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The Spectacle Blog
H/T “Airbus”
Adding to Quin’s comments about our self-important prig of a president, allow me to remind you of Barack Obama’s address to the United Nations one year ago. I have set the video to start 12 minutes in, at a particular point…listen for as long as you can tolerate and you will understand why those in the Middle East who only understand and respect strength feel free to test our resolve and kill our people. (If you can’t stand the sound of his voice, the transcript is here.)
The paragraph in particular which is so remarkable, and which should be held against Obama at every turn:
So this has been a remarkable year. The Qaddafi regime is over. Gbagbo, Ben Ali, Mubarak are no longer in power. Osama bin Laden is gone, and the idea that change could only come through violence has been buried with him. Something is happening in our world. The way things have been is not the way that they will be. The humiliating grip of corruption and tyranny is being pried open. Dictators are on notice. Technology is putting power into the hands of the people. The youth are delivering a powerful rebuke to dictatorship, and rejecting the lie that some races, some peoples, some religions, some ethnicities do not desire democracy. The promise written down on paper — “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” — is closer at hand.
But it’s just so much more (insert adjective here) to hear it from the mouth of The One, the man who won a Nobel Peace Price for an accomplishment to be named later…
View all comments (14) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Ross Kaminsky
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/09/14/obama-at-the-un-last-year-viol
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JD| 9.14.12 @ 5:22PM
As much as I like to use a Democrat's words against him, the headline of this post is wrong. The quote was "the idea that change could only come through violence has been buried with him." That is very different from "Violence Gone With Bin Laden".
What makes Obama an exceptional politician is that he rarely says anything damning himself. He has acolytes to make all the statements that most harm conservatives. That way the harm is done, but when one of the harmful statements proves scandalously wrong, Obama can deny all blame.
He's very, very slippery. What we need to do is focus not on attacking Obama, but on attacking what he stands for. Its guilt cannot be obscured by replacing figureheads.
Ross Kaminsky| 9.14.12 @ 6:13PM
JD, clearly the idea that change CAN come through violence is still alive and well.
JD| 9.14.12 @ 7:11PM
Of course it is. But Obama said "the idea that change could ONLY come through violence ", which is very different. And the headline says "Obama at the UN Last Year: Violence Gone With Bin Laden", which is even more different.
As I said, I like hanging Obama with his words, but this is a self-discrediting failed attempt that I encourage you to take down.
Now, if you latched onto the second half of your text quote, which contains an implied promise of a new dawn in Arabia, you'd have an accurate argument, but a weak one. As I said above, Obama almost always stops short of making any concrete, measurable promise, so that he cannot later be proven wrong. He is an incredible politician - slippery to the end.
Zeppo| 9.14.12 @ 7:50PM
Well, 0bama was just attacking a strawman, as usual. When did bin Laden declare that change can ONLY come through violence, and what would it matter if he had? And why was this particular belief "buried with him"? The idiotic remark was just a pretext for yet another self-congratulatory spiking of the football.
Violence is often a very effective way of causing change, a fact so obvious that I can't imagine anyone seriously disputing it.
Ross Kaminsky| 9.14.12 @ 9:01PM
JD, do you like the modified title better?
spike59| 9.17.12 @ 5:42AM
parse all you want, JD....you're just playing around, the equivalent of arguing the meaning of 'is'
C. Vernon Crisler | 9.14.12 @ 5:52PM
Here's what I said back in March: "The main problem is trying to build a democratic nation out of a radical Muslim population. Such Muslims prefer backwardness and slavery, so they will even side with the oppressive Taliban rather than takes sides with the great Satan U.S.A. They are born anarcho-Paulistas."
______
I'm glad Moslem nations have overthrown dictatorships and are now democracies. However, as noted above, I've never been naive about it. It's not enough to overturn political dictatorship; that same has to be done with religious dictatorship.
Now that Moslems have democracies, they cannot blame anyone else for their problems. Many democracies are socialist, after all, so just having a democracy (i.e., representative republic) is no guarantee that those who participate in such democracies will do so with knowledge or wisdom.
Obama and not a few Bushites placed too much faith in democracy, as if that in itself would make Moslems like us. Ross is right, however; it is Islam that is at war with everyone, and as long as Moslems kowtow to that vile religion, democracy will bring them no benefits but will only expose the depths of their religious folly.
In the meantime, Americans should stay armed.
JD| 9.14.12 @ 6:02PM
Churchill's quotes about Democracy ring true. It hardly assures prosperity. As in all forms of government, you are only as good as your people.
Many who live in Democracies don't even understand why Democracy is good. They think it's about "power for the people." That's completely wrong. The people are no more qualified to govern than Kim Jong Il, and often far less so. Even brutal tyrants have competence, else they wouldn't have ascended to their thrones. Empowering "the people" removes the requirement for competence without any assurance of a corresponding improvement.
No, the value of Democracy is in the concentration of power. Or lack thereof. While I do not believe the maxim "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" is inevitably true, it is true a large majority of the time. There are also inefficiencies of scale in any concentration of power, including inattention to detail. Mostly, the problem with concentrations of power is that while they may initially be governed by the benevolent, they inevitably fall under the control of the malevolent. The magnitude of the power is proportional to its appeal to the evil.
Democracy divides power, preventing power from being concentrated in the hands of the evil. That is it's strength. That is why it has as its companion the free market - a similar decentralization of power. The two ideas augment each other. One without the other often fails.
Carl Peter Klapper | 9.14.12 @ 7:50PM
I had not noticed it before, but the inconsistency is glaring once known.
"Osama bin Laden is gone, and the idea that change could only come through violence has been buried with him."
So the change of Osama bin Laden being gone coming through his violent death supports Obama's contention how?
bluecollarbytes| 9.14.12 @ 7:52PM
All I see are murderous mobs running about. No 'democracy' there.
The arab springs are only 'democratic' if one believes in a majority threatening the rest into submission.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 9.14.12 @ 10:41PM
Please allow me to offer a slightly altered version of what he really meant:
So this has been a remarkable year. The Qaddafi regime is over, and has been replaced with one that can’t control the terrorists in its midst, as opposed to the one that directed them.. Gbagbo, Ben Ali, Mubarak are no longer in power, and as such, we have nobody even marginally reliable to negotiate with to improve the lives of their own people, much less our own interests.. Osama bin Laden is gone, and the idea that change could only come through violence has not been buried at sea, but at least we’ve shown that if you declare war on the US, maybe we’ll eventually declare war back on you. Something is happening in our world. The way things have been is not the way that they will be. My apologies notwithstanding, as a country the US has fewer friends before than it did when I started. The humiliating grip of corruption and tyranny is being pried open, and new corrupt tyrants are being given a chance. Dictators are on notice, unless they are called Ayatollah, mullah, or other titles I am unwilling to confront.. Technology is putting power into the hands of the people, unless their dictators, such as those in China and Iran, prevent it. The youth are delivering a powerful rebuke to current dictatorships, and forming their own where they are able.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 9.14.12 @ 10:42PM
They are rejecting the lie that some races, some peoples, some religions, some ethnicities do not desire democracy, and proving that liberated people can vote themselves into oppression. The promise written down on paper -- “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” -- is closer at hand, and if that idea, paraphrased by an original proponent of free speech, offends you, I’ll do what I can to have it invalidated from our founding documents.
Mike in N.C.| 9.15.12 @ 9:36PM
I have to verify this, but apparently the director of the film that sparked the riots in the Middle East was also the director of porn. Quite a collection of folks you were defending yesterday, Ross.
spike59| 9.17.12 @ 5:44AM
so, Mike, the First Amendment ONLY applies to 'stuff you like'??????? you are a TOTAL idiot; i've YET to hear or read of anyone 'defending' anything but the First Amendment