Science Talk

William Flax · Guest

On July 2nd, we posted the following brief comment to a number of usenet
news groups:

"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 be technically 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 here, 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 here.

"It is only because so many Americans have been conditioned by Leftist
academics and 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 transportation; 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
important distinction. The poster suggested that we were off the mark, in
seeming to judge the Senator by his parents' behavior, rather than on his
own merit; that such was not the way one should be judged in a nation that
had always 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--the responder's point
deserved attention. After all, one would be hard put to find a web site,
more oriented to the individual than the one maintained by this
correspondent. So let us examine what is relevant in respect to what issue.

Clearly, in assessing Senator Obama's character, ability, intelligence,
behavior and ideas, he should be judged as an individual. While his
personal traits will to a vey large extent reflect the particular genetic
combinations that resulted in his conception, it is not material to a fair
assessment 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 their genes,
what he does with that combination is, indeed, the measure of the man.
Thus we can recognize that Senator Obama--in comparison to most of his
political contemporaries--seems quite intelligent; quite eloquent; sincere
and caring.

However, while he is a very good speaker, by today's standards, the level
of his oratory is markedly inferior to what would have been acceptable in
the America prior to the terrible war of the 1860s. Obama's 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 contemporary American "Higher Education."
He shines, today, because of the sharp decline in our level of political
discussion and debate--a subject frequently dealt with at our website. We
also recognize the fact that he is benefitting 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.

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 a given instant in time.

A Nation is about families, with common multi-generational purpose and
values; about continuity in the pursuit of common goals; about shared
history, shared triumphs and defeats, achievements and failures; a common
vision of a linked posterity, unique from that of all other nations. It is
in the failing perception of the traditional Nation, that our point in last
week's posting was derived. And yes, it does make a difference, in how one
views the Obama candidacy, that his father was just passing through. And
while that candidacy, itself, was not our point; we would suggest that
perhaps it is not quite appropriate for one who is here only because his
father "passed through" some of these States, to be campaigning on a promise
to "change America.."

To run the current rascals out of Government, might be all well and good.
But it is not his place to tell any of the rest of us, that we must change
an
existing Nation, its heritage and traditions. That is about family, lines
of descent, and the multi-generational building of a people's culture, mores
and identity, on their shared experiences in the pursuit of those common
goals.

We may revisit all of this again, next week, or thereafter.

William Flax
http://pages.prodigy.net/krtq73aa
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