Sometimes, Senator Lee, Motive Does Matter

Recently I saw the old Hitchcock movie, Lifeboat.  The story centers around a group of Americans whose ship is sunk by a German U-boat, leaving them stranded on a lifeboat.  Soon the U-boat is also sunk, and an evacuated German sailor seeks refuge with the Americans in the lifeboat.  The Americans disagree about whether or not to let him on the boat but ultimately they do.  The plan is to try and guide the lifeboat to Bermuda, but they have no compass and are unsure about the accuracy of their course.  Eventually the German sailor takes charge of the boat and the mission, including pretty much all of the rowing, as the others aren’t experienced sailors and they’re growing weak from hunger and thirst.  Unbeknownst to them the German was actually the captain of the U-boat and has a secret stash of water and sugar pills, as well as a compass.  Eventually they realize that instead of aiming for Bermuda he’s been rowing them to a rendezvous with a German supply ship. 

Hitchcock probably wanted viewers to contemplate themes about human nature, desperation and survival; but the main lesson I took away had to do with the importance of understanding what people’s real motives are.  That is to say you shouldn’t entrust someone with your boat or your life unless you’re certain that he wants to go in the same direction as you do.  Metaphorically speaking it’s a good lesson for a lot of areas in life, not the least of which is the election of our leaders.  That’s why I was greatly disappointed by an interview I saw a while back with Senator Mike Lee of Utah by Greta Van Susteren.  Senator Lee, a man whom I respect and admire, complained about Obama disparaging the motives of the GOP on their approach to Medicaid, and he went on to say that the two sides should not be questioning each other’s motives.  This “play nice” policy and misguided reverence for gentlemanly manners when we’re in a war for the soul of this nation dumbfounds me.  It’s yet another chapter out of the republican manual for How to Lose Elections (and the Country) in Ten Easy Steps.    Does Senator Lee really believe we can win a war with the devil by politely pretending that he isn’t the devil?  When would be a good time to start questioning Obama’s motives?  After the “transformation” is completed?

Motives matter.  They are critical to understanding why people behave the way they do and how they will behave in the future.   The destructive policies that republicans refer to as “failures,” the puzzling “incompetency” by what is supposed to be an intelligent man are really nothing of the kind.   They are a misdiagnosis of the problem, and the problem is that we pretend, or perhaps even believe, that Obama is motivated by the same things that we are.  People who are sailing on the great ship USA, who believe they’re sailing towards the American dream, to freedom and prosperity, need to understand that Captain Obama isn’t going there, and that’s by design.  His goals are to weaken this nation to make it ripe for the “transformation.”  The plan is to transfer wealth according to the leftist definition of who’s worthy and whose not; normalize and expand government dependency; take power from the individual and centralize it within the government for control by the Left; and gratify Obama’s ego by amassing personal glory for himself.  Everything he does, from vastly expanding our debt and our welfare systems to taking over our healthcare to making unconstitutional power grabs to arrogantly claiming credit for that which has been paid for not by him but by the American taxpayer, all of it can be traced to the motivates of this very dangerous and foolish man.

Yes I know, Senator Lee, that to delve into an examination of motives exposes republicans to the usual misrepresentations about their own motives.  But can we really not defend ourselves against charges that we want seniors to die, children to starve and poor people to go without healthcare?  Ironically, all of that is what will eventually happen when the nation collapses under the weight of socialist programs being imposed on us by the Left. 

Another reason we need to expose the Left’s motives is to make people understand the futility of logical debates about things like the debt ceiling.  We are never going to successfully appeal to the Left’s sense of reason about our looming debt crisis or about anything else because they don’t care unless it interferes with the larger plan.

So let’s have the debate.  Let’s pull no punches.  To whatever extent we can let’s force Obama and Hillary and all the leftists that presume to control this country to explain why their actions and their outcomes never align with the saintly, altruistic motives they pretend to be pursuing.  Could be that much of this country really doesn’t care where we end up as long as they’re comfortable along the way; but we’ll never know unless we finally have the debate.

~CW