My wife, Angie, and I saw “2016: Obama’s America” recently while in the Denver area. I hope that every citizen will take the time and be open-minded enough to see it, too. The movie producer is Gerald Molen, the producer of the Academy Award-winning “Schindler’s List.” The author and co-director is Dinesh D’Souza, an intellectual; a distinguished author and journalist; a conservative; and an honest man in every respect.
I have spent a lifetime in service to our country. I have known many who died in service to our country, and I almost lost my life, too. Spending more than six years as a prisoner of war gave me time to think about our country, with all of its blessings, and, yes, its flaws — and my responsibilities.
In my lifetime, we truly have been remarkable and exceptional. We have been a force for good throughout the world. We have led the way and helped remove dictators and tyrants, and we have sacrificed so much national blood and treasure in those causes. We have given millions the opportunities of freedom and independence. We, unlike any other nation, have come to the aid of those suffering in natural disasters.
I am proud of our country, the goodness of our history and our continuing efforts to correct our flaws.
President Obama is the antithesis of the America I have known — the America for which I have willingly accepted personal sacrifice; extreme challenges and hardships; and lost many friends doing the same thing.
Obama’s re-election obviously would mean a majority of the voters in this country have chosen to give away the freedom and opportunity for which countless thousands have sacrificed and paid the ultimate price. If he is re-elected, the blood of our demise as a vibrant, exceptional and generous nation will be on our hands, and the ghosts of those who sacrificed so much for us will be stirred.
Those who allow this by their own lethargy and those who vote for Obama will have chosen to steer our country toward darkness, unlike anything anyone living today has ever experienced.
It is time to grow up and vote for the founding principles of our country and to vote with intelligence, not emotion. Obama’s America will not be able to do the great things of the past that made us exceptional — the greatest force in history for freedom, economic growth, innovation and generosity. Obama’s vision of America is based on economic and social policies and philosophy that never have worked, but have been tried repeatedly in modern history and failed.
His re-election would be a disaster for us all, especially for our children and grandchildren. His re-election would be an insult, a crime and a tragedy to all of us — and those consequences, and the mentality behind them, have been in the spotlight recently at the Democratic National Convention, where lies and absurdities prevailed. I hope you took the time to watch the spectacle.
I think of our granddaughters, triplets, now almost three years old. I consider a vote for Obama an extremely abusive act toward those little girls, one that I will not take lightly. We Americans have always passed along a country that is better, more prosperous, more noble and more generous; economically and militarily stronger; a country more moral and rational; and a country more willing to lead and sacrifice for freedom, and the freedom others deserve, than we inherited.
Voting for Obama is a vote to abandon our history, our heritage, our character, our obligations and our future. I am reminded of our Founding Fathers, of the sacrifices of so many which made my America possible, and how such a vote would do great harm to those adorable little granddaughters and my country. My tolerance for Obama supporters will cease.
I recently received some thoughts from a dear and courageous old friend from our difficult days in Hanoi, who, like me, was watching the Democratic National Convention. I agree with him totally and wanted to share his heartfelt thoughts:
“If those folks really do represent half or more of the electorate, then this certainly is not the America I grew up in — as a poor kid, with an opportunity to better myself, through my own intelligence and hard work. It is a socialist/communist country that will rapidly kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, to soon thereafter become perhaps the largest poverty-stricken, Third World country on the planet!
“If that is my future, then I resent it and I’m offended by it (for all the good that will do ...). Anyone who is eligible to vote and doesn’t do so in November will absolutely deserve the government their inaction secures for us all! For my part, however, having lived in a communist prison for nearly six-and-one-half years, I will resist, in every way possible, with all means at my disposal, until my dying breath!”
To that, I say amen, and God bless you!
This election is too important. Those who would vote for Obama want the government to run our lives; they wish for the producers in our country to support the takers and looters who contribute little to nothing; they revel in envy and class warfare (something that is foreign to me). If you watched the convention speakers, you have seen them denigrating the country I love; the religion I grew up with; the hard work, the traditions and history I treasure; the independence and freedom that have been America; and the honor of those who sacrificed so much for us.
This is a destructive crowd that is seemingly — and maybe emotionally and immaturely — hell-bent on destroying the country I love. I have had it.
Please see the movie “2016.” Share this with friends, family and loved ones. Those among you who disagree with me, take a chance on enlightenment and see the movie. If you have not read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” you should. Written in 1957, she describes an America where the “takers” (those expecting the producers and government to give them everything, to share the profits of their endeavors) demand more and more and the bureaucrats and politicians comply — and America descends into darkness.
I heard interviews with Democratic delegates Wednesday night of the DNC saying profit should be outlawed. You will be amazed at how accurately “Atlas Shrugged” reflects where we are heading tomorrow if Obama is re-elected. We must defeat Obama, and, I say again, my tolerance for his supporters has ceased to exist, as likely will a few friendships. But, that is OK.
Wake up, America. It is almost too late.
(The writer — a retired U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel — is a member of the board of directors of Citizens Against Government Waste, and has been active in veterans affairs, conservative politics and public service for more than 30 years. He has served as assistant secretary of commerce in the Reagan administration; as Georgia state director of the Farmers Home Administration; and as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission from December 1997 to June 2005. He lives in Alexandria, Va. His email address is orsonIII@comcast.net.)
Comments (35)
Add commentGreat movie for racists/others who can't think for themselves
“The worst kind of smear journalism—a singularly disgusting work.”—Columbia Journalism Review on “2016: Obama’s America.”
Right-wing author Dinesh D’Souza has recently released “2016: Obama’s America,” a movie that falsely smears President Obama as having a hidden agenda bent on realizing “anti-colonial” ambitions. A self-proclaimed expert on the President, D’Souza bases the film around his own past works, which were previously described as “the worst kind of smear journalism,” and riddled with “lazy” errors. The result is what Variety calls a “cavalcade of conspiracy theories, psycho-politico conjectures and incendiary labeling” and what the L.A. Times labels a “badly disguised and overly long attack ad.” A look at D’Souza’s record is a look at a history of demonstrably false and ridiculous claims about the President, and “2016” is no exception. In fact, admitting President Obama was born in the U.S. is what Bloomberg calls “as close to moderation as this nutty film gets.”
“2016” promises to show viewers what they “don’t know” about President Obama, but instead reveals what Newsday called a “ranter” peddling conspiracy theories. In place of an actual documentary, D’Souza employs “pseudo-scholarly leaps of logic” to invent an imaginary character who has inherited “anti-colonial,” “Third World” views from his father—whom he last saw when he was 10 years old. The first third of the movie is dedicated to D’Souza’s own life story, baselessly claiming his supposedly similar background gives him a special insight into the President’s thinking.
But the similarities end there. It’s true, for example, that they both spent time overseas as children, and that they both had the privilege of receiving Ivy League educations. But while President Obama’s time as head of the Harvard Law Review won praise for his balanced and even-handed approach, D’Souza helped found a student newspaper infamous for ugly attacks on students and teachers. And while D’Souza is happy to invent claims and ideas from a book the President wrote two decades ago, the offensive and repugnant views in his own past books—which include blaming the “cultural left” for the September 11th attacks and promoting insulting stereotypes—receive little mention.
The rest of the movie similarly strays from reality. D’Souza attacks President Obama’s work to reduce nuclear stockpiles, despite its strong bipartisan support from Democrats and Republicans, including President Ronald Reagan’s former Secretary of State. D’Souza dismisses President Obama’s call for a world without nuclear weapons as a “dreamy idea,” while ignoring that it was President Reagan himself who repeatedly called for “the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.” He even appears to suggest President Obama held views because a onetime friend of his late father did, yet another reason why the AP found the movie’s premise “not plausible” and “almost entirely subjective.”
D’Souza’s “2016” draws largely from his 2010 book “The Roots of Obama’s Rage,” and related columns, writings that have also been extensively mocked and lambasted by commentators of all partisan stripes. Columbia Journalism Review described it as “the worst kind of smear journalism—a singularly disgusting work.” Conservative blogger and professor of theology R.R. Reno slammed D’Souza’s argument, which insinuates that President Obama is not a true American because he is “captive to the ideology of [Kenyan] Luo tribesman from the ‘50s,” as “both unwarranted and misguided.”
That his writings and film are based on lies should not come as a surprise to anyone given D’Souza’s long history of attempting to add a veneer of intellectual respectability to fringe theories, conspiratorial fear-mongering, and flat-out falsehoods. For example:
D’Souza falsely claimed that President Obama said he didn’t believe in American exceptionalism—when in fact the President has repeatedly praised America’s exceptional identity and core values.
D’Souza falsely asserted that President Obama funded $2 billion in Brazilian oil exploration even though numerous fact checkers and reporters have noted that President Obama had “nothing to do with the loan.”
D’Souza falsely charged that President Obama backed Scotland’s release of the Lockerbie bomber only weeks after the Obama administration had put out a statement opposing Scotland’s decision to return Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to Libya and sent a letter to the Scottish government raising the administration’s strong objection.
D’Souza even claimed that President Obama passed the bank bailouts when the facts clearly show that it was President Bush who signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program into law in October 2008.
It should say enough about D’Souza’s credibility that a movie catering to the Tea Party attacks someone for allegedly “anti-colonial” views. His attempts to hide his lies behind a pseudo-scholarly presentation and glossy production values cannot withstand basic scrutiny. The facts show that “2016: Obama’s America” is nothing more than an insidious attempt to dishonestly smear the President by giving intellectual cover to the worst in subterranean conspiracy theories and false, partisan attacks.
So Michael Moore's
So Michael Moore's Farenheight 9/11 was all truth and in no way a manipulation to smear Bush in the 2004 election.
And why is it, that anyone who chooses to criticize Obama, they are a racists? Why can't we as free Americans choose to not like his policy and say his term has sucked for the most part. I do believe that liberals and the Democratic party is trying to assult religion, hinder business owners from becoming "rich", and over all trying to run America into a country with no family morals.
Obama will get re-elected, and anything that happens from now on is on his watch. he has not been able to blame Bush for at least 2 years now. Maybe Bush started the recession. I think it was actually started by the bust in the housing market, which Bill Clinton actually created. Fact is Obama policy has not help Americans get jobs, nor give the leeches incintive to go get one. The great Obama will protect his voter base.
Hey!
Well.........
Who attended a racist church and listened to a bigot for near 20 years.
Call me whatever strikes your fancy.... It's all you got.....
I think it's slightly
I think it's slightly deceiving because the title "2016: Obama’s America" is enough to lure the Obama fans in, and once they pay admission they have to sit through the rest of it.
Why?
Is there something in the popcorn that prevents them from performing a standing up motion combined with a walking inhibitor agent?
You would think for a Messiah, you would be smarter than that, or at least offer to heal them so they could leave.
so
Which movie is scarier? 2012 or 2016, I haven't seen either one.
2012 was pretty scary. Even
2012 was pretty scary. Even Woody Harrelson, couldn't survive that one. I was so disappointed too. After all he went thru to make it thru Zombieland.
You can follow Christ, or you
You can follow Christ, or you can follow Ayn Rand. You cannot follow both.
Well.......
Who does BO follow?