Reason #603 Why I Wish I Could Vote for Obama:
In his own words:
At least some of the decline in [political] civility arises from the fact that, from the press’s perspective, civility is boring. Your quote doesn’t run if you say, “I see the other guy’s point of view†or “The issue’s really complicated.†Go on the attack, though, and you can barely fight off the cameras.
—Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope (2006), p. 126
When Democrats rush up to me at events and insist that we live in the worst of political times, that a creeping fascism is closing its grip around our throats, I may mention the internment of Japanese Americans under FDR, the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams, or a hundred years of lynching under several dozen administrations as having been possibly worse, and suggest we all take a deep breath.
—Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope (2006), p. 21
I am angry about policies that consistently favor the wealthy and powerful over average Americans, and insist that government has an important role in opening up opportunity to all. I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry, and global warming; I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or not, and I am suspicious of using government to impose anybody’s religious beliefs—including my own—on nonbelievers.
Furthermore, I am a prisoner of my own biography: I can’t help but view the American experience through the lens of a black man of mixed heritage, forever mindful of how generations of people who looked like me were subjugated and stigmatized, and the subtle and not so subtle ways that race and class continue to shape our lives.
I also think that my party can be smug, detached, and dogmatic at times. I believe in free market, competition, and entrepreneurship, and think no small number of government programs don’t work as advertised. I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers.
I think America has often been a force for good than for ill in the world. I carry few illusions about our enemies, and revere the courage and competence of our military. I reject a politics that is based solely on racial identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or victimhood generally. I think much of what ails the inner city involves a breakdown in culture that will not be cured by money alone, and that our values and spiritual life matter at least as much as our GDP.
—Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope (2006), p. 10-11
HT: Joshua Sowin