Papa Obama Knows Best

It’s a good thing we have President Obama leading this country. Without his enlightened guidance, ordinary little people such as ourselves would likely wander blindly, unsure of what path our lives should take.

But because we have Obama’s noble example to follow, we all know exactly what we should do.

To start with, school is important. As the president has said, dropping out of high school isn’t just a bad decision because it limits one’s options later in life. If people don’t live up to their maximal educational potential, they’re letting everyone down. And if one doesn’t live up to society’s expectations, how can one ever hope to have a fulfilling life?

Though studying the liberal arts or sciences at a four-year college isn’t for everyone, those who can excel at such pursuits are obligated to do so. An education isn’t just a way to expand one’s horizons and increase one’s earning potential. It’s a way to increase productivity.

Being maximally productive is key not because it allows a person to accumulate wealth that can be spent in the pursuit of happiness but because it benefits the whole community.

If a sharp-witted young woman is capable of success in law school, she possesses the ability to become a civil-rights attorney, a law professor, a legislator, or even president. In all of those positions such a person would be empowered to help those in need. Living as a public servant, she could attain the highest virtue, which is serving one’s fellow human beings.

And we all know that because Obama tells us so.

As he continually stressed during his campaign, the president knows in his heart that we are our brothers and sisters’ keepers. Logically, since we are obligated to provide for our fellow men and women, failing to choose the career that adds the most value to the economy is wrong.

For example, if our hypothetical young woman chooses to become a writer instead of a lawyer, she won’t be able to provide nearly as much practical assistance to her community.

If rather than studying political science and law, such a person were to study creative writing, she’d be unable to become a civil-rights attorney or law professor and far less likely to be in a position to even consider running for elected office. Especially if she never becomes a particularly popular author in her lifetime, such a woman would never produce as much tangible wealth for society through her labors. Perhaps working a simple service job to pay her minimal living expenses, our selfish writer wouldn’t end up paying nearly as much in taxes to her local, state, and federal governments. And without this much-needed tax revenue, those who, like Obama, have done the right thing and chosen to live the ideal life of public servitude won’t be able to help society as much as they could have if our hypothetical young woman had done her duty and worked herself into a higher tax bracket.

One may object that the young woman’s own satisfaction with her life would be greater if she were to live as she sees fit, but that would be missing the point.

The motivation to succeed ought not come merely from the desire to fulfill one’s own dreams. That’s just crass. As Obama has shown us, simply supporting oneself and refraining from harming others is not enough. Each and every one of us also has the moral obligation to serve the interests of humanity at large. And the best way to do that is unquestionably to be as much like the president as possible.

After all, reflecting on history, who is it who has done the world the most good? Is it service-minded politicians like Obama or self-serving writers, inventors, and entrepreneurs who strike out on their own individual paths and live by their own unique standards?

It’s not even a close contest.

(Cross-posted at the Daily Iowan's main site.)

Embracing The Collapse

As the global economy slides into ever-deeper recession, a growing chorus of doomsayers are predicting the end of life as we know it. And maybe that would be a good thing.

Unsurprisingly, most elite voices continue to urge calm and feign confidence as they assure the masses that everything will work out in the end. The higher up in the current power structure a person is, the more insistent he or she seems to be that the ongoing crisis can be prevented from spiraling completely out of control.

In his address to Congress and the American people on Feb. 24, President Obama did his best to fulfill the role of cheerleader-in-chief.

“But while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken,” the president said. “Tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”

But what if he’s wrong?

Eight disastrous years under President Bush ought to have been enough to convince people that the president, far from being infallible, can in fact turn out to be utterly clueless. The ultimate result of Obama’s economic-stimulus plan won’t be known for years, but denying that it could turn out to be a complete bust is merely wishful thinking.

What if the stimulus does fail? What if America and the world fall into a full-blown depression? And what if political systems around the world follow the global economy down into a complete state of collapse? Well, we’d all be pretty much screwed.

Or would we?

As counterintuitive as it seems, it’s possible that the end of life as we know it could also be the beginning of something better.

It’s not just anarchists who might embrace such a turn of events. Regardless of a person’s place on the political spectrum, there are benefits to be found in the prospect of society’s unwinding.

Those who identify with standard left-wing causes would have plenty to celebrate. On the environmental front, the implosion of the global economy could lead to a radical decrease in pollution levels. There would be no more debates about how best to phase out coal power plants or switch to vehicles that run on renewable resources. A sufficiently severe economic catastrophe could reverse the rapid industrialization of recent decades and bring carbon-dioxide emissions back down to much more environmentally friendly levels faster than the political process could ever hope to accomplish. Activists who bemoan the treatment of vulnerable workers in greedy capitalists’ factories would also quickly find themselves with little to complain about. If the factories aren’t running, then their workers can’t be exploited.

People who fall into the right-wing side of the spectrum likewise have cause to embrace a total system crash. No longer would hard-working entrepreneurs be forced into handing over their money to unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. Instead, the headquarters of the Internal Revenue Service would stand abandoned in the ruins of that city of parasites. But perhaps it’s social conservatives who stand to gain the most from the dissolution of modern society. The most socially liberal parts of the country are urban areas with high population density. While those who denounce the immoral lifestyles of homosexuals and other sinister city folk often live in areas that produce their own food, the degenerates they despise do not. If the oil were to stop flowing, so would all essential supplies. It wouldn’t be long before the residents of Manhattan were reduced to cannibalism.

For anyone who thinks such events would be unimaginably horrible, I have only one question: Haven’t you seen Fight Club? It’s a rare college student who hasn’t watched that movie and cheered as Tyler Durden demolished America’s decadent consumerism and sought to replace it with a distinctly antimodern new order. Though the collapse of the financial industry taking place in real life isn’t quite as literal as the collapse Durden brings on in the movie, it’s happening nonetheless.
So why aren’t we all dancing in the streets and begging for more?

Sure, millions of people would almost certainly die if our consumer culture were to thoroughly immolate itself, but at least we’d be rid of the Snuggie.

(Cross-posted at the Daily Iowan's main site.)