Obama's Economic Policies: Socialism or Fairness?

Many conservatives and republicans believe President Barack Obama is a decent human being with good intentions, and a good father and husband. However, they believe his policies - especially his economic policies - will not work. They believe his policies have been tried many times by socialist and communist nations that tried to create utopia through Centralized Command and control. Many conservatives believe President Obama economic policies are anti-freedom and are bankrupting the country.

To my conservative and conservative - Republican friends, please know I mean you no insult. I appreciate conservative persons of both major political parties. I am an independent who is conservative on some issues and moderate on others. In essence, I view the conservative person as one who finds the permanent things more pleasing than Chaos. I, like many conservatives, know, with Burke, that healthy "change is the means of our preservation" as a Nation of free people.

A conservative friend told me, "Terry; I don't base my outlook on opinions. I base my viewpoint on the facts." According to the dictionary, outlook, opinion, and viewpoint are synonymous terms. We all base our political outlooks on our interpretation of facts and thus we form opinions. My conservative republican friend continued, "His [president Obama] policies - especially economic policies - won't work. They have been tried many times before. They are anti-freedom, and are bankrupting the country. The Soviet Union tried to create utopia through Centralized Command and control. They ended up instead creating something very different." The latter part of my friend’s statement has insinuating undertones of socialism. "Let us just keep it real," I told my friend. I continued making my point. In America, our cities has fire departments, police departments, and public schools whose services are paid for by taxpayers money; these services are offered in a socialist manner. On the level of the federal government we have departments of highways, defense, education, a Medicare program, etc all providing services to Americans at taxpayer’s expense in a socialist manner. I am not arguing in favor of socialism but for fairness and justice.

I would posit that my conservative friend’s comments regarding President Obama's economic policies are vacuous, indeed, they are not based on real fact but on ideology, or at least on their opinion of the facts, which is fine; they are entitled to their opinions. My conservative friend’s former assertion in the above statement assumes that if A then B, when the real fact is that A is false. Perhaps he would like to believe his comments are based solely on facts, but facts are things that are indisputably the case. His comments about the whole of President Obama’s economic policies are actually devoid of factual content thus rendering his assertion empty, leastways disputable. It is a fact the conservative movement, like all political movements, is not based on any scientific evidence or reality, but is a body of opinion - a considerable diversity of views - on a good many subjects.

In fact, all political ideologies consist of a body of opinion, a system of ideas and ideals that forms the basis of economic or political "THEORY" and policy. The ideology of neither republicanism nor conservatism is of the excluded middle. Conservatism and Republicanism, along with Democratic party ideology, are characteristic of a group, social class, or individual, and a systematic bias in favor of certain ideas and manner of thinking. Thus, my conservative friend’s interpretation of the so-called facts is not of the excluded middle.

President Obama is a proud American who believes in government by the people. As a professor who taught the United States Constitution, the POTUS believe this nation’s government was founded to be by, of, and for the people. It is a fact that he strives to support this idea and to protect it. His vision is a simple one: to give all Americans the chance to live out their dreams, to fulfill their God-given potential, and for America, as a people, to come together around the constitution’s enduring values instead of drifting apart along partisan political lines. The POTUS wants to renew opportunity to every American, responsibility from every American, and to reawaken America’s great sense of community. His party's platform is based on three basic values - opportunity, responsibility, and community and he believe these values will lead America into a promising future. I believe Both political parties has to jettison outdated ideologies and give up their stranglehold on power beliefs, ideas, ideals, principles, ethics, morals, etc.

I would like to believe there is more to the Republican party - especially those of the conservative persuasion - than this general negative attitude toward the policies of our Nation’s President. My conservative friend must remember that a majority of the electorate dully elected President Obama, to implement such policies, which he introduced and explained during the Democratic primary and the general election. I beseech my conservative republican friends to reject partisan attitudes, one-sided worldview, and the politics of fear and doom-n-gloom, and give the POTUS a fair chance to fully implement his economic policies.

We are one people of one diverse national community in the greatest Nation on earth. If we as a people resist the scourge of partisan politics and come together around the idea of community (common-unity) our Nation will be even greater.

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