Barack Obama, angry colonial

After the September 11th attacks in 2001, the British government made several somber and symbolic gestures to demonstrate that Great Britain stands in unbreakable alliance with the United States of America.

Queen Elizabeth ordered the playing of the U.S. national anthem during the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, an unprecedented event.

Prince Charles wore a full dress military uniform to make a formal visit to the U.S. embassy in Grosvenor Square, where he was first in line to sign a book of condolence.

Prime Minister Tony Blair presented the President of the United States with a bust of Winston Churchill, who was prime minister of Britain during the Second World War, when Nazi Germany bombed London and might have occupied it had the United States not come to Britain's aid.

That's not nothing.

But President Barack Obama treated it like nothing when he moved into the White House and ordered the bust of Winston Churchill removed from the Oval Office and returned to the British embassy.

He could have kept it there out of respect to the British troops who lost their lives fighting alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He could have moved it to another room in the White House.

He could have sent it to the Smithsonian, where its proud display would bear witness that Britain and the United States are inextricably entwined by blood and history.

But he didn't.

He ordered it out of the Oval Office, out of the White House, out of the country. The bronze sculpture, which was on loan from the British government's art collection, is now at the British embassy in Washington. Legally, it is no longer on U.S. soil.

Barack Obama is a careful and thoughtful man, yet this was a gesture that needlessly insulted Great Britain and the British people.

Why did he do it?

The Daily Telegraph of London thought this might be the reason:

"Churchill has less happy connotations for Mr Obama than those American politicians who celebrate his wartime leadership. It was during Churchill's second premiership that Britain suppressed Kenya's Mau Mau rebellion. Among Kenyans allegedly tortured by the colonial regime included one Hussein Onyango Obama, the President's grandfather."

If that's why Churchill's bust was ejected from the United States, the new U.S. president has just revealed a side of himself that he skillfully kept secret during the long presidential campaign: Barack Obama is an angry man.

But he's not angry about racism.

He's angry about colonialism.

This is going to be interesting.

Does Barack Obama believe, deep down, that Europe and Anglo-America owe the Third World the equivalent of damages for pain and suffering?

Is he going to support global warming legislation that amounts to forcible transfer payments from industrialized nations to undeveloped ones?

Is he going to press for taxes that punish financial success out of some deeply held belief that success can only be the result of exploitation, either currently or by earlier generations?

We may learn a lot about President Obama's beliefs by observing his policy on Zimbabwe. If he holds the premise that historical colonialism is the cause of Africa's current problems, he may offer Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe some kind of financial aid or technical assistance. He may believe the U.S. is morally obligated to try to bring the country's devastated economy back to life.

If, on the other hand, President Obama holds the premise that private property is the indispensable foundation of prosperity, he will refuse to assist the regime of President Mugabe, who seized the land owned by white farmers and gave it to other people in the name of fairness.

For a look at how this worked out, read "Atlas Shrugged: Now Playing in Zimbabwe."

The presidency of the United States may be the most powerful office in the world, but it's not powerful enough to destroy the free enterprise system in the mistaken belief that businesses "take" from society and must be forced to "give back," or to force the American people to pay taxes to Third World governments in the name of saving the earth, or to throw aside the special relationship between Britain and the United States.

Barack Obama is never going to get re-elected doing that, and neither are the Democrats in Congress.

The Obama administration may be over already.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in reading "Defending Capitalism" and other essays at www.SusanShelley.com.

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