You only thought you were
By Joseph Randolph
web posted July 23, 2012
In the heightened assault against America and the individualism making America great, the President has stooped to the level of the socialist leveler by minimizing the individual as the President deserts him for the greater God of Government. If the standard charge against conservatism faults it as an introverted and selfish philosophy of "every man for himself," the President—apparently not finding this generic socialist criticism of individualism enough—went on to intimate that there really is no self or selves. There is only the Self, meaning the Community, and translated further still, in the interest of consolidating all power into One, the State. As an academic I recognized this assertion as straight out of the leftist dominated academy of today, itself preaching and teaching right out of the pages of the revered tomes of Marx, with the writing of Marx straight out of visceral human envy of others. Of course Marx denied such a charge, but so too does the President deny any allegiance to Marx.
Like most profundities produced from the infernal regions of human anthropology, such utterances are capable of deceiving vast domains of the population looking to line their pockets with other people's money and resources. Listening to the President's politically calculated diminutives toward the "haves," the takers reason that they have the justification to demand what they want and from whom they want it. That would be other individuals deemed to have no real right to the fruits of their labors, because behind the bounty is not, according the President, the individual who made it, but the vaunted "community," so loved by redistributionists bent on seizing it—while they praise their government for castigating the subject for his error of thinking it his.
It is a creepy argument that if ever recognized for what it is makes the victim realize that this kind of thievery is the thoroughfare toward tyranny and serfdom, but masquerading behind a barrage of soothing jellies, like "social justice." However, it should send awakened individuals running back to reclaim for themselves what they were before they naively gave their selves away—individuals. The President, however, would mislead his hearers into thinking that they are only pieces of the larger and more important socialist State. Such a State will demand we set aside our private selfish selves for the unselfish public Self or State. What better argument for this twisted logic than to deny there is a self to be found.
No other political notion has as many graveyards of human pain and suffering behind it as this touted preamble of the socialist paradise. Truth of the matter is that socialism is a philosophy built up from venomous envy of the other who has more. This is as true for our President as it is for the gullible and greedy in his audiences. It is a taker's philosophy and designed to intimidate those who dare raise their head above others—or dare to claim what is their own as their own. No wonder, then, that the President loathes the notion of American individualism, for in tandem with it is American exceptionalism, and everyone has heard what he thinks of that. 
Joseph Randolph is an academic and writer living in Wisconsin. His 2010 book Debilitating Democracy: Power From The People, met with few buyers or readers in that election year. He is therefore hopeful to influence the upcoming November election through it, and thus, if you request a copy from him—and are among the first fifteen to do so—he will mail a copy without costs to you simply for requesting it, but also for passing it on to another reader when you are finished. His email address is jqrandolph@hotmail.com.