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I attended a Barack Obama rally this past Saturday. In addition to the usual Democratic rhetoric (e.g. melting polar ice caps, wants a deadline for a withdrawal from Iraq, spending money to rebuild Iraq is senseless when we should be rebuilding the damage caused by hurricane Katrina, oil and drug companies making record profits despite the raise in price of their products etc.) there were a few tidbits that particularly disturbed me.

First of all, the rally began with a five minute opening prayer by the Reverend Joseph Lowery. Senator Obama also slipped in a few tidbits about how he prays and how he is a church going man. This reminded me that the bridging of church and state is incredibly real and is happening so gradually that most voting individuals are hardly taking notice while others are enthusiastically cheering on the blending.

Secondly, there were some blatant doses of altruism. Senator Obama made some explicit statements to this effect. For example, he stated how when a young mother must work two jobs and still cannot make ends meet, it is everyone's problem. He also made similar statements about how it is everyone's problem when a senior is swindled out of his pension through legal loopholes (perhaps this could be true if he was truly swindled out of something he was entitled to) or how it is everyone's problem if a hardworking teenager cannot afford to go to a good school due to skyrocketing tuition costs. He then went on to discuss how a new economy must be created one where every child is guaranteed a good education, there is a higher minimum wage and every car can achieve at least 40 miles per gallon. I suppose this is nothing new from the Democratic Party.

My personal favorite altruistic promise was a comment Senator Obama made where he would give "ex-offenders in Atlanta jobs insulating people's homes." That honestly made me laugh out loud. However, it also scared me given the possibly lethal consequences of such a job placement program.

I had a girlfriend as an undergraduate whose parents worked at a prison down the street. One time I went to visit her and noticed convicts in orange jumpsuits trimming the trees in her front yard with chainsaws (under supervision of course.) She indicated that she had gotten used to their presence. I do not think that I will ever understand!

Edited by DarkWaters
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First of all, the rally began with a five minute opening prayer by the Reverend Joseph Lowery. Senator Obama also slipped in a few tidbits about how he prays and how he is a church going man.

Perhaps the most under-reported aspect of Barak Obama is that he represents the first serious religious left figure in a long time. He got his start organizing black churches in Chicago, so his religion is hardly the perfunctory "oh I believe in God too" of the average Democratic candidate.

While we might have derived some comfort in the past from the secularism of at least one of the major parties in America, Obama suggests that a serious shift is coming in the way the Democratic party understands itself.

If you want to hear a very interesting and revealing speech of his, one that might foretell the death of secularism in the American left, go to his campaign website and look under religion...

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A blogger reports on a speech by Obama:

"There's also another kind of violence that we're going to have to think about. It's not necessarily the physical violence, but the violence that we perpetrate on each other in other ways," he said, and goes on to catalogue other forms of "violence."

There's the "verbal violence" of Imus.

There's "the violence of men and women who have worked all their lives and suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them because their job is moved to another country."

There's "the violence of children whose voices are not heard in communities that are ignored,"

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I wonder, is a religious liberal worse than a secular one?

It depends, religion is a pretty serious, very mainstream and highly regarded form of irrationality right now. In general, I would say yes, simply because the religious conservatives still have a significant grip on the right of the political spectrum. But this is a topic really meant for another thread.

Welcome to the forum.

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Charles Krauthammer posted an op-ed column the other day describing a Barack Obama rally that transpired just hours after the Virginia Tech massacre. Here are some highlights of his analysis. Please note that he is quoting Senator Obama.

After deploring and expressing grief about the shootings, he continues (my transcription): "I hope that it causes us to reflect a little bit more broadly on the degree to which we do accept violence in various forms. . . . There's also another kind of violence . . . it's not necessarily physical violence."

What kinds does he have in mind? First, "Imus and the verbal violence that was directed at young women [of Rutgers]. . . . For them to be degraded . . . that's a form of violence. It may be quiet. It may not surface to the same level of the tragedy we read about today and we mourn." Good to know that Don Imus's "violence" does not quite rise to the level of Cho's.

Second, outsourcing. Yes, outsourcing: "the violence of men and women who . . . suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them because their job has moved to another country."

Obama then cites bad schools and bad neighborhoods as forms of violence, before finishing with, for good measure, Darfur -- accusing America of conducting "foreign policy as if the children in Darfur are somehow less than the children here, and so we tolerate violence there." Is Obama, who proudly opposed overthrowing the premier mass murderer of our time, Saddam Hussein, suggesting an invasion of Sudan?

Anyway, if this analysis is accurate, honest and just then it sounds as if Senator Obama has some explaining to do. If I am not mistaken, Senator Obama has committed the fallacy of the stolen concept. That is, he is using the word "violence" to now refer to situations where nobody's right to property or body have been jeopardized by another party.

Senator Obama's speech cited is supposed to be the one here. I received this link from the blog of Ben Smith, a source provided by Charles Krauthammer. I at least plan to listen to this speech just to ensure that he is not being taken out of context. I am shocked that Barack Obama would group such an atrocity together with an offensive remark from a known radio curmudgeon.

Edited by DarkWaters
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Nevermind. If anyone needs another link:

http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/20070416obama.mp3

Well, as far as I could hear, Obama has committed the fallacy of the "stolen concept", as Dark Waters described -- it does not seem as if he has been taken out of context.

The only word I can think of to describe this is, "ironic". Last week on my campus, some organization staged a rally to ban abortion. This was done by showing pictures of genocide victims, holocaust survivors, etc. next to pictures of aborted fetuses, in an attempt to equate the two concepts. A giant group of students protested the rally, pointing out the disconnect between holocaust victims and aborted fetuses.

It's ironic because I recognized at least a handful of the people who seemed to be leading the protest against the abortion-banning rally as volunteers on Obama's campaign from when he had and will be coming here. I'm aware that being a volunteer on a campaign doesn't necessarily mean you endorse that candidate -- but I wouldn't be surprised.

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Is that really the "stolen concept"? I think it's just the fallacy of the wrong concept!

As I understand it, one commits the fallacy oif the stoen concept when one employs the concept (implicitly sanctioning it) while making an argument denying it.

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Is that really the "stolen concept"? I think it's just the fallacy of the wrong concept!

As I understand it, one commits the fallacy oif the stoen concept when one employs the concept (implicitly sanctioning it) while making an argument denying it.

I do not think that the fallacy of the stolen concept necessitates implicitly using a concept to deny itself.

According to OPAR:

The fallacy [of the stolen concept] consists in using a higher-level concepts while denying or ignoring its hierarchial roots, i.e. one or more of the earlier concepts on which it logically depends.

So here, I perceived that Barack Obama was arbitrarily using the concept of "violence" to describe a number of activities that do not involve an initiation or retaliation of force. Thus, he was ignoring or just plain ignorant of the more fundamental concept of "force". He has no right to the concept of "violence". He stole it.

Does this reasoning make sense to you? I am still trying to obtain a deeper understanding of the Objectivist epistemology.

In Gary Hull's lecture The Problem with Universals he cited "animal rights" activism as a paragon of the fallacy of the stolen concept. That movement assumes that the word rights can just be arbitrarily applied to anything anyone wishes (or anything that can feel pain, etc.) They are using the concept "rights" without honoring its philosophical origins. These activists have no right to the concept of "rights".

Edited by DarkWaters
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  • 1 month later...
Perhaps the most under-reported aspect of Barak Obama is that he represents the first serious religious left figure in a long time. He got his start organizing black churches in Chicago, so his religion is hardly the perfunctory "oh I believe in God too" of the average Democratic candidate.

While we might have derived some comfort in the past from the secularism of at least one of the major parties in America, Obama suggests that a serious shift is coming in the way the Democratic party understands itself.

If you want to hear a very interesting and revealing speech of his, one that might foretell the death of secularism in the American left, go to his campaign website and look under religion...

I wonder what Dr. Peikoff would say about O'bama, especially considering how adamant his stance is that O'ists should vote Democrat. It seems to be that O'bama would be a combination of the worst aspects of both. Not only an altruist, socialist, but a theocrat in some sense. The prospect of him winning disturbes me. He speaks well! That's it! I find it very frustrating that this is the only criteria by which he remains a contender in the polls. (Today they announced he's neck and neck with Hillary). He has no experience, just a nice suit, and a good voice...

What would Peikoff suggest? If O'bama wins the primary. We know he's religious, and a socialist? I think that the global statement that voting left is the best way to go should be reevaluated by Dr. Peikoff, especially given that the Dems are going to try to use their religion to woe the voters in swing states that might be religious!

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I wonder what Dr. Peikoff would say about O'bama, especially considering how adamant his stance is that O'ists should vote Democrat. It seems to be that O'bama would be a combination of the worst aspects of both. Not only an altruist, socialist, but a theocrat in some sense. The prospect of him winning disturbes me. He speaks well! That's it! I find it very frustrating that this is the only criteria by which he remains a contender in the polls. (Today they announced he's neck and neck with Hillary). He has no experience, just a nice suit, and a good voice...

What would Peikoff suggest? If O'bama wins the primary. We know he's religious, and a socialist? I think that the global statement that voting left is the best way to go should be reevaluated by Dr. Peikoff, especially given that the Dems are going to try to use their religion to woe the voters in swing states that might be religious!

I think Peikoff's stance would remain the same unless the Democratic Party, as someone mentioned (as opposed to their foremost candidate) changed their fundamental philosophy. I can certainly see this happening, but I doubt it would be a permanent transformation. True, a lot of Republicans refuse to vote democratic based on single, religious issues, but the Democrats have very minimal persuading to do since the war in Iraq has been such a flop.

I find it scary, too, that someone with relatively little political experience has achieved such a large amount of success. He's become a very trendy candidate among college students - as one, I've seen this first hand. I hear everyone drop his name, yet hardly anyone that I've asked can describe his political platform/ideology to me.

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  • 1 month later...

I have always thought that a strong response or retaliation for 9.11, if not carried out along rational egoistic lines, will come about in the form of a holy war against Islam by a bunch of Christians, and probably against the wrong target (Islam, as opposed to militant Islam).

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan criticized U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday for saying that, if elected, he might order unilateral military strikes against terrorists hiding in this Islamic country.

Top Pakistan officials said Obama's comment was irresponsible and likely made for political gain in the race for the Democratic nomination.

"It's a very irresponsible statement, that's all I can say," Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khusheed Kasuri told AP Television News. "As the election campaign in America is heating up we would not like American candidates to fight their elections and contest elections at our expense."

Also Friday, a senior Pakistani official condemned another presidential hopeful, Colorado Republican Tom Tancredo, for saying the best way he could think of to deter a nuclear terrorist attack on the U.S. would be to threaten to retaliate by bombing the holiest Islamic sites of Mecca and Medina.

Obama said in a speech Wednesday that as president he would order military action against terrorists in Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan if intelligence warranted it. The comment provoked anger in Pakistan, a key ally of the United States in its war on terror.

Many analysts believe that top Taliban and al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are hiding in the region after escaping the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

I have to say, for some strange reason, I'd be interested to see this guy become president, although I'd still prefer someone like Guiliani to win, because I know what I'm getting.

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