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Y_K_Hui

Listed below are comments made by Y_K_Hui between Monday, 13th October 2008 and Monday, 27th October 2008.

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Reagan, Clinton, W, and Obama 5:56pm on 27 Oct 2008 Mr. Webb,

I hope this link can be posted:

http://theamericanexpatinuk.blogspot.com/2006/01/justin-webb-apologizes-for-offending.html

Thank you.
Unhelpful messages 10:41am on 25 Oct 2008 Here is a helpful message from The First Things:

The difference between Obama's promises and Martin Luther King's:

When [King] delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, on August 28, 1963, exactly forty-five years to the day before Obama’s nomination acceptance speech, he too used the language of promise. But he did so in its older, pre-Crolyan sense. He did so with the marvelously homely, everyday image of a bank check as a promissory note:

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

There is no doubt that King was calling upon an imperfect nation to do better, to live up to its creed. But he was also affirming that creed, affirming the “magnificent” work of the American Founders and the founding documents, and referring back to them as justification for his march on Washington. He was couching his political acts in the terms of a specific promise that had been made in the past. He was saying, in effect, “Make good on the promise! Follow through!”

Obama’s use of promise in his nominating speech is quite different. The word “promise” is used many more times: thirty-two by my count. And it is used in many different and shifting senses, equivocally, promiscuously, so that one is never certain at any given time what kind of promise is being referred to, and what source it derives from. King’s clean, crisp, precise, and unpretentious use of the term has been lost, in favor of slipperiness, inflationary excess, and diffuse meaning. Let me illustrate with a few passages.

It is that promise that has always set this country apart—that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well. . . .

It’s a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect. . . .

It’s a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road. . . .

Ours is a promise that says government . . . should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves—protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology. . . .

[Our government] should ensure opportunity . . . for every American who’s willing to work. That’s the promise of America—the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper.

And we will keep our promise to every young American—if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education. . . .

Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. . . [and] the promise of equal pay for an equal day’s work. . . . Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility—that’s the essence of America’s promise.

[No one] benefits when a[n immigrant] mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This too is part of America’s promise—the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort. . . .

[It] is that American spirit—that American promise—that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

Clearly, for Obama the word promise has an almost incantatory power. Or at least he hopes it will for us. But what, based on these passages, can one to say about its meaning for him?

First, one can conclude that it has no fixed meaning, and what meaning it does have shifts back and forth between older and newer acceptations of the word—between King’s sense and Croly’s, and sometimes indeterminate territory that would not seem to belong to either one.

Second, that there is almost nothing in personal and public life that cannot be touched by this promise. It will keep our toys safe, bridge divides, and bind us together in spite of our difference. It appears to be a commitment, which quite possibly has existed from the very founding of the nation, to the idea that we are fundamentally responsible for ourselves, that we are also our brothers’ keepers, that we should have equal pay for equal work, and health care, and a college education for all. We never know who made these promises on our behalf, or when they were made, only that we are entitled to seek their fulfillment.

This is a perfect image of how a powerful abstract word’s dangerous hypertrophy can lead to both galloping inspiration and massive confusion. And it is also worth noting that Obama consciously excises at least two possible meanings of the promise. There is no mention of the unborn and the disabled as brothers and sisters for whom we are called to serve as keepers. And there is the way the speech concludes:

At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise—that American promise—and in the words of Scripture “hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.”

Interestingly, even though Obama made explicit reference to these words’ source in the Bible, and even chooses to use the more believer-friendly word Scripture, he also truncated this quotation in a highly significant way. For the words of Hebrews 10:23 to which he alludes actually read like this: “Let us hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess, for the one who made the promise is faithful.”

This is not a small omission. It removes the very basis of hope, as the original writer understood hope, by removing the assurances offered by the faithful one who is Jesus Christ. The words Obama quotes are merely the empty husks left behind when the theological content is removed. How can one speak of the promise when there is no one left doing the promising? The word promise has, by his speech’s end, become little more than a floating signifier, which is not attached to any determinate source or destination, but retains only a faint moral glow of its lofty origins.

This is the kind of damage to clear thinking that can be wrought by the excessive and unchallenged use of abstract words. And it suggests reasons why those who have been so impressed by Obama’s well-advertised sensitivity to religion ought to think again.

Wilfred M. McClay,
SunTrust Chair of Humanities at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Why poll numbers vary 2:00pm on 24 Oct 2008 Polls change because moods change unless the person really knows and THINKS!

Now what do you THINK, not feel, after you read this?

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=78921

Please don't respond unless you have read the arguments.

Thank you.
McCain loses it 12:15pm on 23 Oct 2008 Mathew, would you have a moment to read this?

http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/081017light.html

Please try to examine your presuppositions. Or think for a second whether your journalism professors are liberal indoctrinators ...

The young are really attracted to the sophists, but this is nothing new. Socrates lamented on this 2500 years ago.
Determined to vote 12:00pm on 23 Oct 2008 Let's be precise and concise. What is more important -- to vote or to vote intelligently?

If you agree you need to vote intelligently, would you read this:

http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/081017light.html
The risk of expectation 6:11pm on 22 Oct 2008 In your own words, Mr. Hewitt:

"He is on stage every day. He speaks, gives interviews but as to what really drives this extraordinary politician [Obama] we as watchers, voters cannot be sure."

I too felt the same, and so I have been digging up various sources (independent research rather than relying on the popular media), not just going along with the polls or my peers.

Please, voters, it is not too late to find out about the candidates. Look into their backgrounds and records--how they work or operate in actual politics, not just how they look or perform during campaigns.
Low blows 03:55am on 15 Oct 2008 Mr. Hewitt,

Would you take some time to read the book The Case Against Barack Obama ... the Media's Favorite Candidate by David Freddoso?

It seems to me your reporting carries some of your own preconception and presumptions.

However, I appreciate your work. No one is perfect.

In any event, I bet 90 percent or more of the Obama supporters know little if any of the facts cited in the book.
Palin's cheer 04:28am on 14 Oct 2008 Why is that when someone does not support the Obama ticket, then she or he is at once accused to be a racist, as earthLiza3 did here?

What Palin is doing is just pointing to the fact that Obama has a background of getting close with extremists--Wright, Ayers and so forth.

Please do some independent research on Obama's background, don't just rely upon the popular media.
Fast food nation 04:02am on 13 Oct 2008 I really commend these teenagers. Cory Jarvis is so right, for example, while much of the media (NYT, NPR, etc.) intentionally and otherwise project a negative and wrong image of America in the world. The U.S. troops did not occupy and terrorize Iraq but liberated them from a tyrant and are working to improve the lives of the people there.

I wish the U.S. can do that in Sudan and North Korea as well, but the U.S. just cannot do it all. The Africans and the South Koreans can do more than what they have done.
Free thought 03:43am on 13 Oct 2008 Good blog and good comments here. Much less biases and emotionalism here than other sites. At the same time, most of us want better rather than worse leadership/government, so this election is serious!

Please try to be as better informed as possible before you cast your vote. And I second the comment/suggestion that you read this excellent black writer Thomas Sowell and his recommended book titled The Case Against Barrack Obama.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell100708.php3

Best wishes!

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