That sounds like something an adjunct lecturer at the University of Chicago might say in his classroom, one who believes that America is more a force for evil than for good, and one who doesn't know that Communism really does take away everyone's property, and their basic rights as well. It sounds nothing like what any American President should believe. And, based on the record of his time as State Senator, US Senator and US President, we can safely guess that the President’s idea of “what works” would be about 180 degrees away from what actually has worked in America for the past 240 years or so – and also would be more in tune with “what works” in Marxist theory or the wishful thinking of socialists everywhere, rather than the disasters produced by Communism and socialism in practice.
As we have written many times before, Barack Obama has spent his entire adult life opposing those things which have made America what it is, and he, typical of self-absorbed academics who find it distasteful to associate with people who champion the values of the Founding Fathers, hasn’t shifted his perspective since he became President. He refused to defend America from slanders spoken by Raul Castro in Cuba; he probably said very similar things when he was an adjunct lecturer. He would never have dreamed of calling the Soviet Union an “evil empire,”and would have thought it unseemly and provocative to admonish Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” The President continues to bend over backwards to “understand” or even to sympathize with anyone who opposes American values or American power; again, not far removed from what went on in that college classroom. The President likes to appear “cool” and detached – not wedded to any outdated virtues such as patriotism (after all, academics such as he believe “the highest patriotism” is to oppose the policies of the US government – that is, when conducted by Republicans. But when those policies are their own, they believe that any opposition or dissent is unpatriotic, or sexist or racist).
The freest market should be the marketplace of ideas, yet his is an administration that seriously is talking about bringing charges against anyone who disagrees with “climate change.” The President disregards Congress as much as possible, and when it won’t vote his way, he imposes an executive order that circumvents (or even flouts) the will of Congress. His Supreme Court is “one justice away” from overturning the Second Amendment to the Constitution – and not in the way that the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) was overturned - through another amendment, but instead by judicial fiat. And, speaking of the Court, the President had no problem with filibustering a Republican nominee to the Court at a time the Democrats were in the minority, but raises the roof if the Senate won’t consider his nominee, at a time when the Democrats are in the minority. We can’t say for sure if the President has any great problem with having non-citizens vote in US elections – but he surely does have a great problem with laws that prevent non-citizens from voting. The President has expanded “food stamps” and disability payments to their highest levels ever (and in the seventh year of an “economic recovery”). He wants free college education, free phones, free anything, it seems, except free markets. Since the end of rationing and price controls after the Second World War, the US government has never regulated as much as it is regulating now. This regulatory burden is stifling growth, creating dependency on government and undermining the flexibility and resiliency of the free market system that has been a hallmark of American success, even as socialist Europe and Latin America are manacled in a sclerotic bureaucracy and in a stagnant economy. “What works,” Mr. President, is freedom, and free markets. What doesn’t work is socialism and communism. If President Obama really wants to choose “what works,” he will reverse course and choose the path of free markets rather than government control.