Two stories on Obama showing his true colors.
The ugly face of liberalism
By Selwyn Duke
It has been interesting watching the response to the Honduran military's recent ousting its nation's president, Manuel Zelaya. Barack Obama called the action "not legal" and Hillary Clinton said that the arrest of Zelaya should be condemned. Most interesting, perhaps, is that taking this position places them shoulder to shoulder with Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega and Venezuelan's roaring mouse, Hugo Chavez, who is threatening military action against Honduras. Now, some would say this is an eclectic group - others would say, not so much - regardless, what has gotten them so upset?
Let's start with what they say. They are calling the ouster a "coup" and claim that Zelaya is still Honduras' rightful president. Some of them say we must support democracy. But they have said little, if anything, about the rule of law. And most of what they have said is wrong.
First, it doesn't appear that Sunday's ouster was a military coup but a law enforcement action. It is not a military strongman who sought extra-legal control, but Zelaya himself. Here is the story.
Zelaya is a leftist, a less precocious version of Chavez, sort of like the Venezuelan's Mini-me. And, like Chavez, it's seems that Zelaya was bent on perpetuating his rule and increasing his power in defiance of the rule of law. That is to say, the Honduran Constitution limits presidents to one four-year term, and this wasn't quite enough to satisfy Zelaya's ambitions. So he sought to amend the constitution, which may sound okay, except for one minor detail. Mary Anastasia O'Grady in the Wall Street Journal explains:
While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.
But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.
The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.
. . . the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.
However, like so many apparent megalomaniacs, Zelaya greatly overestimated his popularity. The groundswell of citizen support he had counted on didn't materialize; thus, his law breaking could not be sanitized by consensus making. The military then arrested him, acting under orders from legitimate civilian authorities and in defense of the rule of law. The good guys won . . . at least for now.
Also note that the military confined itself to its prescribed police action and is not running the country. The new president is 63-year-old Roberto Micheletti, a member of Zelaya's own Liberal Party. Moreover, elections are still planned for this November.
Micheletti also enjoys wide support, from the rank-and-file to the those breathing rarified air in elite institutions. As for Zelaya, while you may not be able to please all of the people all of the time, he certainly seems to have been able to displease them. He not only alienated the Congress, Supreme Court, the people and the attorney general -- who also declared the referendum illegal and vowed to prosecute anyone facilitating it -- he is also opposed by the Catholic Church and many evangelicals. Really, no one seems to like him.
No one, that is, but Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega.
Oh, and let's not forget Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are, anyone?
In fact, Obama's position is striking. More than almost anything else -- almost anything -- this dance with the Devil reveals his true colors. Sure, he was criticized over his handling of Iran, but even I will say there are two sides. After all, you could make the case that overt support for the protesters would provide the clerics and President Ahmadinejad with invaluable propaganda material. And Obama looked foolish when he paraded about the world issuing mea culpas on behalf of big bad America, but, hey, that's a reflection of the standard liberal America-as-villain narrative. I don't think it surprised too many people. But, as bad as Obama has been, this occupies a different realm all together. And I think most fail to appreciate the gravity of what I will not even call a policy, but an offense.
Obama has sided with a thug, a man who -- for completely self-serving reasons -- sought to subvert his nation's constitution. Obama has sided with a man who -- like Pancho Villa on a cross-border raid -- lead a mob in an effort to execute this illegal scheme. And Obama does this while paying lip service to democracy, even as he imperils it; he claims to stand for freedom, even while supporting those who would extinguish it. It is un-American. It is ugly. It is, in a word, evil.
Yet it doesn't surprise me. Some may think the issue is simply that, although Obama despises Zelaya's tactics, he is driven to support a fellow traveler. Others may think that Obama wants to support a fellow traveler and is indifferent about the tactics. Neither is entirely correct. In point of fact, Zelaya has certain tactics. Obama has certain tactics.
And they are largely the same.
In fact, they are shared by virtually all leftists.
Ignoring the rule of law, manipulating the Constitution, acting as if the end justifies the means . . . . Sound familiar? This is standard left doctrine.
Examining this further, let's look at two comments Obama and H. Clinton made about Honduras. Obama said that the U.S. would "stand on the side of democracy" and Clinton said, "we have a lot of work to do to try to help the Hondurans get back on the democratic path . . . ." These comments reflect a common theme. There is gratuitous emphasis on democracy, but what of the rule of law? What of recognition that, technically, Honduras and the U.S. are not democracies but constitutional republics? We don't hear much talk about these things from liberals, and I have a theory as to why.
Of course, such comments are often simply rhetoric, but there can be a deeper reason as well. Democracy, in the strict sense of the word, refers to direct rule by the people. Another way to put it is that it's rule based on the people's whims. Now, liberals are relativists, which means they don't believe in Truth, in natural law, in anything beyond man that determines morality. Instead, relativism involves the idea that what people once called morals are merely values, which, in turn, are just a function of a people's consensus opinion. It then follows that the impositions of values known as civil laws cannot be based on anything outside of man, either; they also are simply a function of opinion, be it the consensus variety or that of those with clout. In other words, liberals believe as the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras did, that "Man is the measure of all things."
Now let's say you accept this. When constitutional mandates, or laws, then contradict that "measure of all things," that democratic body, with which will you likely side? This explains why liberals find it unfathomable that anyone would let "a piece of paper" stand in the way of a popular -- or politically correct -- social change. "Why, you have to be a simpleton to let a law forestall progress!" is the idea. And from their simplistic, shallow perspective it makes sense. If laws originate with opinion, anyway, why would you let them stand in the way of the dominant opinion when the latter changes?
Yet, at the end of the day, liberals aren't any more beholden to popular will than to laws, as they scoff at it when it contradicts politically-correct will. And there is a good reason for this. Liberals don't view democracy as an absolute because there is no such thing in a relativistic world, but they at least view it. That is to say, they know popular will is real but believe God's will (Truth) is imaginary. And what exists takes precedence over what doesn't.
But in a world without absolutes, what takes precedence over all? Well, without any unchanging yardstick for making moral decisions -- without Truth to provide answers -- liberals have only one thing to refer to: Their mercurial master, feelings. But whose feelings shall hold sway? They may sometimes be those of the majority of people (expressed as "values"), especially insofar as their feelings influence liberals' feelings. But, then again, the feelings might also be those of most liberals' favorite people -- and the ones they fancy the smartest -- themselves. This is what engenders the elitism that justifies trumping popular will; after all, liberals' own feelings always feel more "right" to them than other people's.
Put simply, it's a question of whose will shall prevail, the popular, politically correct or personal? When man is the measure of all things, the man in the mirror usually trumps your fellow man.
Speaking of feelings, one that could be instrumental here is fear. What I mean is, we all understand the power of precedent. And along with Chavez, Obama seems to dislike the idea of a military upholding its nation's constitution and ousting a would-be tyrant. I wonder why?
americanthinker.com
Obama's True Colors Shine in Honduras
By Kyle-Anne Shiver
\President Obama squirmed and weaseled his words with the Iranian Mullahs and their puppet-tyrant, Ahmadinejad, not wanting to be seen as meddling in a tyrannical theocracy, known throughout the world as beneath-contempt oppressors of every human right under the sun. No, no, no, it just wouldn't do to publicly lend support to all those moderate, freedom-loving throngs of Iranians taking to the streets, risking life and limb for more liberty. Not until the Iranians killed demonstrators on camera, the pictures went round the world, and criticism of himself mounted at home, did this President put his hands on his hips and use the words, "appalled" and "outraged."
And the words that quickly came to my own mind as Obama gave this tiny, petulant nod to liberty: "Wimp in Chief."
This week, the Honduran socialist president, seeking to eviscerate his country's constitution in a shameless power-grab, has evoked Obama's true colors, and spread them out like yellow underwear on a backyard clothesline.
Obama's response to the Honduran military removing a dictator-wannabe from office (at the behest, it must be noted, of the Supreme Court and the Honduran Congress), and escorting him to the border, was sure and fast. He declared the military action an "illegal coup" faster than you can say Fidel Castro. And just as quickly the rest of the region's socialist gang chimed in too. The real Castro brothers. Hugo Chavez. Daniel Ortega.
Birds of a feather do tend to flock together.
Bullies, of all stripes, don't you know, are really just cowards at heart -- yellow down to their measly cores -- which is why they must cling together in gangs and collectives. They haven't the courage or fortitude for independence. Neither do they support individual liberties or constitutions that interfere with their quest for power.
Such is the obvious case with the now-exiled Honduran ex-president, the man our President has backed quickly, forthrightly, and with sharp, meddling tones. It has come to light, too, that even before the Hondurans moved to protect their still-fledgling democracy and young constitution, the Obama Administration made behind-the-scenes, veiled threats in support of the Chavez-aligned Zelaya.
Of course, as was to be expected, the OAS has given its full backing to the now-exiled socialist. The OAS has, for years now, been on a leftist tack and clearly do not want one of their own kind stopped in his tracks. Especially not now, when leaders -- even our own President -- have paved the way for Castro's readmission and Chavez is on a tear in Venezuela.
For even more evidence that the international socialist collective is still alive and well, I turned to the Communist Party USA, to check out their response to the Honduran situation. And, there it is in ignoble glory. The Communist Party USA is in agreement with President Obama and even has some of the same demands of the Honduran people:
Demands that president Zelaya and other members of his government be returned to power immediately, and that the troops return to their barracks.
Recognizes that the Obama administration has repudiated the coup, and insists that President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton hold firm to this position, refusing diplomatic recognition and any military aid to Honduras until President Zelaya is restored to power.
Calls upon unions and other people's organizations in the United States to actively support our brothers and sisters in Honduras in resisting this brutal military coup d'etat.
Now would be an awfully good time, I think, to remember the alliances struck in the past few years between Chavez and Ahmadinejad. Last July, Bloomberg reported on the growing partnership between the two OPEC member states, Venezuela and Iran:
Chavez is a vocal supporter of Iran's nuclear program, which is under United Nations sanctions because of fear among the U.S. and its allies that it may be used to build atomic weapons.
Iran and Venezuela are to sign some 20 agreements in various fields during Chavez's visit to Iran, according to the official news agency IRNA. Chavez's visit to the Islamic republic is the third since Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005, Iran's local media reported.
Chavez, the socialist, and Ahmadinejad, the IslamoFascist, have become quite chummy. Chavez has threatened military action against the Hondurans to restore his pal, Zelaya, to power. Obama had to be pressured at home before he became "appalled" at the Iranian crackdown, but quickly came to the side of Chavez in the Honduran dispute. There seems to be a pattern here.
We now have had six months to observe the actions and words of President Obama in relations with foreign countries. Here's a brief recap:
Obama has routinely snubbed our traditional, democratic allies, from Great Britain to France to Germany, and most pointedly, Israel.
Obama dispatched Secretary of State Clinton to communist China very early on to reassure them that human rights considerations would not get in the way of our trade with them.
Obama made his American apology tour across Europe, pausing only to bow on camera before the Saudi King.
Obama gave his suck-up-to-Islam speech in Cairo, being sure to credit Muslims with historical achievements purely made up from whole cloth, using the Muslim-only greeting of respect, and repeating the phrase "holy Koran" at every opportunity.
Obama was as slow on the draw as conceivably possible to vocally condemn the brutish actions of the Iranian Mullahcracy against its citizens clamoring for freedoms and human rights. Obama continues to insist that negotiations with the Iranian regime are still on the table.
Obama is quick on the draw to side with the world's socialist dictators against the defense of democracy taking place now in Honduras.
President Barack Obama's true self has been revealed in vivid Technicolor throughout the past six months. He has aligned himself with bullies and tyrants around the globe, both IslamoFascists and members of the international socialist collective. Despite their theoretical differences, these regimes share one glaring, common belief: America is responsible for all the suffering and injustice throughout the world. This overriding disgust with America holds together these disparate, radical regimes.
As David Horowitz summarized in Unholy Alliance:
"Radicalism is a cause whose utopian agendas result in an ethic where the ends outweigh and ultimately justify any means. Like the Salvationist agendas of jihad, the Left's apocalyptic goal of ‘social justice' is the equivalent of an earthly redemption. A planet saved, a world without poverty, racism, inequality, or war -- what means would not be justified to achieve such millennial ends?"
Two disparate forces - IslamoFascism and Socialism -- seemingly united on a tyrannical bent against freedom, against democracy and human rights, have formed a flank against America. And upon whose side does our own President stand?
An American president aligned in spirit with our sworn enemies?
Is it possible?
It would appear so.
Kyle-Anne Shiver is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. She welcomes your comments at kyleanneshiver.com.
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