William of Ockham (Occam) developed an elegant method of determining the validity of an idea. His test is that if there are two equivalent explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be preferred. This is referred to as Occam’s Razor. It’s not a foolproof test but more of a rule of thumb (heuristic). But it’s pretty good.
What has this got to do with Barack Obama?
The eminent conservative scholar and writer Dinesh D’Souza has come out with a new book on President Obama provocatively entitled, The Roots of Obama’s Rage. I haven’t read the book but I did read his article summarizing the book in Forbes. In it he examines various policy actions by Obama, and concludes, that Obama has inherited his father’s African rage against colonial powers. In effect, D’Souza says, Obama sees America as the superpower that has taken up the mantle of colonialism and that “America is now the rogue elephant that subjugates and tramples the people of the world.”
D’Souza points to the following actions of President Obama as evidence of his “bizarre” anti-business attitude:
- Obama through the Ex-Im Bank is financing Brazilian oil exploration off of Brazil to the tune of $2 billion.
- Obama in a speech about the BP Gulf spill focused on our oil addiction rather than the cleanup.
- He refuses to allow banks to pay back the TARP money until they have passed a stress test.
- Obama is pushing for more stimulus even though it hasn’t worked.
- He wants to increase taxes on the rich (those making $250,000 or more).
- Obama supports the building of the mosque near ground zero.
- He is blamed for allowing the Lockerbie bomber to be freed and return to Libya.
- Obama wishes to repurpose NASA to improve relations with the Muslim world.
- His father and some of his teachers were socialists and anti-American.
- Obama wishes to control the health care system and investment banks.
- Obama sees his father as a very important figure in his life.
He also says that the President’s father was a womanizer, polygamist, wife-beater, and a drunk. Nice touch.
There is one problem with D’Souza’s theory: it’s bunkum.
If D’Souza is correct then all “Progressives” like Obama also must also have inherited anti-colonial rage from their parents because everything Obama has done and is doing is right out of the Progressive Democratic playbook. This is the simple, elegant answer. If one looks at Obama’s education, work experience, the people he has surrounded himself with, he’s no different than any other “MoveOn” Progressive in America.
There is nothing unusual or surprising about Obama’s policies as a Progressive. Generally speaking, most Progressives in my experience (almost everyone else but me here in Santa Barbara) are anti-capitalists, anti-business, anti-American imperialist foreign policy, and believe that most folks are racists, anti-feminists, anti-Earth, and are fundamentalist Christians.
In fact, I think D’Souza is doing a disservice to his fellow Conservatives by failing to see the obvious simple explanation of Obama’s behavior. Instead of properly criticizing the President head-on for his Progressivism which is widely shared in the Democratic Party, he takes a detour into some anti-colonialism fantasy he has concocted. He tries to portray Obama as something different, something that has never occurred before in American politics. Yet quasi-socialist populism has a long history here and Obama is just the most recent iteration.
Further, D’Souza twists the facts to the point of sensationalism to cast Obama in a demonic light. For example he says that Obama backs the $2 billion oil drilling scheme in Brazil? The US Ex-Im Bank is guaranteeing loans that Chase is making to Brazilian oil company Petrobras which funds will be used to buy US equipment and services to drill offshore. This is nothing new. This is what Ex-Im does. George W. Bush did the same thing. Now there are a lot of reasons why the Ex-Im Bank should be shut down, but you can’t criticize Obama for doing what all of his predecessors did.
On the payback of TARP funds? That was a G. W. Bush policy.
Obamacare, regulation of the financial industry, more Keynesian stimulus, and higher taxes are some kind of anti-American anti-colonial rage? This isn’t even controversial with the Democrats much less the Progressives. This is what Democrats do.
The Ground Zero mosque? Get a life. It’s private property and the government shouldn’t be telling people what to do with their property; this is a well established conservative principle. This is nothing but a populist Republican wedge issue trying to exploit anti-Muslim sentiment for their political goals. This is actually counterproductive to US interests; it just reinforces the Muslim world’s view that we Americans are waging war on Islam, not terrorists.
If I wanted I could read a few books by D’Souza and conclude he was some kind of right wing fanatical fundamentalist Christian who is seeking to politically establish his radical moral vision through populist tracts to deprive me of my personal liberties. But that would be grossly unfair to him.
Wouldn’t it be nice if Americans understood why the policies Progressives and Democrats support are harmful to our economic well being and threaten our constitutional liberties? Wouldn’t it be more effective if we could get those ideas across without resorting to demagoguery? Mr. D’Souza seems to miss that point in his tirade.
Hey Jeff,
I am a right wing guy who lives and works near Santa Barbara. Not everyone in the County is a Boxer clone.
I am my friends’ worst nightmare: a Republican who has read widely and lived all over the world.
Eric
I agree that Obama is implementing the Progressive Playbook, but I do think there is merrit in looking into what molded him as a child causing him to adopt that playbook.
I would suggest that investing in Brazil’s & Mexico’s Off Shore Oil Drilling while halting our Gulf Oil Drilling is not what Obama’s Predecessors
did and continues to weaken our energy independence.
It fullfills the Progressive save the Earth phillosophy much like the environmentalist success in shutting down all rare earth minning in the USA insuring that our industry & military can only procure them from China.
I don’t think Obama should be given the “Predecessors Pass” on these oil decisions.
Jeff,
Well thought-out rebuttal; I disagree with you on the mosque in New York, but the rest of your point are well taken and right on point.
Good and forceful reading. RightOn! (or should that be MoveOn!?)
Jim
Jeff, Wait a minute. I am a Californian, descendent of the people that came here before the State existed, our beliefs are based on good old Cowboy logic, self reliance, very little need for government and a total distrust of City Slickers from the East, rightfully so. Obama is a Euro-Centric Socialist believing government is the solution for all that ails the human condition. Some of us know better and have read our history books about these utopian fascist ideas, they never work. Now that I am out of the closet the Santa Barbarians are going to haul me off to a re-education camp – the horror.
The world would be a significantly better place if along with the Progressives we could eliminate conservative bloggers who write blindly ignorant posts lauding capitalism with inane justifications blaming the whole mess on JM Keynes. JMHO.
RE
…or at least if progressive trolls didn’t try to make themselves feel better by expectorating on said “conservative” blogs.
I wasn’t expectorating, I was PUKING on Progressives AND Conservatives. Read for comprehension. Just to let you know though, I DO feel a lot better now, thanks.
RE
The only point that I take issue with is the globalist Mayor of New York and Obama injected themselves into the mosque debate and not the other way around. The Mayor injected the government in when they denied the rebuilding permit for the Christian church and issued a permit for the mosque. The government was then involved with what goes on with private property.
D’Souza is an overrated intellectual fraud and this analysis by Jeff is on the money. I loath Obama for any number of reasons from his economic policies, such as those are, to his throwing his grandma under the bus but there is almost nothing in D’Souza’s book that adds to makes any sense much less add to what people now know about the arrogant peacock occupying the White House.
I despise Occam’s razor. It’s too often, at least in today’s decaying society, akin to “if I can’t understand it it must be wrong”. And man do people take great lengths to remain ignorant, thus understanding much of anything is not within their grasp.
D’Souza does indeed provide a deep insight into the workings of Obama’s mind. Unless you have lived in a country ruled by a colonial power, your instincts are likely to under-appreciate D’Souza’s point. Two points noticed neither by the writer of this article nor by the readers commenting here;
1. Obama bowed to many world leaders but remained pointedly erect when meeting Queen Elizabeth (Just see for yourself on YouTube).
2. Obama removed a bust of Winston Churchill from the White House and gave it to the British embassy as one of his very first acts upon moving into the White House.
3. Obama’s trivial gifts to the Queen Elizabeth and the Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
For some who might not be aware of this, Britain colonized Kenya where Obama’s father was fighting against the colonial rule.
I am in full support of ending colonialism. My problem is Obama’s projection of that to America. I think America is the greatest nation on earth, bar none and Obama thinks it is the 20th and 21st centuries perpetrator of colonialism.
Thanks for the comment, but Obama lived in America (except for a short stint in Indonesia) and only met his father a couple of times. So one can’t say that he has any anti-colonialist rage. As well D’Souza was born (1961) in an independent India. Not suggesting that there wasn’t colonial fallout, but he can’t claim to have experienced humiliation from the Brits because it’s something he never experienced. Perhaps he should direct his rage against the socialists Nehru and Gandhi.
Sorry for saying “Two” points but actually making three, I forgot to correct that before pushing the “Enter” button.
I have read the book. If you read it in context and not just the synopsis, you do get some interesting and thought provoking ideas as to who Obama is or portrays himself as. It’s just a theory, not a “rage against Obama”. Not once does D’Souza rage against Obama. IN FACT, though they are ideological polar opposites, D’Souza actually admires the brilliance of Obama. You really should read the book rather than remark on the synopsis (in my humble opinion) otherwise it’s like reading Shakespeare in Cliff’s Notes. You are missing alot more than you think. I came away with a much better understanding and really, even a certain appreciation for the fortitude of Obama. I still do not agree with his policies and actions, but I now understand and have a much more clear idea (or at least some measure with which to evalute him, this felt right as soon as I started reading the book). Same goes with the progressives, and they are much closer to this sort of thinking that you might imagine. Read the book and you will understand why and where he is coming from.
What I read was the Forbes article written BY de Souza. So it was HE summarizing his thesis. After reading that I decided it would be a waste of my time to read his book. Thanks for the thoughtful comment.