“Education President” and the Schizo Psyche of the Limousine Liberal

To the mind attuned to subsidiarity, the pretensions of an “Education President” arouse suspicions of social engineering and a “messiah complex.” The implication seems to be: family, Church, community and the educational guild are together incompetent so what is needed is a federal intervention, an infusion of tax funds, and reform imposed by the experts from above.

The current administration is particularly worrisome given the bipolar split between Obama’s private and public values: this great champion and reformer of the public school system sends his own daughters to prestigious, expensive, elite schools. This is paradigmatic of the double-mindedness of limousine liberalism: our privileged children go to private schools that we can afford; the public schools are great for everyone else; and no, there will be no school choice or tax relief for poor and working class families who would like to choose parochial or other alternate schooling. The limousine liberal enjoys his prestige and wealth as well as a moral righteousness because he supports the sanctimonious progressive agenda involving a school system that is devastating for the poor. The problem is not the choice of an elite school: who in that situation wouldn’t choose the very best? The problem is the hypocritical public allegiance to monopolistic governmental schools and financial repression of alternate education for those with lower incomes.

Making matters worse is the moral value system of the elite who ambition to reform education. Perhaps the most telling indication of Obama’s moral values was his campaign reference to a hypothetical unplanned teen pregnancy as a mistake. This choice of words unveiled the moral universe inhabited by this most discrete diplomat.

The unintended pregnancy of an unwed teenager is many things:
- A natural consequence of intercourse;
- A gift from God;
- An awesome challenge and call to responsibility;
- The discrete creation by God of a unique soul, destined for eternity with Him;
- A painful cross to bear;
- A promise for the future;
- A concrete call to repentance from sin.
This new person is many things; she is not a mistake.

We cannot blame Obama. He has not received a solid catechesis on sexuality from his anthropologist mother, his Ivy League mentors, or the Reverend Wright. Nor is he likely to receive one from the “Catholic” collaborators who surround him. In regard to basic morals of life and love, they are truly a Gathering of the Ungifted. And yet, this is the crew who will presume to transform the education of our young.

To be a Catholic in Obama’s America is to be a stranger in a strange land…to be a captive in Babylon.