Installing Democracy

The Arrogance of Idealism

They say that a woman scorned and the Furies are kissing cousins. Far closer, we would argue, is a thwarted idealist. When that happens it's time to "hunt yr hole, Johnny Reb", as they used to yell at the siege of Vicksburg.

President Obama has made much about his ideals for humanity, geo-politics, and the secular millennium. He was to usher in a new way of doing business. It was to be "hope and change". Sadly, yet expectedly millions of people in the US (and the world) were gulled by the prospect. Sadly, someone who does not believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the King of the earth is likely to clutch at rotting straw. Sadly, they have sought new messiahs here and there.

Did Obama believe in his ideals? Did he foolishly think that he was made great because he embodied the ideal? Now the ideal has proved far too weighty, and Obama's idols like broke in the Temple of Baal. It is around about this time that the thwarted idealist resorts to direct action to make the damnable ideas true. And so Obama's version of American exceptionalism emerges from the promordial slime . . .

Here is Obama is 2009. His idealism was still rising high.

“The message I hope to deliver is that democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion — those are not simply principles of the west to be hoisted (sic) on these countries. But, rather what I believe to be universal principles that they can embrace and affirm as part of their national identity, the danger, I think, is when the United States, or any country, thinks that we can simply impose these values on another country with a different history and a different culture.”

Here is Obama now, two years later.

Today Barack Obama told Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey that the US intends to impose a democracy in Libya.

The Washington Examiner reported:

The White House is shifting toward the more aggressive goal in Libya of ousting President Muammar Gadhafi and “installing a democratic system,” actions that fall outside the United Nations Security Council resolution under which an international coalition is now acting, according to a conversation between President Obama and Turkey’s prime minister.

Obama and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke late Monday and “underscored their shared commitment to the goal of helping provide the Libyan people an opportunity to transform their country, by installing a democratic system that respects the people’s will,” according to a White House report on the phone call.

The rhetoric matches Obama’s reiteration on Monday that it is still U.S. policy that “Gadhafi needs to go.”

But it is a marked contrast to the U.S.-led military mission as defined by the U.N. resolution.

Ve hav ways of making yu demokratic.

Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit