Saturday, November 1, 2008

The Silver Bullet Against Obama!

I was recently presented with the transcript of the Obama radio interview that was supposedly kept secret until now to the delight of a hopeful come-from-behind GOP ticket. I was curious, as I am much more a fan of the whole truth than I am any party or candidate, so I read it eagerly. While this is an interesting discussion, I did NOT find a silver bullet against Obama. First of all, the facts... then a note about political tactics.
It appears that Obama, serving as a law professor at the time of the interview, was using the constitutional law language of "redistribution" - which we, understandably, would confuse with the typical socialism concept. As is noted further down in the commentary, Obama was making a point similar to MLK, about how the founding father's crafted the constitution so it provides basic general rights - and the grammar happens to be where most is stated in negative (states may not do x, y, z), but it does not say what you have to do - and certainly not in specifics, as this was left to the States (aka "Federalism"). Obama agreed that the Constitution's role is to provide these general boundaries... and then the states and federal legislature's role is to flesh out the details of how those rights are ensured. (Note this is rather conservative, not liberal, theory Obama is agreeing with here). In some cases, the courts get involved to try to interpret the constitution and subsequent laws - and sometimes they are criticized for legislating to try to make something wrong right. It's not a strick conservative approach for sure, but I can appreciate how just because something is law does not make it right or relevant - and changes (i.e. amendments and new laws) are needed for our documents to be moral. MLK made the point that the constitution did not specifically say that black Americans have the right to vote, so the civil rights movement needed to push to have legislation ensure that. Once that was in place... MLK make the point that the right to vote still did not address the closely related factors that caused the injustice - like poverty and work place discrimination - and ultimately real change requires the change of the heart. Apparently, the legal way to state how the intention of laws need to trickle down into the reality of positive social change is accurately called "redistribution of wealth" - meaning that the stated benefits of the constitution and new legislation (words) are realized by the people in need of it(action). It has NOTHING to do with taxing rich people and giving it to poor people. It's has EVERYTHING to do with how our government, constitution, and laws actually protect and benefit citizens.
Now to political tactics. I find it interesting that this is circulating with 1 week to go... because it has been out there all along, and if it was a real silver bullet, they would have used it a long time ago... but now that there is desperation... along comes the totally false smear. Even Obama's recent comment about "spread the wealth around" was not about socialism - as there is a lot of ground between communism/socialism and top-heavy system that favors the rich and the powerful. It starts with getting back to a level playing field (the very rich and corporations can hide their money in shelters from taxes... while you and I can not)... and then our tax policy flows from that based on a responsible balanced budget. I'm not a law professor nor a political hawk, so if I got this wrong, please let me know. Meanwhile, I do know that individual responsibility and contribution and the common good are not mutually exclusive - and we need both.

2 comments:

Angela Hart said...

this is really interesting Dan. thanks for sharing. where are you guys watching history being made?

Dan Simpson said...

At the home of Nashville Wine Press, J&S Collins!