Where, indeed, ARE we headed?

Well, the American people have spoken.

An energized and idealistic movement of people were inspired to vote for Barack Obama in great numbers by the eloquent and lofty rhetoric written for this great speechifier, and he delivered those speeches with great skill. He's got one helluva speech writer. Even this 106 year old nun, who hadn't voted since 1952, was captivated by his charisma.



I've read many of his speeches over the course of the last several months, many of them from before he even threw his hat in the ring. (Officially, that is.) Several of them have a poetic grace and rhythm similar to long-famous words attributed to some of our greatest orators. This one, for instance, is filled with several stanzas that truly stir the soul and lift the spirit.


I have no idea which spiels were written by whom, but the author behind his speeches is less important than the principles behind his policies. Hillary was on the right track when she analyzed Obama's initial attraction by saying "We have one speech in 2002 versus a record of accomplishment and a record of action." And that ingredient to his attraction only grew during the primaries and the final campaign, with more great speeches. However, there's more to governing than giving speeches.

That said, even if Obama were to be the steady, thoughtful, listening, intelligent, competent, serious-business president that we all hope he'll be, it doesn't change the fact that his policy initiatives and the political philosophy that guides them, are from the "progressive" leftist wing of the Democratic Party. A brief perusal of some of the issues under the AGENDA tab on his new transition website gives us a glimpse of where we're headed:
***10/10/08 UPDATE: Those sneaky bastards disabled all the topics under the AGENDA tab!! The quoted excerpts below were there a few days ago. Perhaps they're "tweaking" their grand scheme a bit... Will their designs on your life be better, or worse when they reappear? We'll see.....! ***


“Obama and Biden support a system that allows undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.”

Wasn't that the essence of the immigration bill that was previously killed by a massive outpouring of grassroots citizen opposition?

“Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a
plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high
school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.” (my emphasis)

Did he get this idea from Castro, Chavez, or Mao Tse-tung?

“Obama and Biden believe the disparity between sentencing crack and
powder-based cocaine is wrong and should be completely eliminated.”

Completely eliminated? The tougher sentences for crack were a response to the crime wave of street violence that were destroying urban areas in the '80's, especially gang activity. As Kendall Coffey, a former U.S. attorney in Miami, said: "It is clear that crack cocaine and white powder cocaine had a very different impact in terms of not only the lives of the users but the impact on the community." However, leftists like Obama ignore historical context and insist that the sentencing disparity is only another example of "institutional racism" that was designed to unjustly target African-American drug pushers.

"Obama and Biden will create 20 Promise Neighborhoods in areas that
have high levels of poverty and crime and low levels of student
academic achievement in cities across the nation. The Promise
Neighborhoods will be modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone,
which provides a full network of services, including early childhood
education, youth violence prevention efforts and after-school activities,
to an entire neighborhood from birth to college."

Well, at least it's not cradle-to-grave, only cradle-to-college. Is this really the responsibility of the Federal government, bureaucratically controlling entire neighborhoods across the country, experimenting to see if centralized-service-saturation of a community will produce Utopia? Talk about being a community organizer! The department overseeing this program might be called Central Planning.