First Principles

Whoa – not in this country.

First there are the unsettling Obama/dictator posters.  Then came the media slobbering love fest.  And now we have a video of a bunch of celebrities literally making public pledges to be Barack Obama’s “servant”.

The Obama love-fest keeps getting creepier.

The specific “servant” line comes from Demi Moore, at about 3:54, and follows a long list of celebrities pledging to now do things they should have been doing all along – like being nice to people, cleaning up after themselves, and volunteering their time to help their communities.  Why all this was impossible for them to do the last eight years but is now suddenly within their grasp goes unmentioned. Also unmentioned – but clearly implied – is that they are heroic for doing what, as a child, was considered a bare minimum of acceptable conduct.

For example, one of the funniest is Sean Combs pledging to turn the lights out in his house (presumably when he isn’t there).  As if his house doesn’t use more energy with all the lights out than mine does in full blaze at Christmastime.  As if he was, until now, prevented from flipping that switch when he left the building.

True courage indeed.

The worst is that no one pledged allegiance to their country.  No one pledged to support and defend the Constitution.  They didn’t even promise to respect the office of the President, even if they disagreed with what the president was doing.  (They did pledge to be a servant to “the world,” whatever that means.)

Nope.  Just the man himself.  Right or wrong.  Not a supporter or a fan.  To be his servant.

Apparently dissent isn’t the highest form of patriotism any more.

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I have served my country in uniform, serving under two Commanders-in-Chief.  I was proud to do it during both terms of office, even if I liked one of those CinCs better than the other one.

But there is in my mind a vast difference between “service” and “being a servant.”  A servant is a subject, a slave even.  It implies a lack of voluntariness, or if voluntary, a devotion that is purely personal to the person a servant works for.

I shudder at the thought that the cool kids in this video are actively working to make it cool to pledge personal servitude to a politician.  It’s creepy.  It’s brain-dead.  it’s dangerous.  Since we live in a country of laws and not men, it’s downright un-American.

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As I was writing the above, I noticed Andrew Breitbart posted a screed about the video at my new favorite place on the Internet, Big Hollywood.  I can’t recommend it highly enough.  His last line sums it up the best:

Remember this video: It is a instructive relic of the era of celebrity decadence and boutique anti-Republican activism under President Bush. It is a sickening display that they want want fast and easy absolution for having comported themselves like ill-behaved children for eight difficult and war-torn years.

Good luck, President Obama. The rest of you can go to hell.