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An Accidental American
On July 2nd, we posted the following brief comment to a number of forums:
"At first blush, it sounds like a nice attitude, when Senator Obama states
that he will never question another man's patriotism. But a closer look
will
reveal how inappropriate it would be for the Senator to ever, in fact, do
so. While Senator Obama may, technically, be allowed to run for
President if he was, in fact, born in the United States--the
Constitutional
requirement;--he is, at best, only an accidental American. His father did
not come here as a settler, nor as an immigrant. He came purely as a
student, a citizen of Kenya from a small minority tribe in that land on
the
opposite side of Africa. He finished his studies and returned home,
leaving
his wife, of a brief period, with the baby Senator. She then removed the
baby Senator to Indonesia--apparently to avoid the association of other
Americans--but eventually the young Obama came back.
"It is only because so many Americans have been conditioned by Leftist
academics & the media, to be embarrassed in taking pride in their own
heritage and lines of descent, that the accident of Senator Obama's
Americanism is not the subject for humor at every dinner table; at the bar
in every pub; on vehicles of public trans****tation; and in a million phone
calls by the hour. Yet somehow, this new indifference to family and
ethnicity, does not fit in a land which used to be described in our song,
"America," as "Land where my fathers died." One supposes that the new
version will read, "Land that my father visited."
"Yes, folks, somehow that does not quite seem like the way that "preserved
us a nation," in The Star Spangled Banner.
"William Flax"
The post drew some nasty comments, assailing the author. It also drew one,
which deserves a response; one useful, in offering us a chance to make an
im****tant distinction. The poster suggested that we were off the mark in
seeming to judge the Senator by his parents' behavior, rather than his own
merit; that such was not the way one should be judged in a nation that had
always respected, even honored, the individual. While the point of our
post
had not been directed to any judgment of Senator Obama, one way or
another--rather to changes in the way the general population responded to
the phenomenon represented by the Senator's success--the responder's point
deserved attention. My web site http://pages.prodigy.net/krtq73aa
is as oriented to the individual as almost any on the internet. Let us,
then, examine what is relevant in respect to which issue.
An Individual Or Family Determinant?
Clearly, in *****sing Senator Obama's character, ability, intelligence,
behavior and ideas, he should be judged as an individual. While his
personal
traits will to a very large extent reflect the particular genetic
combinations that resulted in his conception, it is not material to a fair
*****sment of his exhibited personal traits that his father was a Luo
tribesman from Kenya, just passing through, or that his mother may have
had
some sort of aversion to rooted Americans. While he has his parents'
genes,
what he does with the combination will prove, indeed, the measure of the
man. Thus we can recognize that Senator Obama--in comparison to many of
his
political contem****aries--seems quite intelligent; quite eloquent; both
sincere and caring.
Yet, while a good speaker, by today's sorry standards, the level of
Obama's
oratory is markedly inferior to what would have been acceptable in America
prior to the terrible war of the 1860s. The Obama approach is far too
sloganized; his development of issues far too superficial; his grasp of
the
human experience far too clearly shaped by the egalitarian, heavily
Marxist
influenced, climate in contem****ary American "Higher Education." He ****nes
today, because of the decline in our level of political discussion and
debate--a subject frequently dealt with at this website. He also benefits
from deliberate efforts in the academic world to convince gullible White
Americans, that they are somehow responsible for many, if not most, of the
problems of the rest of humanity. We believe that some have seen his
candidacy as a way to purge their fantasies of imaginary guilt.
Yet our post on "An Accidental American" was not about Senator Obama's
worth
as an individual. It was about a nation losing its normal defensive
mechanisms, losing its sense of identity. And a nation is not about an
array
of disparate individuals, each "doing his own thing." It is not a game of
"musical chairs," as it were; where it little matters who occupies which
particular chair, at any given instant in time.
A Nation is about families, with common multi-generational purpose and
values; about continuity in the pursuit of shared goals; about common
history, kin****p, kindred lines of descent; shared triumphs & defeats,
achievements & failures: A common vision of a linked posterity, unique
from
that of any other folk or nation. Our point, in posting the "Accidental
American," was derived from recognition of a failing perception of the
traditional nation. And, yes, it does make a difference, in how one views
the Obama candidacy, that his father was just 'passing through.' Thus,
while
that candidacy, itself, was not the point; we might suggest that perhaps,
just perhaps, it is not quite fitting for one, here only because his
father
happened to pass through some of the member States, to be campaigning on a
repeated promise to "change America."
To run some 'rascals' out of Government might be well and good. But it is
not Senator Obama's place to tell the rest of us, that we must change an
existing Nation, its heritage and traditions. A Nation is about family,
lines of descent, the multi-generational process of building on past
achievements, cultural and material, of an ethnically definable people.
America is all about her rooted families; about building on their past
achievements, their traditions, mores and identity; on their shared
experiences in the pursuit of common goals, so well defined at America's
birth.
William Flax [http://pages.prodigy.net/krtq73aa/mischief.htm]
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