Obama has expressed his frustration with the 2nd Amendment and those who oppose the anti-civil liberties bills being passed and proposed across the country. He asks why “we” can’t pass gun control legislation when:
“Well, the government is us. These officials are elected by you. They are elected by you. I am elected by you. I am constrained, as they are constrained, by a system that our Founders put in place. It’s a government of and by and for the people.”
Ann Althouse pointed out that this implies that Obama isn’t really constrained because it is the people that constrain the government via elections, and since he was re-elected President, he is only constrained by the people’s choice of giving him power, which is really no constraint at all since it just constrains him to do what he wants, or at least what he deludes himself into believing what “the people” want. Althouse sums up this philosophy succinctly:
“Government is not to be regarded as in need of limits, because the government is us. Anything we — the government — want to do is never tyranny, but freedom.”
This is the ultimate collectivist view: There is no separation between society and state; one blends softly, casually into the other until they are concomitant with each other. A person only has rights if the collective whole grant it. This is nothing more than a modern version of Rousseau’s Volonté Générale, which is a false god that spontaneously pops into existence when people are combined as if they were the Borg from Star Trek: TNG. We see the praise of the collective from Anarcho-Syndicalists, Communists, Fascists, to the modern day Progressives and the Occupy Movement.
The collective will isn’t even the tyranny of the majority, since the majority could be swayed or tricked by baser interests. It is why collectivist governments tend towards dictatorship: The “general will” is divined by a dictator or more often “the party.”
It is all consistent with Obama’s radical background:
- He is the President chosen by the people, and therefore he represents the will of the people;
- Thus whatever he wants to do is a manifestation of the people’s will, and Obama having his way is simply the will of the people exercising their total freedom;
- Those who oppose Obama are against the will of the people and are constraining the people’s will to have what they want;
- Therefore, those who oppose Obama are the tyrants and must be defeated.
Obama’s view can be summed up simply as:
“There is no God but the State, and Obama is its Prophet.”
