I thought the article was pretty insightful about Obama. I just have to laugh, however, in reading so many of the comments that simply ignore the role of George W. Bush in advancing the cause of Leviathan. Granted, Quinn brings up Clinton, but his focus in on Obama. Yet on and on, the comments spew their disdain and hatred for Clinton, a president, who, with a conservative Republican Congress, gave us some of the best, most limited government we've had for decades.
George Bush wanted to transform the world by using Leviathan to advance "freedom" not understanding how self-contradictory and inconsistent it is to create a Leviathan in order to transform the world. Thus we got the Second Iraq War.
GWB created the TSA. He's the president who passed the bank bailouts. He's the president who increased spending and vastly expanded the scope and power of the federal government.
Yet one hears not a peep of criticism. Bush was not a conservative. Advancing the unholy alliance between religion and conservatism, Bush demonstrated that philosophies of government have a moral foundation and when that foundation is based on the religious morality of altruism, of the view of man that claims his life has worth only when sacrificed for the benefit of others, then what do you expect?
Obama simply takes Bush and the religious at their word. He argues that we are all our brother's keeper. That's what altruism boils down to in practice, and that is what the Left believes. Everyone should take care of everyone else.
If you wish to advance the cause of true conservatism, i.e. limited government, protection of individual rights, then religion must not be allowed to corrupt the conservative message and the conservative goal of limiting government to the protection of individual rights, as stated in our Declaration of Independence.
Altruism is fundamentally incompatible with capitalism and with any governing philosophy whose goal is the protection of individual rights. Such a philosophy must be based on the moral premise that man has a right to live his life for his own sake, and not for the sake of others. He is an end in himself, morally, and not merely a means to the satisfaction of other men's desires, goals and purposes, no matter how "noble."
The American Spectator : Opposing Obama
