…it’s what the underlying motive is.
It started with this moment in a speech in September:
Its just awkward. He stops, then he starts blinking, almost as if he’s trying to scroll past that pesky “by their Creator” part. If this was one time, it would have probably been forgotten by now, but he’s left it out two more times since.
As a matter of speculation, I don’t think he is doing it to spite the “bitter clingers”. When he is showing his spite, his mannerisms come across like someone who thinks that they are being clever, and that only he and his buddies are in on the joke. Who could forget these images:
I think he actually has trouble with the concept of a Creator.
It’s one thing to invoke God when you’re talking to the rubes. It doesn’t require any serious consideration for any politician to toss out a “God Bless America” when there is an open mic. It’s cotton candy for the believers in the electorate, and the speaker can invest the phrase with the same enthusiasm that they might otherwise reserve for a “And That’s Why I’m Asking For Your Vote!” It’s as reflexive as sitting in the same pew for twenty years and never actually thinking that a Christian pastor wouldn’t say “God Damn America”, and preach about “chickens coming home to roost” as a nation mourned at the sight of smoldering rubble where 3000+ Americans and commercial air travel as we knew it died because members of the Religion of Peace did an unspeakbly unpeaceful thing. Unlike these things, the Declaration of Independence is a difficult thing. More than a “We want a divorce” letter to King George, this was the Charter, albeit like no other, that spoke a new nation into existence.
It put into words the truth that unalienable rights exist for every person, and that they come from no man or government, but from a Creator, who empowered his creations to abolish any government that abdicates its duties to safeguard those rights. It is a milestone in the concept of limited government with the limitation being the will of the people who the government exists to serve, and that this is by design.
We know that the President already has a problem with the idea of limited government. He told us so when he talked about what he perceived to be the fundamental flaw in the Constitution…that it is a “Charter of negative liberties”. (at 1:15)
Never mind that he gets the concept wrong, given the nature of his approach to it, this simply isn’t surprising. It isn’t a Charter at all. A Charter is a grant of rights from the sovereign. It is a recognition of the authority inherent in the Sovereign and the basis for the rights granted by it. The best modern-day equivalent would be the Articles of Incorporation issued by the state to a corporation. The Constitution states the rules by which the entity will operate. That makes it akin to the bylaws of a corporation. But as you hear him tell it, his concern with government is what it can do for you. On its face, that fails to recognize that the idea of limited government at the heart of the Founders’ and Framers’ core philosophy. They believed that they were very clear about what government was to do, and equally clear that the rest was for us. They knew that this was the best means of preserving our liberties. The only party being “negatively” affected by this philosophy and these bylaws as they were originally written was government itself. That’s what makes this audio so telling about his approach to thinking about this, and it is why I believe that he has a problem with the concept of a Creator.
These words are probably the weightiest written by any American. Even he cannot read them aloud and not feel the conviction of their meaning. If he reads the offending passages aloud, then he is acknowledging that there is a limitation to government. It means that government’s role is a limited one. It means that the rights that matter do not come from government; government can preserve and defend these rights, or government can impede them, but government cannot be the source of them. And it means that if government does impede them, then government is answerable to the people themselves, because its rights originate with them…they are the creator. This turns his philosophy on its head, and threatens not only his worldview, but the grand plans he has for us all. This is why he doesn’t get it. This is why he can’t understand our attitude when he thinks we should be thanking him. And this is why a man who campaigned as a uniter is probably the most divisive figure ever in American Politics.