Farce Repeats Itself As History

posted at 4:42 pm on October 10, 2009 by Legal Insurrection
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Karl Marx famously wrote that “history always repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, and the second as farce.”

Barack Obama has reversed these historical forces. With Obama, farce repeats itself as history.

As a neophyte politician, Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate when he managed to eliminate his opponents from the race through nominating petition challenges. A farce, but it started Obama’s political history.

Obama did littleof note as an Illinois State Senator, but was elected United States Senator when Obama’s supporters dug up embarrassing divorce records on his opponent, while Obama publicly claimed he was against exposing the records. A farce, but Obama made history.

When elected to the U.S. Senate, Obama promised the voters he would serve out his term and not run for President. Two years later Obama began his campaign for President. A farce, but Obama made history.

The election of 2008. Thrills running up the mainstream media’s legs. Children singing songs about “Hope for Change.” The post-racial candidate who used the race card to take down the Clinton machine. A farce, but historically successful. The most historic campaign by the most historic candidate ever.

Now the Nobel Peace Prize for someone everyone knows does not deserve it, whether they are willing to admit it or not. Yet another in a long line of farces. But historic.

Do not forget, however, that there is a third prong in Marx’s equation – tragedy.

Runaway spending and deficits for decades to come, beyond anything imaginable just a couple of years ago. Restructuring one-fifth of our economy on terms designed to create wards of the state. Tax policies designed to punish the producers of society even though we need those producers to produce jobs. A foreign policy in which we bully our friends and mollify our enemies. An insatiable and pathological need to apologize for and put down our country, without ever demanding the same consideration from others.

We’ve seen Obama turn farce into history, over and over again. What worries me the most is that we are on a path where these farces will not repeat as history, but as our economic and political tragedy.

Cross-posted with updates at Legal Insurrection Blog

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