A couple of worthy followups to Krauthammer’s excellent “decline is a choice” piece, mentioned earlier by Noel. First up: hey, if you didn’t believe me all those times I said it, how about Tapscott?

For those of us who grew up in the era when Weather Undergrounders Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn were familiar names in the news, it is always discomforting to be reminded of Barack Obama’s many associations with people of the radical left – Ayers, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Van Jones, etc.

Such folks’ political thought never progressed beyond the 1960s because the revolutionary New Left didn’t disapear, it simply went on to graduate school and then careers, mostly in the mainstream media, academia, the non-profits, the bureaucracy of state and local social work, and Blue State politics. Many bought BMWs and flat screens who nevertheless never stopped dreaming of revolution. In their hearts, they still spell it “Amerika.”

Whatever Barack and the people he has surrounded himself with may profess with their mouths at any particular time, their actions show they still loathe America and our standing as most powerful nation on earth, as well as our free enterprise, individual liberty, reverence for family and local communities, Main Street, the U.S. military, Christianity, and every other hallmark of the traditional culture and values of Western civilization.

And now they think they have the power and position to do what they’ve always wanted to do – tear it all down and remake it in their millenarian image of Leviathan. As philosopher Erik Voegelin would say, they don’t merely intend the immanentization of the eschaton, they are securing the appropriations and regulations to make it happen.

Viewed from that assumption, things become so much clearer.

Crystal clear, in fact. And after that epiphany, one need never be shocked by anything King Obama (MMM MMM MMM) does again.

And no matter their promises or rationale now, when they are finished, they will have turned the shining city on a hill into something more resembling a Third Word ant heap.

But then everyone in the world will love us, and finally life will be “fair” for all. “Fair to poor,” that is. As opposed to “Good.” The belief that “justice” demands a harsh and immediate comeuppance for America is probably the most basic dividing line between conservatives and liberals there is. Paul Rahe expands on that:

This, as Krauthammer shows, Obama and his minions understand, and this they want — the elimination of the foundations for American hegemony and the crippling of this country. They regard the role that we have thus far played in the world as shameful; they are intent on dismembering the alliances that gave us our heft in the world; and they are not only appeasing our sworn enemies but openly, publicly embracing them and their agenda.

This explains the praise showered on President Obama by Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, and Fidel Castro. This is the meaning of our attempt to install a dictator in Honduras on the model of Castro and Chavez; it is the meaning of our recent betrayal of Poland — on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of that country.

It explains why Obama initially responded to the open theft of an election in Iran by professing his confidence in the Iranian government and why the State Department recently cut off funds for the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center in New Haven, Connecticut, which was collecting information on the imprisonment, torture, and murder of those in Iran who protested against the theft of that election (for the details see this post).

It explains the deliberate insults offered Gordon Brown of Great Britain and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, which I catalogued here and here. And, of course, this explains the speeches given abroad again and again by President Obama, apologizing for American behavior in the past. and signaling a radical shift in American policy.

It is for this change of posture that our President has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And if you think that the United States is the principal source of evil in the world, you should vigorously applaud.

As with the Obama “death panels” — which had to be immediately removed from consideration so no one would think they were being considered — and the illegal-immigrant health-care mandates on which the liar Obama (MMM MMM MMM) was quite rightly called out by America’s Truth Czar — which, ditto — liberals consider American exceptionalism an arrogant, fraudulent, and false construct that has never really had any basis in reality…all vestiges of which must be destroyed root and branch.

As always, when you accept the simple fact that Left-wing idiots truly hate America That Was and want to see it destroyed and remade according to their own warped ideology, it all begins to make sense. in fact, it’s the only way their actions do make any sense, really. Think of it as dumping a bag of sodium silicate into the most efficient engine of progress, prosperity, and freedom the world has ever known. Because that’s exactly what it is, and the anti-American Leftards — up to and including their scumbag Savior — know very well what they’re doing, thank you.