Here is a summary of the Obama Wars -- boring stuff from which political wars are launched.

I promise not to do this again, but what follows is an intellectual summation of the Obama Wars. When you are finished reading, you may see this editor as little more than a pinhead. Take a few minutes and give me a chance -- jds. (that means you have to MAKE yourself read the post from beginning to end and, maybe, a couple of times over.)

Barth knew the route around the bourgeois Enlightenment, back to a radical past that saw in the old ways a liberation from the smug certainties and flatteries of the new. (Princeton Summary Bulletin, vol. 21, no. 2 (2000) ; Katherine Sonderegger .

Allow me to address these thoughts in the first person.

I begin with this caveat and these words, “bear with me a for a few moments and keep reading.” There now, I have given myself a little reprieve for having introduced a thought cast in a context for which the reader might not not comprehend.

I have my reasons. Please keep reading. This may be more relevant to the current political moment than you might know.

Karl Barth (pronounced “Bart”), was a famous European of the past century. He died in 1968 but not before he was given credit for being one of the most significant theologians in 500 years, dating back to a man named John Calvin.

Barth did more to combat (and defeat) classic liberalism than any modern day Christian thinker. His writings are very difficult to read (he was a dialect theologian). . . . .

Stay with me.

In the review document cited above, the words “bourgeois Enlightenment” caught my attention.

There is an historical period of time known as The Enlightenment. You can “google” the word for a full discussion. Papers abound on the Internet. In short and for the purposes of this post, The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement of the 1700’s extending into the early 1900’s. It embraced the notion that in every way, man(kind) is getting better and better. The back of this thinking - a hallmark opinion of the liberal left of the day - was broken with the two World Wars. WW I proved that man was NOT getting better and better but remained fully capable of hate and anger and war. WW II spoke to the extreme nature of this “fallen” nature.

Read our quote once again: Barth knew the route around the bourgeois Enlightenment, back to a radical past that saw in the old ways a liberation from the smug certainties and flatteries of the new.

Strike the words “bourgeois” and “Barth” for just a moment. We have this remaining thought, “ . . . . [knowing] the route around the Enlightenment, back to a radical past that saw in the old ways a liberation from the smug certainties and flatteries of the new.

Think “Obama” and the current political climate.

Obama appeases the Muslim world with a speech in Cairo.

Obama campaigns in Germany before the ’08 election and speaks to thousands of curious Europeans about hope and change - apparently assuming his audience was as interested in these things as he.

Obama shows no concern for his own popularity as he continues to push is radical agenda, even in the face of an approaching election. The single unifying concern in all that he has done, even beyond the paybacks and bribes, is his quest for a redistribution of wealth that benefits the poor and downtrodden. (allow me this characterization for a moment.)

He wants high paying jobs but does not know how to get this done without expanding government -- so, he expands government.

Altruism is the driving force of all that he is primarily concerned with. More than this, he believes in the high character of man and often addresses that noble sense of man. As a consequence, he assumes the best in the minds and hearts of those who would be our enemies -- ala The Enlightenment. He is wrong, just as was the overriding doctrine of the Enlightenment. But it does appear that this is what the man believes.

Let’s add in “bourgeois” but with definition. “Bourgeois – a member of the middle class.” Obama sees himself as a representative of the middle class and views as the “enemy” all those who oppose his task of “returning wealth to its proper owners” (Obama’s words).

The latter part of our quote, above, reads thusly : “ . . . . , back to a radical past that saw in the old ways a liberation from the smug certainties and flatteries of the new.”

In these words, this writers sees the Founding Fathers and the radicalism of their revolt from Great Britain and the beginnings of the great free market State.

In Obama, we truly have a middle class Enlightenment.

The rebuttal to this nonsense, as grand an idea as it may seem, is a return to the radical ideas and sensibilities of our Founding Fathers and those documents that testify to their intellectual awareness of the strengths and failings of secular man.

Why this post? For this author, it explains what is going on in the mind of Obama and the scope and nature of the battle in which we are involved. He fancies himself as an intellectual. He portends the goodness of man. And he is called to defeat those who stand in the way of the projections of his reality. In every way, he is the enemy of free markets and personal responsibility. Buy a house you cannot afford and, wala, you deserve help from the government. Work hard for a full on retirement? You deserve it and the government should be your insurance to this end. Don't have the same medical insurance as the stinking rich? Take the rich down to your level and we will all be the better. The Enlightened Leader versus a world of the proletariat and "rich". That is the nature of the current political wars --- jds.