Obama's Mindless Message of Change

Obama’s Mindless Message of Change

The following is a quote from Charles R. Kesler, a professor of government at California's Claremont College. "Of all the presidential contenders' slogans this year, Barack Obama's have been the most interesting. His campaign creed is: 'Yes, we can.' To which any reasonable person would ask: "Can what?" The answer, of course, is: 'Hope." But again, a reasonable person might ask: 'Hope for what?' To which the answer confidently comes back from the Obama campaign: 'For change.' Indeed, Obama's signs say: 'Change We Can Believe In,' as opposed, one supposes, to the unbelievable changes. But the elementary problem with this -- which any student of logic might raise -- is that change can be for the better or the worse."

Charles Kesler continues: “Democrats in general . . . confuse change with improvement. They fail to weigh the costs and benefits of change, to consider its unintended consequences, or to worry about what we need to conserve and how we might go about doing that faithfully. They ask Americans to embrace change for its own sake, in the faith that history is governed by a law of progress, which guarantees that change is almost always an improvement. The ability to bring about historical change, then, becomes the highest mark of the liberal leader.”

For Americans concerned about the direction of our country, Kesler’s comments are alarming. Basically, he’s saying that Barack is conducting a campaign based on mindless slogans – on “feel good” language. Obama seems to have no clear awareness that some changes, such as the dramatic rise in out-of-wedlock births, are detrimental. The change Obama wants is one where all of us become much more dependent on government – at the cost of bankrupting taxpayers.

As the “Saturday Night Live” parodies have shown, the national media doesn’t want to ask Barack Obama hard questions about what changes he proposes. Media types appears to be afraid either of offending the candidate or earning the disapproval of their social group. Thus, the mindlessness of the Obama Campaign lurches on.

Thus, tens of millions of Americans are supporting Barack Obama without any idea what his “message of change” means. As John McCain noted, Obama's message is much less one of principles than of platitudes. It’s not exactly a sound way of determining a presidential nominee.


Charles Kesler’s comment above are from Imprimis, an important publication at Hillsdale College in Michigan. You can subscribe by going to http://hillsdalecollege.edu or by e-mailing at: imprimis@hillsdale.edu. Leave your name and address. Imprimis is consistently one of the best academic publications in the U.S.