Making Americans More Perfect

from The American Thinker:

July 13, 2010


Making Americans 'more perfect'

John Morgan



President Obama made a telling disclosure the other day. The occasion was the burial of Sen. Robert Byrd. But Obama's eulogy covered more than just the Senator's passing. However briefly, it sounded as well the passing of the American dream, centering as it has on individual freedom. That vision is finished, if Obama's own conception of this country is realized, since, by this admission, Obama apparently does not think of Americans as individuals in the first place.



The comment came about eight minutes into his speech. "Like the Constitution he tucked in his pocket," said Obama, "like our nation itself, Robert Byrd possessed that quintessential American quality, and that is a capacity to change, a capacity to learn, a capacity to listen, a capacity to be made more perfect."



At first glance this statement seems innocuous enough. After all, the American spirit has historically been one of practical adaptability, of conquering hardships through hard work and Yankee ingenuity. But this is not at all the vision of Americans that Obama seems to be attempting to infuse into our nation's psyche. The final aspect of this capacity of change makes that all too clear. He lauds Americans (like Byrd, supposedly) for "the capacity to be made more perfect." Even the sentence structure is passive. Obama does not applaud Americans for their capacity to improve themselves, but rather for their capacity to be improved upon. Americans are like gold to the President, not because of their sparkling achievements, but because of their malleability. It is their capacity to be molded into something better that is attractive to him.



But better in who's eyes? And who might the unspoken agent of this improvement be? Is he not thinking principally of himself? In light of the vast expansion of government that he has already foisted on America, it seems clear that this thinly veiled commercial for Progressivism exposes his view of us as wards of state, who should be dependant on government for the condition of their lives, and even their character.



Consequently, it should be even more obvious that the change his presidential campaign was so vaguely calling for was not an improvement in circumstances, allowing for the more equitable pursuit of the American dream, that of freedom and some measure of prosperity. It was not even a call for Americans to alter their dreams, downgrading them to more realistic standards. It was, rather, a call for us to surrender all of our aspirations and learn to accept whatever fate is allotted us from the lofty heights of Washington DC.



As for the phrase "more perfect," its echoing of the Constitution's Preamble ("In order to form a more perfect union") rang hallow indeed, given the speaker, and seemed nothing more than colossal flattery.





Posted at 09:17 AM