After WWII, most of Europe was a wrecked and ravaged landscape. Depending on which historian you read, the total death toll for WWII has been listed as being between 60 to 100 million. The Russians alone can document more than 20 million war dead. The death toll for the entirety of the Holocaust is more than just the six million Jews who perished. It’s closer to 15 million. Factor in all the civilian deaths and all the carnage in the Pacific theater of operations and the figure of 100 million does not look like hyperbole.
The physical damage to Europe was such that in Berlin alone, sections of that city were not restored until the 1980s. Unexploded munitions are still being found throughout Europe to this day.
While we’ve just seen the flap that exploded when President Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer invoked the name of Hitler, that’s not what I’m going for here. That’s dangerous territory anyway, even though some comparisons are just too accurate to be ignored….
No, my purpose is to point out that it took decades for Europe to recover from the wreckage of WWII. I believe it’s going to take some time (hopefully not decades) to recover from the cultural wreckage of the Obama era.
Before getting into specific examples, I think it’s important to reiterate how important Obama’s legacy is to him, and to progressives in general. He said that the entire election was a referendum on his legacy.
Wow, such humility.
In a book just published entitled Shattered, by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, Clinton’s inability to handle the inevitable is well documented. She reportedly also called Obama and said, “Mr. President, I’m sorry.” Sorry for what…no third term for continued progressive wreckage?
This is where we can take a closer look at what eight years of Obama has wrought. Just as it took Europe a long time to recover, President Trump is not going to get his entire agenda done quickly either. Because Obama’s “legacy” involves the destruction of much of our cultural infrastructure, the entire country has a stake in getting refocused. Here are just ten examples of Obama’s cultural wreckage:
* Hatred for police. (Starting with “The Cambridge police acted stupidly”, to The Ferguson Effect to Black Lives Matter.)
* Destruction of traditional values (This is more than baking cakes, who you marry or where you pee. It’s about forcing a narrow viewpoint on the entire country.)
* Race relations. (While there’s always been racism and individual racists, we now have a climate where it’s acceptable for the Huffington Post to publish an article saying white men should no longer be allowed to vote.)
* So called “higher learning” destroyed. (Incidents are too numerous to mention, but colleges and universities are no longer about education and preparing for a career and better life; no, it’s about socialist indoctrination.)
* PC (Once again, too numerous to mention, but the term “snowflakes” now has nothing to do with weather. Political correctness has birthed an entire generation that just can’t hear harsh words and opposing views without running to a safe space…whatever that is.)
* Immigration (Where to start? Let me just say that both parties share blame for the current mess we’re in. However, to a liberal, the word “illegal” doesn’t mean anything anymore. Don’t you just love the phrase…”An illegal alien who hasn’t committed any crime…” What part of “illegal” don’t these idiots understand?)
* Islam. (Forget the lie of “Radical Islam”. All of Islam is radical, un-American, anti-everything this country stands for. In a sane world, Islam would have no place in Western civilization. Remember that Obama said Islam is part of the very fabric of our country? Oh yeah…? Find me just one Muhammad or Abdullah who signed the Declaration of Independence. Our very first encounter with Islam was not a peaceful one. 1801 Barbary Pirates….look it up.)
* Disrespect for the military. (While this is really nothing new when you think back to how Vietnam vets were treated when they first came back, it’s been during the Obama years that it’s now acceptable for a wider swath of the population to insult veterans. Obama’s DOJ even considered putting veterans in the same category as domestic terrorists and even taking away their 2nd A rights. Thankfully, we now have a president who understands how important the military is to American, and the world’s, freedom.)
* Healthcare (During the beginning of implementation of Obamacare, it was said that overall healthcare in this country amounts to one sixth of our entire economy. What a lot of people miss is that Obamacare is about government-controlled insurance, not actual medical care. Unfortunately, you need insurance to access medical treatment. That’s the problem. You control the purse strings, you control the reality. Under Obama, one of the biggest financial frauds disguised as insurance has been perpetrated on the American public. The only conceivable way out is a complete repeal of Obamacare, then a start-over from scratch. Let the free market do its work.)
* The failure/inability of liberals to understand THEY LOST! (I can’t believe we’re seeing members of congress such as Maxine Waters calling for President Trump’s impeachment. Also, it’s been one bizarre hypothesis after another why Hillary The Inevitable wasn’t Enthroned. Once Obama, the first black (half black, actually….) president was elected, liberals felt they had a lock on the rest of the country. They felt emboldened by Obama’s presence. He was even called “savior” by some. But, as with all things liberal, they missed the point that Americans in fly-over country don’t like being ruled. After eight years of anti-American elitist demagoguery, we were not going to swallow more of the same.)
This short list brings us to where we are now. We are rebuilding on the wreckage of Obama’s destruction of American culture, values and principles.
A great Biblical example of the rebuilding process can be found in the Old Testament book of Nehemiah. Written in the 5th Century BC, it’s an account of the Jewish prophet Nehemiah who was living in Babylon. He was a personal servant of King Artaxerxes. After hearing that the walls of Jerusalem were not repaired after the city had been sacked, Nehemiah sought and was granted permission to travel to the city. He was also able to gather the resources needed to start the rebuilding of the walls.
In Neh. 2:17, he sums up situation: “Ye see the distress we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and its gates are burned with fire; come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach.”
In Chapter 3 of Nehemiah, a detailed list is given of all the people who worked on the wall. In some cases, if their home was next to the wall, that was the portion they took responsibility for.
Nonetheless, the point is that it took a while, it took the gathering of resources, and it took the combined effort of the entire community. Everyone had a hand in rebuilding the wall, whether it involved a section next their own home or not. As in the time of Nehemiah, if we all get together, it can be done. We have a president who finally wants to provide the necessary resources for rebuilding, and is damned willing to make sure America is no longer a reproach to the rest of the world.
It’s time to rebuild on top of the cultural wreckage of Obama’s legacy.
photo credit: ww2gallery 1945, Allemagne, Berlin, Des civils dans les ruines de la ville après la fin de la guerre via photopin (license)
