Hubris
Bookworm on Sep 13 2008 at 4:29 pm | Filed under: Barack Obama
It’s Saturday, and I put my energy into the important McCain-Palin 2008 site to which I contribute. Here’s the beginning of my post, and I hope you’ll click over there to see the end:
Interestingly, the two concepts in my post title have ancient roots. More than twenty-five hundred years ago, the Greeks concluded that overweening pride and arrogance were sins so great that they were worthy of criminal penalties. It upset the polis to have an individual align himself with the Gods.
The Biblical concept of pride leading to personal destruction is also an ancient one, having its roots in Proverbs 16:18 (a Biblical book reputed to originate with King Solomon, almost 3,000 years ago): “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”
In other words, there is absolutely nothing new in the fact that some people, elevated to high position, lose control of their connection to humanity, begin to believe that they are gods or demi-gods and, Icarus-like (to quote another ancient concept), end up plummeting earthward from their artificial heights.
Over the past year, Obama, driven by his internal narcissistic dialogue and buoyed up by apocalyptic levels of worship emanating from the media and the MoveOn.org crowd, became the poster boy for hubris and overweening pride. He started to believe his own press. His speeches become more and more unrelated to pragmatic politics, and suggested that he had the magical powers to lower the oceans, clear the air, and bring everlasting peace to mankind. This kind of message would have been a hard sell to the unconverted in any event, but it was made harder by the fact that his implicit faith in his wonderfulness kept stumbling and crashing into his marked ordinariness: his verbal gaffes; his horrible friends; and his bad decisions (one word: Biden).
If you like it, you can read the rest here.
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As a Christian, I have many mistakes in my past that I cannot hide. I try to behave, imperfectly, to the ideals of Christ and support Christian movies when I can. To that end, I recently purchased a dvd collection, consisting of four movies, made by Christian producers and a studio, Cloud Ten Pictures, that is dedicated to making Christian centered movies. http://www.cloudtenpictures.com
The dvd set is named Apocalypse and is centered around O.N.E., One Nation Earth.
It is represented by Satan in human form.
To shorten this, the story is loosely based on the book of Revelation. Satan, pretending to be God, makes the world nukes disappear and invokes world peace.
The series started in 1998 and was concluded in 2001.
Now, to be clear, I am in no way comparing the Obama to the anti-christ.
There are eerie similarities through out the series the are familiar, including the press treatment of Obama, his remark saying he is the one the world has been waiting for, and the wholesale acceptance of the man by the liberals of the world.
The set is definitely a B class series, with the acting being a little hokey at times.
To your point of hubris, that will be the downfall of Obama, as it always has been with man.
Rock, there’s a lot of useful stuff in fiction, if you have the principles of this world down correctly.
There was a moment in the Charlie Gibson interview (when he was once again trying to get Gov. Palin to say that she’s unprepared by asking repeatedly for her reaction to McCain’s choice of her) when she said, “It’s a very humbling experience.” I’d wager no one in the 0bama war room had the first clue what she was talking about. (They don’t get the “servant’s heart” bit, either. “The maid’s heart? What the …”)
Hubris:
“My job is to be so persuasive that if there’s anybody left out there who is still not sure whether they will vote, or is still not clear who they will vote for, that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany … and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama”
“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” – Which, whenever I hear or see it, hits me as codewords for “I am The One you’ve been waiting for. You’ve been ready for years, just waiting for a Great Leader to take you on that Journey. And now, I am Here.”
OFF TOPIC…
Tiresia…
Remember our discussion a bit ago – on the natural born issue??
You might find this link interesting.
http://advanceindiana.blogspot.com/2008/07/meaning-of-natural-born-citizen-and.html
Book, you must see this.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/les-misbarack.html
Trust me, it is nice music. Course, if you can make out all the words, it might dampen some of its beauty.
I’ve said before that there are 4 reactions to propaganda. Not 4 individual’s reactions, 4 types.
There is the “I find the propaganda appealing and well done, and I agree with it.
I find the propaganda negative and poorly done, but I agree with the truth of the message.
I find the propaganda appealing and well done, but I disagree with the truth of its message.
I find the propaganda negative and poorly done, and I disagree with the truth of its message.
My reaction to this obama nation vid is number 3.
Your reaction to Coulter, Book, is Option 1. To give you an example.
Supporters of Bush that didn’t like how he defended himself, but agreed on his Iraq policy, is also number 1.
John Kerry, can fit in Option 4.
That’s one of your best posts ever, BW!
‘She acknowledges God and knows the vast difference that lies between her, a mere striving mortal, and God.’
If a person has never stood humbled as a sinner before a righteous God, then I don’t think they really know who they are, no matter how many touchy-feely get-in-touch-with-myself classes they may take or how much they are educated.
Now from the sublime to the ridiculous – I love those Naughty Monkey shoes and wish I was young enough to wear them! In red. Especially since I was born in the year of the monkey!