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Obama: ‘Let the Purge of the Intellectuals Begin!’
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by BMCWrites | March 16, 2009 at 10:16 am
412 views | 33 Recommendations | 24 comments
Though President Barack Obama refuses to publicly describe himself as a socialist or a communist, the pages of non-revisionist history books are full of details about purges similar to the one he recently launched.
Purges often work like this: When a new socialist/communist leader seizes control of a formerly Democratic nation, he takes steps to purge his government of any and all intellectuals whose beliefs do not line up with his own. President Obama appears to have set the wheels in motion for just such a purge with the issuance of a Presidential Memorandum on Scientific Integrity one week ago today.
'Let the Purge of the Intellectuals Begin!' Purportedly "designed to guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch," the memo calls for director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop recommendations for presidential action designed to guarantee scientific integrity throughout the Executive Branch, based on the following principles:
The selection and retention of candidates for science and technology positions in the executive branch should be based on the candidate’s knowledge, credentials, experience, and integrity
The OSTP director has 120 days, according to the memo, to provide his recommendations to President Obama. That means that anyone working in the Executive Branch whose views -- on subjects such as abortion, embryonic stem cell research and global warming, to name a few -- differ from those of "Dear Leader" (i.e., conservatives) should expect to be shown the exit door soon after Independence Day.
Likewise, any conservative foolish enough to think he can land a job as a government scientist anytime in the foreseeable future -- even during a time of unprecedented growth in government -- will find himself disappointed.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (24)
at 10:40 on March 16th, 2009
Yes, ironic how the opposite of Bush can still be "Bush".
at 13:07 on March 16th, 2009
They were screaming Socialist/Communist long before Obama even won the election, based on essentially nothing. They screamed the same tripe about Hillary Clinton. It's an all purpose emergency siren used by all of the right wingers, most recently by Glenn Beck in an attempt to 'rally the troops' with the same old tired 'we're Christians, you're not, it's our country, get out ' BS.
As for scientific integrity, he's already overturned so much Republican/ Bish anti-science absurdity, he's already won the gold star in that department.
As for intellectuals, 'intellectual' was a dirty word during the Bush era...
at 14:10 on March 16th, 2009
I am no fan of Obama but seriously we cannot have people in positions of scientific advisors who believe that the earth is only 4 thousand years old or that man co-existed with dinosaurs. Get the born agains out of sceintific positions and back in the pulpits where they belong.
at 15:32 on March 16th, 2009
Science and creationism are not at odds with one another, as you seem to believe. It just takes science some time to find out the Word is right, as it did centuries ago with the "flat earth" theory, while the Bible refers to the earth as being round, and in recent years with the "single mother" discovery that was not possible until advancements in DNA technology. Scientific discovery relies on provable facts, meaning that by the time scientists have enough data to admit that the evolutionary THEORY is bull, many folks will already have found out the hot way. Therefore, applying one's logic to some of man's theories is important.
So many people were anxious to rid themselves of any accountability to God that they embraced the ridiculous evolutionary theory as fact, although it has never and can never be proved. It takes considerably more faith than I have (especially in the absence of proof) to believe this absurdity: Once upon a time, nothing from nowhere banged against nothing from nowhere and out popped a world!
at 17:58 on March 16th, 2009
You said it, eastvanray!
To my mind, this is about getting people with 'vested interest' out of power positions.
at 14:16 on March 16th, 2009
East -- Wake up and smell the coffee. U R Wrong!
at 15:45 on March 16th, 2009
If I am wrong then I am in good company; that of most of the intelligent people on the planet. There is no God and Jesus was just a man who preached too much and was killed by the Romans. He died. He remained dead and he is still dead. You can believe what you want as you do live in a relatively free country but don't go pushing your God crap on me.
at 17:11 on March 16th, 2009
east -- Good company? I hope you reconsider before it's too late...forever.
at 17:35 on March 16th, 2009
You and I will both die some day. The only difference will be that you will do so with the false belief that you are going somewhere better and I will know the truth.
at 15:41 on March 16th, 2009
I could not agree more , it is time the people took teaching their children into their own hands , if we don't teach them then the secularist will . I can not accept that I was a product of a smash up of a primordial soup, so where is that soups today did it disappear with the first created being out of it ? Non sense is nonsense and evolution is non sense .
at 15:54 on March 16th, 2009
Yes, "the secularists". We will eat your young! Beware our ideas will rot your children's brains and addict them to critical thinking. Next thing you know they might think religious wars are wrong and may even turn into doctors or scientists or something evil like that. Go back to the Dark Ages!
at 17:55 on March 16th, 2009
Weren't the religious persecutions of the West succeeded by the atheists' killing of about 100 million people under Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and so on?
Nothing wrong with secularism with a small "s" in itself. A lot wrong with a theory put on a pedestal and worshiped as a new idol by people who use it to conduct inquisitions.
Did you know that the geologist who first proposed the hypothesis (now proven theory) of continental drift was essentially drummed out of his profession?
Did you know that the Harvard MD and researcher who proved that homocystine levels that were too high could cause heart disease and heart attacks was forced out of Harvard because of opposition to his work? And this was in the mid- or early '90s, not the Middle Ages.
Now that work has been more than verified.
Secularists in the scientific world are quite capable of conducting inquisitions in their area as old theologians used to be.
It is all about the attitude, not the thing-in-itself.
at 17:57 on March 16th, 2009
That is the problem with all systems that require "worship" be they religious or secular, eventually the guns come out to defend it.
at 18:02 on March 16th, 2009
Atheists worship systems of thought as well and as often as anybody else.
at 17:53 on March 16th, 2009
It's too bad that Christians never studied biology or chemistry in high school or university. If they had, they would have at least a basic idea of what evolution even means. Judging by the comments above some of these people have obviously received very poor educations and are trying to make up for it by using the "you just gotta have faith" argument. And I don't care how many degrees someone has. That in itself is no gauge of how educated a person is. Perhaps, taking a page from some eastern philosophies, "enlightened" is a better word to use than educated. Or maybe even "evolved" is a better term.
at 18:29 on March 16th, 2009
Christian physicists and Christian astronomers such as Tyco Brahe, Copernicus and even Newton, a very Christian man, are the people who gave us modern science.
All the people in my Christian Quaker school, and all my friends in Catholic schools who were college-bound studied math, chem, physics and lots of biology.
Ever hear of Teilhard de Chardin, the great "Christian" philosopher? Studied it all and was part of some of the great discoveries in anthropology.
Maybe if you looked at what "Christians" at Notre Dame, Georgetown or other great Catholic universities studied, and you can do that on-line in seconds, your comments would not come out of the ignorance that they seem to reflect about Christians?
And, I am not even a "Christian". Thought I would just let you know.
at 19:05 on March 16th, 2009
Did you know that Bill Clinton went to Catholic grade school, high school and Georgetown, welcomed as a Protestant, and yet he still managed to learn about evolution and everything else related, including how to be the brilliant man he is?
at 18:14 on March 16th, 2009
Interesting to see this debate turn to questions re. consciousness and conditioning –dogmatic ideologies have had their day. The root meaning of the word "bishop" is "financial controller" according to Prof. Jean Markale at the Sorbonne.
We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our habitat from the dire impacts of our mismanagement, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, or the ability to "change our minds" –to analyze the integrity of the source of our information re. our place in the universe.
at 18:23 on March 16th, 2009
That is an excellent post.
Changing our minds never happens on anything important without a concomitant change in our emotional and attitudinal state.
The most educated are the ones who have studied the most, but the wisest and the most creative have instead wholly accepted error "the most". And they have had the courage to change their minds when they have had to.
Every scientific place I have studied has orthodoxies and people clinging to old beliefs.
Communism was such a bunch of crap that most at our state dept thought that the Russkies didn't really believe in communism. How could they? They didn't practice it and the results when applied were too often, though not always, awful.
Then the Soviet Union collapsed. Researchers went into the Kremlin vaults and archives and discovered that those atheists really did believe all that horsemanure.
We could say that those atheists worshipped Marxist dogma.
at 18:27 on March 16th, 2009
Maireid,
do you know about Ken Wilber?
at 00:02 on March 17th, 2009
Who said that creationalism and evolution were mutually exclusive of one another? God may have used an evolutionary process to bring everything together. He may even have pulled some molecules together and banged creation into existence. The Bible does not, to my knowledge, offer the step-by-step process He used. It only states quite plainly and honestly, "In the beginning, God . . ." I see and understand that the earth and everything else in the universe prove intelligent design. All evolutionists can really offer to the conversation are possible theories regarding the methodology that God used to get the job done.
One thing the Bible does make clear is that He made each species of living creatures separate, meaning one lifeform did not derive from another. I know I never saw it happen. And if you ever see a tadpole turn into a man, don't worry. I will advocate for you to get help.
Blessings!
Mary
at 02:41 on March 17th, 2009
In a communist society such a memorandum would not be accessible to the public.
Social democracy
Socialism
Obama is a Social Democrat, there is a great difference in the politics and at this moment you are embarrassing your self when your calling Obama a socialist as many of us that under stand politic terms and know which is left center and right wing politics are amused that you have no clue but are talking political issues that show you have no real understanding of the politics involved. Please stop embarrassing your self visit the links above or look up the terms in a good encyclopedia.
at 06:26 on March 17th, 2009
No it wouldn't.
Communism doesn't stop giving people access to information. In it's truest form it would be the most open, egalitarian, free-state imaginable. And yes, even democratic; everyone has a say in everything.
Granted, ahem, it hasn't actually worked particularly well thus far but we shouldn't dismiss it just because of that. Look where advanced Capitalism as a global philosophy has taken us? Staring wide-eyed into the economic abyss.
at 09:33 on March 17th, 2009
I seem to recall, as then candidate Senator Barack Obama ran for President of the United States, he was being described, by Right Wing conservatives, as being ".... too professorial" , seeming to indicate conservatives had some complaint with 'intellectuals'.