Tibor R. Machan
In a speech presumably addressing “the Muslim world,” President Obama
tried to be quite critical of American culture while making hardly any
mention of some of the Muslim World’s outrageously immoral legacy. Let me
for now not focus on how accommodating Obama managed to be toward the
Muslim countries, many of which make no bones about being, for example,
officially misogynous and awfully crude about punishing so called
criminals. Nor is it worth discussing now how Muslim countries treat
homosexuals. While America the terrible, the one Obama appears to believe
is in constant, relentless need to apologize for itself, is always put on
the defensive, the Muslim world seems to be getting a pass from Mr. Obama
even regarding its most barbaric practices. It is really annoying to have
the president of the United States of America carry on this way.
In this speech Obama said that as president of the USA it is his duty “to
fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear” and that
“Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude
stereotype of a self-interested empire.”
But wait just a minute. Sometimes stereotypes are actually accurate,
especially when they are about people in a very homogeneous society. It
was not altogether insulting when during the Third Reich people formed a
very unfavorable image of Germans as such. Sure there were exceptions but
as a rule the Germans were then a very disagreeable, ugly lot. Sitting by
and even taking active part while 6 million Jews are being exterminated by
one’s leader--Fuhrer--lends itself to people thinking badly of you, of all
of you, in fact. So sometimes stereotyping makes very good sense.
Just think of how often the early European immigrants to the Americas are
now seen as vicious invaders who treated the natives with nearly universal
brutality. Is that some “crude stereotype”? Or maybe it is in fact the
truth, generally, with only occasional significant exceptions?
Then consider, also, what Obama thinks is a nasty stereotype of America,
“a self-interested empire.” To start with, empires have no selves--they
are not individual human beings, no collective entities. Empires consist
of some rather few rulers in a country, ones who take advantage of their
position to bully others around the world. Often this bullying is anything
but self-interested--most often it is perpetrated as an intensely
altruistic mission, one aiming to export only good things to other lands.
It is usually such altruism that leads to the policy of building empires,
even if some elements of empire building do flow from a country’s rulers’
interest to benefit themselves.
Then there is the plain fact that America is not being stereotyped when
understood as a country that welcomes a certain kind of self-interest on
the part of its citizenry. After all, the American Founders were very fond
of everyone’s right to the pursuit of happiness, something that can
properly be regarded as selfish. I for one make no secret of my desire to
live a happy life and, thus, to be significantly selfish, though not to
the point of intruding upon my fellows, ripping them off, demanding that
they live for me, something many altruists appear not to mind doing.
That, by the way, is what’s so disingenuous about altruists--they advocate
that other people think not of themselves first but of them! Just a
pretense at generosity, then, not the genuine article which is actually
the feature of those who seek happiness and are glad that so do others!
When I was ready to escape Europe, especially communism, a major reason
was that in the West and in America, especially, there appeared to be a
public policy afoot based on the belief in everyone’s basic right to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness--all rather selfish things, if you
ask me. A country that makes this its official public policy rather than
some phony “ask not what you can do for yourself but what you can do for
your country,” is truly user-friendly for its population. And so I gladly
accept that stereotype about America, despite our current president’s
cavalier belittling of this aspect of the country.
Finally, for now, why is it the president’s job to fight against negative
stereotypes of Islam or America or anyone else? Is the president our moral
guide? Is he our parent whose job is to cultivate ethics in their
children? Not at all--he is the presiding officer of the federal
government, period.
It is pathetic how perverse an idea of political leadership guides this
new president. He should back off already.
