2016: How One Father’s Failure Nearly Eviscerated Our Republic
It’s clearly a hit … going from a few screens to 1,000 nationwide, 2016: Obama’s America has made a statement. I will say it was concise, informative, substantive, and as always endemic of Dinesh D’ Souza’s work, veracious. The film is based upon his book, The Roots of Obama’s Rage … and it quite perspicaciously reveals the frame of reference of Barack Obama, which … as in anyone’s life … dictates and influences his worldview, out of which come his policies.
There is a particular point in the film that I found fascinating … Dinesh touched on the psychological affects that Barack’s absentee father had on his son, Barack Jr.
It’s undeniable, based on numerous studies done, that absentee fathers have a traumatic impact on the lives of their children … especially their sons. And in the case of Barry, because his father chose to be absent from his life, his mother fostered and nurtured a distorted and idealized view of Barack Sr. to her son. And she persuaded him to develop his beliefs and identity to reflect his father’s. And this ideology of Barack Sr. was reinforced, because of his absence, by the mentoring of Communist Frank Marshall Davis. (Sidebar: One can’t help but wonder what upbringing Barry’s mother had … she was a self-hating white, anti-American, Communist-loving girl, from the Heartland? Who and what fostered that?)
Barack did, however, learn of his father’s true character through his sister Auma, while he attended Columbia in NYC. And his reaction was similar to those who live in a fantasy world, when reality suddenly peaks in its head: “I felt as if my world had been turned on its head; as if I had woken up to find a blue sun in the yellow sky; or heard animals speaking like men . . . . To think that all my life I had been wrestling with nothing more than a ghost!”
A ghost, perhaps, but one he continues to emulate and with whose principles he haunts this nation.
Barry’s father is quite culpable in the situation we find ourselves as a nation today. He was a drunkard, a womanizer, a polygamist and a deadbeat dad, to name a few. In other words: He was no Ward Cleaver. His selfish and self-serving behavior created many broken souls … especially little ones, and one in particular that grew up idealizing a warped, destructive worldview that reached to the heights of the free world. And as a result, has broken innumerable souls today and into many tomorrows.
I believe in personal responsibility … we ARE responsible for our own choices and the consequences of those choices. President Obama made a cognizant choice to believe his mother, concerning his father’s character and values. And even when confronted with the truth, he chose to be intractable concerning his long-held beliefs (cognitive dissonance).
But Barack Sr. is ALSO responsible for his choices … and the consequences of those choices. And in his case, like his son: They have tainted millions of innocent lives for generations to come.
I hope you dads are paying attention…