Barack Got Bite

I’ve been rather unimpressed with Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s rather non-confrontational, middle-of the-roadism since he took his seat in the U.S. Senate. I would like to see him not necessarily be more partisan for partisanship’s sake but to be more vocal about perceived injustices. Today I got my wish:

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Republicans controlling the federal government practice Social Darwinism, a discredited philosophy that in economics and politics calls for survival of the fittest, according to a Democratic U.S. senator.

Sen. Barak [sic] Obama of Illinois, a fast-rising Democratic star, told Florida party members that only a philosophy among Republicans of sink or swim explains why some Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans still live in cars while Republicans in Washington prepare next week to enact $70 billion in tax breaks.

"It's called the 'Ownership society' in Washington. This isn't the first time this philosophy has appeared. It used to be called Social Darwinism," Obama said late Saturday at the Democrats meeting at Walt Disney World.

"They have a philosophy they have implemented and that is doing exactly what it was designed to do. They basically don't believe in government. They have a different philosophy that says, 'We're going to dismantle government'," Obama said.

Republicans running the federal government believe, "You are on your own to buy your own health care, to buy your own retirement security ... to buy your own roads and levees," Obama said, referring to flood barriers that gave way in New Orleans during Katrina last August.

The Social Darwinism espoused in word and deed by the modern Republican party is truly one of it’s least attractive features, in my opinion. It also comes across as downright un-Christian. This from a group that wants to ram their particular brand of “Christianity” down everyone’s throats. But the Republican Party is nothing if not hypocritical (another unappealing trait).