The debate about whether Obama is a socialists or center right or left is arcane. When are we going to stop dressing our ideas in a nineteenth century intellectual straight-jackets?

Obama has said it clearly. What motivates him is a 2000 year old idea enunciated by a preacher in the land between the seas, that we are our obliged to care for, and love, our neighbor.

Is that Marxist? Marxists attacked religion as an opiate of the masses and set class against class. Is it right wing because it emerges from a religious core? The neo-cons reject common morality as a guiding force in the market place. Greed is good and we are empowered to pursues our most selfish interests. Although classless, it's not class warfare (“He that lives by the sword, dies by the sword.”)

While Obama came to his philosophy through Christianity and it is deeply rooted in the parts of the Old Testament, the command to treat others as we treat ourselves is virtually universal to all major religions. A generation before Christ it was espoused by Rabbi Hillel as the core of the Torah. (“All lese is commentary’) It is reflected in Islam, Hinduism and most religion that got beyond volcano worship. Mike Huckabee nearly stole the Rublican nomination when, in debate, he momentarily eschewed biblical dogmatism and enunciated it as the guiding principal of is religion, echoing Hillel when he stated that the rest of it is unimportant.

You see brothers and sisters, it's all about love. We have elected a President who really believes and who came to his belief through study and introspection.

That doesn’t mean he is not clever, ambitious, and I expect, on occasion, a little ruthless. But it means that by his every policy utterance, he is concerned his (and our) overwhelming obligation to care for each other. It doesn’t mean that there is, or will be, a religious test.

The greatest of Presidents, in one way or another have reflected that universal principal. It was Lincoln who said hat the role of government is do for the people what they can not do for themselves. TR battled with predatory corporate trusts. FDR’s New Deal was sought to cure a nation in despair, JFK’s called to national service because” here on this earth, God’s work must be our own.”. It was Jefferson, who despised organized religion, who wrote the Declaration of independence with its stunning assertion of universal equality stemming from a universal Creator.

The fate of those who practice love is not always kind. God protect Obama and the United States of America. He hasn’t always.

http://johnklotz@blogspot.com

Let's face it. The neocons have so lost touch with reality, they are clinical delusional, suffering from an extreme dissociative reaction, detached from reality.

I think hat we have an obligation as human beings to teat them with kindness rather than scorn.

A few suggestions:

(1) no loud talking in the corridors as we pass by their padded cells.

(2) Write them nice little notes at holiday time.

(3) Send fruit baskets

(4) protect them from reality by denying them Internet access and limiting their TV viewing to Fox News and the Disney Channel.

(5) Test advanced therapies like electro-shock and water boarding.

But above all be nice, and be gentle. They are sick people after all.

http: johnklotz.blogspot.com