On radio this morning, Glenn spent the opening few minutes looking at the political philosophy of Barack Obama and what his policies reveal about the role of government. Unsurprisingly, he finds Obama to be one of the worst big government progressives of all time. But how bad is it? Worse than you'd think.
He started off by referencing a quote from Ross Douthat from a New York Times opinion piece:
“[T]he slide show’s vision of the individual’s relationship to the state seems designed to vindicate every conservative critique of the Obama-era Democratic Party. The liberalism of “the Life of Julia” doesn’t envision government spending the way an older liberalism did — as a backstop for otherwise self-sufficient working families, providing insurance against job loss, decrepitude and catastrophic illness. It offers a more sweeping vision of government’s place in society, in which the individual depends on the state at every stage of life, and no decision — personal, educational, entrepreneurial, sexual — can be contemplated without the promise that it will be somehow subsidized by Washington.”
Glenn said this is a much more eloquent way of summarizing Barack Obama's philosophy than he would ever be able to articulate it.
He then played Obama's shocking audio regarding individual success:
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
Glenn then brought out letters written by the Wright Brothers describing how they had their first successful flight. "Nowhere in any of this documentation does it say about how exactly the government helped them," Glenn said.
"The President would have you believe that somebody else if it wasn't for the Wright brothers somebody else would have come up with this because there was a road that led to Kitty Hawk. The President would have you to believe that the Wright brothers were no different than anybody else. That Henry Ford was no different than anybody else. That Sam Walton was no different. Bill Gates no different than you or me," Glenn said.
Glenn referenced the idea that if you put a monkey in a room with a typewriter and give them infinite time, it would eventually type the complete works of Shakespeare.
"We each have unique talent," Glenn said. "But the President would have you to believe we're all monkeys. If the government would give us all computers we'd all eventually write the Bible. I got news for you. That's a lie. It's a lie. And it's the most dangerous lie there is. Because once we stop recognizing our uniqueness we no longer can claim the blessings that belong to us as individuals. We no longer claim the responsibility that is laid at our feet as individuals."
Glenn went back to Douthat's quote, talking about how all choices "personal, educational, entrepreneurial, sexual" will be subsidized by the government.
"You want to have sex great. Here's birth control," Glenn said as an example.
"But he's not talking about the control part of it and that's the part that we need to focus on. The control part of it. And they already look at how they control us. Healthcare. Healthcare controls us almost every step of the way.It will control you through your religion. It will control you through the decisions that you make. It controls you on the choices of your doctor. It controls who lives or dies in the end. Healthcare at work. It controls your employer."
"It is a cap on anything. It's mediocrity."
"They have your financial information and they will control you through financial regulation. They're controlling your personal information with the new credit bureau that is now out. It's outside the framework of the constitution, and outside the Fed, and outside the treasury. They control all students loans so they control where you go, how you get the money, and how you pay it back. They already control our schools. By proxy they control the media and they want to do it literally. They want to control the Internet."
Glenn said these were all their words, not Glenn's.
"They control your interest rates through the Fed. They control the travel through the TSA. Who flies, and who doesn't. Who's on a no fly list, and who's not. How you fly."
"They control the language through political correctness."
"They control Congress. They control the justice system. What laws we enforce. What laws we don't."
"I bring this up because I want you to have a chat with your friends how much they control. They control energy. They control financial. They control business. They control labor. They control your health. They control education. They control your sexual habits. They control your church. They control everything now."
"This is the point in this election if we do not set it right America does not survive. No ifs, ands or buts. America will be America in name only. The fundamental transformation will be complete in the next term. America does not survive one more term of Barack Obama. It doesn't happen."