Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Baby Stepping Toward the Nanny State
Baby Stepping Toward the Nanny State
May 10, 2025 3:25 AM

Is Senator Obama a closet socialist waiting for inauguration day, at which time he and a Democratic Congress will immediately pursue a massive increase in the size and power of government in our lives, panied by massive tax increases and massive redistribution of wealth? Or is he really a moderate pragmatist, a canny politician who when he was getting started in politics used his radical contacts from his ultra-leftwing Hyde munity, but now is in a position to use more moderate figures to build a centrist working coalition? Which is the real Obama?

Stanley Kurtz of National Review has been investigating Obama’s political past for months now, and in a recent piece on Obama’s ties to such far left groups as Acorn and The New Party, Kurtz suggests a third alternative that I find both more nuanced and more cogent than either Obama-as-Clintonesque-pragmatist or Obama-as-Manchurian-Candidate.

Kurtz writes, “Obama, like so many of munity organizer colleagues, practices an ‘incremental radicalism.’ The point is not to push for the whole redistributionist agenda right away, but to gain a series small but cumulative victories, each of which contributes to the formation of a long-term coalition for more ambitious systemic change.”

Kurtz concludes that “even as president, I think Obama would hew to this incremental strategy” but that “we have reason to believe that Obama’s long-term goals may be little different from Joel Rogers’s,” the founder of the New Left socialist party that Obama was associated with in the 1990s.

Will such an incremental approach strengthen our economy? Thanks to what little federalism is left, our fifty states–to some degree–function as fifty economic experiments, each pursuing distinct if overlapping economic policies. Taken together, the results of those experiments are pretty clear. High-tax, high regulation states like Michigan are struggling while low tax states like Texas and Arizona are booming.

In Ohio this weekend, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made the limited-government argument paring his native Austria to the United States: “Now, we are in a tough time right now. Ohio cannot afford, America cannot afford the economic proposals of Senator Obama. I tell you something. I left Europe four decades ago because socialism has killed opportunities there. And many — and many, many entrepreneurs and business leaders all left and have taken jobs with them. And I tell you, in recent years, Europe has realized its mistakes and begun rolling back some of its spread-the-wealth policies.”

Large nanny states are neither effective at generating wealth for workers and investors, mensurate with the dignity of human beings made in the image of God. Pray that the man elected president Tuesday, whether Republican or Democrat, will realize this and steer our nation on a different course.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Acton University: What can you do today to make a difference for tomorrow?
I have an overwhelming desire to connect my passions with positive change. But there are so many things in this world to be passionate about. Passion to make the world a better place. Passion to expand education, uplift the impoverished, and abolish injustice. I find myself stuck; Wanting to do more, but not being capable of such grand plans… Last week my friend asked: “What can you do today to make a difference for tomorrow?” Her challenge blew me away....
Economist Richard Fuller To Pope: Don’t Blame Capitalism For Environmental Woes
At The Federalist, a round-table discussion brought up several issues regarding the encyclical, Laudato Si’. A quick reading of the discussion sees several themes emerge: the pope shouldn’t be writing about science, this es down too heavily against free markets, and that modernity has much to offer in the way of solving humanity’s many problems. Now, if free markets and capitalism are really to blame for pollution, it would stand to reason that those would be the countries with the...
Classic Chuck Colson: Stand Up For Religious Freedom
Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship and BreakPoint, spoke in a 2009 Breakpoint broadcast about religious liberty. His words apply even more today. Allow me to make a very direct statement. I believe it is time for the Church in this country to stand up for religious freedom. Especially over the course of the last few years, we have seen repeated efforts — in the courts, in state legislatures, in Congress and on Pennsylvania Avenue — to erode what has...
Pope’s Encyclical: Eschew Air Conditioning?
I know why Victorian women fainted so much. They were too hot – literally. Wearing layers and layers of clothes, corseted to the point of not being able to breath, attempting to make merry in rooms draped and swathed and festooned with velvet furniture and bric-a-brac. If you think about London in the summer … you’d faint too. I will happily keep my modern clothing and my air conditioning, thank you. Not so fast, says Pope Francis. His encyclical, Laudato...
Women in Philippines Pose As Nuns To Ensnare Children Into Trafficking
I’ve read and heard a lot of horrible stories about human trafficking. Every time I think I’ve heard the worst, I find another one that horrifies me. This one certainly falls into that category: According to a news outlet in the Philippines, girls in thecountrysidewere lured away from their home with the promise of studying in Manila, and almost abducted into a life of human trafficking—by women dressed as Catholic nuns. In a very twisted way, this makes sense. In...
Good, true, and beautiful: C.S. Lewis
Silence took the place of applause as the room struggled to manifest a question to the finality of Peter Kreeft’s lecture; unfazed, the professor filled with excitement at the chance to quip the crowd quoting Aristotle: “human beings are curious by nature.” A smirk crept across his face as he both laid forth a potential congratulation for our ascension beyond curiosity as gods or the insult of being beasts below curiosity. With that, the air filled with questioning hands. A...
What About Naomi?
In my lifetime I’ve witnessed some odd pairings – Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga being among the most recent – but none so bizarre as Pope Francis and Naomi Klein. The Pope needs no explanation, but Ms. Klein may leave some readers scratching their heads. The telegenic Canadian activist actually was invited to participate in a stacked-deck of climate-change true-believers at the Vatican. Organizers of the event, “Planet First: The Imperative to Change Course” – held July 1 and July...
5 Facts About Independence Day
July 4, 2015 will be America’s 239th Independence Day, the day Americans celebrate our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. Here are five facts you should know about America’s founding document and the day set aside for memoration. 1. July 4, 1776 is the day that wecelebrate Independence Dayeven though it wasn’t the day the Continental Congress decided to declare independence (they did that on July 2, 1776), the day we started the American Revolution (that had happened back in...
The FAQs: Christian Bakers Face $135k Fine and Gag Order Over Wedding Cake for Same-Sex Couple
What is the case about? In 2013, a lesbian couple went into Sweet Cakes, a bakery in Oregon, to order a “wedding cake” for their mitment ceremony. When the couple told the baker, Aaron Klein that it was for a same-sex ceremony, he told them he would serve homosexuals but that his religious beliefs would not allow him to participate by creating the cake for them. The couple filed plaint with the Oregon Labor Commission, claiming Sweet Cakes and the...
Christopher Dawson and the Dynamics of History
On June 17, 2015, Bradley Birzer taught a course at Acton University entitled “Christopher Dawson and the Dynamics of History” in which he outlined the life and thought of the great historian. Describing Dawson as “an academic’s academic,” Birzer explained that although many people have never heard of Dawson, he nevertheless influenced many popular Christian intellectuals, such as C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Flannery O’Connor. And what was that influence? Christopher Dawson believed his life’s calling was to record the...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved