Monday, January 19, 2009

Obama Is No Lincoln

Anthony Horvath has posted an excellent article entitled "Abortion and Slavery: Obama as the Anti-Lincoln":

Right there on the Drudge Report was a picture of Obama posturing in front of the Lincoln Memorial. It doesn’t take much to see the relevance. Lincoln was instrumental in liberating black people from slavery in this country. 150 years later, a black person is president. The spin doctors aren’t content to leave it at that. The effort is on to try to relate Obama to Lincoln’s style, intellect, etc. But Obama is no Lincoln.

The prevailing argument in the hundred years leading up to the Civil War was this simple question: is a black person a human person, entitled to the rights and privileges granted to all members of the human race. The debate raged even in Christendom, with pro-slavery Christians trying to manipulate the Bible so as to justify slavery. Among these Christians, sometimes the argument wasn’t so much that blacks weren’t persons as that they deserved what they were getting (mark of Cain type arguments). The Civil War didn’t end the debate. For one thing evolutionary theory provided a new justification, asserting that black people were lesser evolved- animals, if you will.

The question of ‘personhood’ for blacks, at least, has been settled. But the question of ‘personhood’ in general is nowhere near settled.

Today, hundreds of thousands of unborn are slaughtered every year. Today, one can find Christians straining to find ways to continue justifying this from the Scriptures, hoping beyond hope that when we read we are created in God’s image, that image is only imprinted in the birth canal (except in cases of partial birth abortion- the image in that case is only imprinted once the child is fully out. Except when the child isn’t wanted… etc). And Evolutionists continue to leave their mark, thinking in terms of over-population and costs to society.

And where does Obama fall? Obama insists that he finds abortion regrettable and wishes it were rare. And yet he has vowed to pass FOCA “as the first thing he will do” in office. This legislation, it is universally agreed, will toss out all restrictions on abortion, like for example against partial birth abortion and other late term abortions. Obama claims to be a Christian, and yet, like the southern plantation owners of old, has managed to find a way to tell himself that the unborn are not persons. Obama is no Lincoln. He says one thing but does differently.

The woman says “I have the right to do what I want with my body!” irrespective of whether or not there is another body involved. The southern plantation owner made the same argument: “I have the right to do what I want with my property!” irrespective of whether or not there is another body involved.

The argument is extended: “Well, how do you know it is only your body and that there isn’t another body involved?” “Because its my body!” Right. “Well, how do you know that slaves are only property?” “Because they are my property!” See? Settled.

We’ve come so far and yet not far at all. It is a strange irony indeed where a black man takes the presidency, his ‘personhood’ status assured by the spilt blood of hundreds of thousands of Americans in the Civil War and hard fought for the hundred years after, and then that black man makes himself very comfortable depriving another oppressed people their personhood status. It’s a bit like if Jew survives the Nazi holocaust only to come to power and do the same thing to a different class of people.

Obama is no Lincoln. Andrew Jackson, perhaps. He thanks the Lord for his own freedom while continuing to restrict it for others.

The irony persists- this black man also tries to justify his position about the personhood status of another under the guise of Christianity. Meaningless, meaningless, says the teacher: There is nothing new under the sun.

While it is understandable why so many black Americans are cheering the election of Barack Obama it is tragic that they were willing to abandon the very principles that brought them their own freedom, overlooking the fact that there exists in this country, and in the man they elected, the view that that there is another ’subset’ of humanity that does not warrant personhood status. Their success, therefore, is no success at all. They elected ‘one of their own’ and didn’t care if it meant something worse than slavery for millions of people. And many of these believe they are doing the ‘Christian’ thing. It will only be a genuine success after it is achieved in such a way to respect the rights of all individuals- not just those with your skin color or stage in human development.

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