"Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

This statement by Michelle Obama on Feb. 18, 2008, at an appearance at UCLA, initially struck me as supremely arrogant and frightening... because it is supremely arrogant and frightening; and it is an honest expression -except for the putting-down-divisions part - of what Obama has tried to do as President.

It is an expression of progressive presumptuousness: trying to make people better; thinking the right leaders can mold us into the kind of people that the progressives think that we should be.

But let's look at it from a different angle; perhaps we should be thanking Michelle Obama for her challenge that we start living up to and acting upon the principles of America's founding.

A Special Announcement from To The Point

With the victory of Scott Brown in Massachusetts this week, the Democrats have abandoned their maniacal attempt to pass ObamaCare "health reform" legislation.

Yet it is little known that a significant part of the ObamaCare program has secretly already been voted into law as part of the stimulus bill Congress passed in February, 2009.  This is $20 billion for "death panel" health rationing boards.

The mortal threat that ObamaCare poses to the health and freedom of all Americans cannot be eliminated until the sections of the stimulus bill authorizing funding for the health rationing boards is repealed.

Today (1/22), Congressman Thad McCotter (R-MI) introduced legislation to do just that:  The Freedom from Rationed Health Care Act.  The Bill number is HR 4500.

By all signs, Americans are preparing to send Washington a clear message in the 2014 elections.

The question is, will Washington listen?

Republicans - poised to take control of Congress - should set our sights on three big goals to make Americans feel confident in their futures once again: jumpstart the economy, safeguard constitutional liberties, and strengthen our national security.

Here are ten critical priorities for the 2015 Congress:

First, embrace a big pro-jobs, growth agenda.

For six years, the Obama economy has been trapped in stagnation, hurting millions. A Republican Congress should immediately help Americans get more jobs by embracing America's energy renaissance.

This means passing legislation to make it easier to build energy infrastructure, such as the Keystone pipeline. But, we need an energy policy that's bigger than Keystone.

An effective energy plan would also protect innovative energy technology, such as hydraulic fracturing, from being handcuffed by the federal government. We can also open up land for exploration and ensure that American companies can export liquefied natural gas around the world.

And, lastly, stop the EPA from implementing rules that will destroy coal jobs and drive up our electricity bills.

Second,

These are the two most common accusations the Left hurls at the Right.  It's what psychologists call "projection" - accusing others what you are guilty of.  Let's take them one at a time, then see how they are connected.

To understand how the Left is racist, we'll do a thought experiment by asking: What if Obama were white?

Let's suppose that his bio is exactly the same, except that his Kenyan father was white.  Kenya, of course, was created by white British colonialists at the end of the 19^th century as the British East Africa Protectorate, and renamed the Crown Colony of Kenya in 1920.

So - flaming Marxist anti-Western Civilization self-hating white guy, community organizer who never had a real job, professional Alinskyite agitator turned professional politician with absolutely no business or executive experience whatever, freshman Senator with no legislative accomplishments whatever, no real intelligence, just a pathological narcissist with a shrewd manipulative cunning behind a glib voice and flashy smile.

Would anyone in the Democrat Party, the Enemedia, the Moonbat blogosphere, Academia, or the public at large have paid any attention to this white guy's running for president - much less clamored for him to do so or swooned when he did?

Of course not.  The only, single, solitary reason anyone paid any attention to Obama is that he's black.  His candidacy, his election, his presidency is entirely racist.  America has a Racist Presidency because he wouldn't be president if he were another white guy, albeit with exactly the same bio.

[Letter to the Wall Street Journal]

This is in response to "Our Incompetent Civilization" by Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens.

Mr. Stephens ascribes failures to profile Moslems at airport security, think rationally about climate change, or eliminate Somali pirates to "civilizational incompetence."  Such failures are not due to a lack of ability but to a lack of will.  It is not civilizational competence that we lack but civilizational confidence.

On the same day as Mr. Stephens' article (01/04/10), Der Spiegel ran an editorial bemoaning the lack of Western outrage at recent Moslem attacks on Danish cartoonists who caricatured Mohammed.  It was entitled, "The West Is Choked by Fear."  But fear of what?

Whatever that fear is of, it is the cause of our collapse of civilizational confidence.  Please allow me to identify it.  It is the fear of envy.