Deconstructing Obama

by Kyle-Anne Shiver - July 28th, 2008 - The American Thinker

The academics' pet theory of the past 30 years has touched numerous facets of our society. These thorny deconstructionists have managed to convince many an American college student to sacrifice his God-given common sense and Judeo/Christian values on the altar of presumed white male privilege, from which these students are admonished they now must actively disengage. After all, say the deconstructionists and their postmodernist, post-colonialist allies, every single good in Western civilization has been irrevocably tainted by the despicable, ill-gotten-gain methods of those nasty, imperialist, white, male, chauvinist-pig founders, warriors, inventors, builders, landowners, writers, jurists et al. How dare we, as modern day white Westerners, reap the ill-gotten benefits of such a despicable, greedy, imperialistic lot.

I have attempted to understand the complex arguments of the liberal deconstuctionists on several occasions over the last 20 years. In every case I have ultimately given up trying to understand their arguments since I cannot get them to adhere to logical thought. I am impressed with Ms. Shriver's apparent fluency with their proclaimed logic and her careful dismantling of its tenets. However I had to read the article three times and do some research on her points before I felt comfortable with my understanding and agreement with her premise.

It reminds me of my criticism of many in the Democrat Party here in Eastern North Carolina when I returned a few years back. They simply ignore the discussion about the claimed differences between liberal, socialist, marxist, progressive and communist. The subtle arguments on the differences, brought up by liberal (or whatever they call themselves at any point) leaders, are almost impossible to follow. Like the illogical arguments of deconstructionists, they do not adhere to any rules of logic. When I complain to Democrat Party followers in this area they are backing candidates that oppose everything the person claims to believe, they simply get mad. At some point they accepted that Republicans are evil and Democrats are moral. After that they tune out any other discussion and anger is the reaction to any attempt to have them revisit their decision.

That is where we are with many in the populace today. It is impossible to have an intellectual discussion of the issues. Decisions on any candidate are based on superficial issues. When I call someone a Marxist, it appears they simply tune out anything that follows. I don't see how we can ignore the appropriate use of labels and yet most in the populace have no clue what the labels mean. And no willingness to even try. How else can you explain the fact that nearly 20% of the people in North Carolina who are objectively described as conservatives vote consistently for local and state officials who are by any measure aggressively opposed to the conservative values of the very people voting for them.

I cannot give up. I believe it is important to continue to have the intellectual discussion even when so many reject the attempt. We will have to win them over one at a time. However when I read articles like Ms. Shivers I am reminded how hard this can be. I suspect that many times what I write is as hard to follow for others as her article was for me. I finally got her point, but I almost gave up. This is going to be a really long hard battle. I just hope that one by one we can occasionally win the battle and change some minds. Not just winning a liberal-marxist over to conservatism. But winning a conservative over from Democrat to Republican.

To save our nation, we have to.