks both the foundational principles and the leadership qualities to pull it off. He has no idea how things work in the business world or the republic. He does not experience the true magic behind the entrepreneurial spirit. The middle class could and would rebuild itself if the big, complex, costly, intrusive, government were reformed and downsized…if it just got the heck out of the way. Given free space and a clear path the middle class citizens of America will build wealth for themselves and for others with creativity and enthusiasm. And if our government restrains itself and lets the people keep what they earn, the fruits of their labors, they might even grow the economy enough to make our nation strong once more. It might sound like a novel idea to college students that have been brainwashed into the communal mindset of the collective “we” but it is an idea that is steeped in the heritage of those who came before us to create this great republic when they devised the Constitution which begins, “We the people…”,  not we the group or we the government.

Note to college students: Explore your American heritage. Embrace freedom as the ideal and individual responsibility as the means to best defend individual rights and opportunitites. A nation of strong individuals naturally creates a strong, vibrant, productive nation.

Source of the Presidents remarks: Jonah Golberg – National Review