Obama in Philadelphia: A Closer Federalist Look

Much has been written by spinners and pundits about the meaning, effect and success of Barrack Obama's address in Philadelphia. I have chosen to instead go directly to the text and examine it for its own meaning. I believe that the text as delivered was heartfelt, and that it revealed much about the thought process of Mr. Obama. So let us look at some of that text together, of course from a Federalist prospective.

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
"Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy."

Note the very first line of the speech is enclosed in quotes, yet it is if anything a dowdified quote, missing of the United States. A Federalist would also argue that there was no experiment in democracy to launch. The states convened in that Philadelphia convention launched a representative constitutional republic. It is perhaps merely gloss to pass over this distinction in a political speech, but if it is truly representative of Mr. Obama's thought we must wonder.

'Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787."

There may have been a few at the convention who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and prosecution, but for the most part the men who assembled at that convention had been born in America and many had never left its shores.

"And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States."

In general the constitution confers some limited powers to the federal government it forms enumerates some of the preexisting rights of the people and sets forth the organization of the branches of government. The constitution did not create or provide any rights. The people, in adopting it, retained all of the rights they previously had, as the Declaration of independence noted, as a gift from their Creator.
Taken together with an apparent misconception that the political system of the United States is a democracy this comment displays a stunning lack of understanding or willful misconstruction.

"Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students."
"Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities."

The segregated schools of Brown were segregated by force of state Jim Crow laws. It was governors (of the Democratic Party) standing in school house doors, in Arkansas and Alabama and Virginia who stood in the way of enforcement of national civil rights laws. It was laws passed by democrats that permitted unions to exclude black workers from work places, and government work. it was laws passed by democrats that encouraged black women to avoid marriage and seek sanctuary in government handouts. That history which continues to today that explains far more some of the apparent gap between black and white.

"In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well."

Perhaps a more central article of faith which is sufficient in itself to end the politics of envy is found in the tenth commandment to not desire your neighbor's house, or field, or ox or anything that is your neighbors.

"We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words."

I doubt that the question today or later will be whether the American people think Mr. Obama believes anything in particular, but whether he actually believes one thing or another. I am sure there are few who think Mr. Obama accepts, asserts or agrees with Reverend Wrights most offensive words, whatever they are or whoever defines them. It is all those other less offensive words, which one must believe found resonance with Mr. Obama to succor twenty years of attendance that the American people will need to consider.

"This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit."

The shuttered mills that once provided a decent life are no longer producing products decent American wish to purchase. If they once were open simply to make a profit, they are not now open because they do not make a profit, and nothing, no hope or dream, will make them profitable ever again. It is men and women who risk all of their own wealth to create goods and services which they hope their fellows will purchase from them at a fair price and earn for them a profit, who create jobs which provide a decent life, who create products and services that make that decent life worthwhile and who inspire others to do it over and over again.