Road to Meltdown Paved With Good Intentions

Michael Medved is always irritated by callers that say that Obama wants to bring America to its knees.  I think this is mostly because there isn't much to be gained by arguing about what Obama may or may not be trying to do.  As far as I know, all the left-leaning people that I've personally known believe that they will make this great nation even more glorious by making it more liberal--liberal policies can't help but do that.  I think Medved is a little too hard on these right-leaning conspiracy theorists for these reasons:

[Dr. Benjamin] Carson said [that] if someone wanted to ruin the United States, they “would create division among the people, encourage a culture of ridicule for basic morality and the principles that made and sustained the country, undermine the financial stability of the nation, and weaken and destroy the military. It appears coincidentally that those are the very things that are happening right now." *

If you are driving and a passenger grabs the wheel and starts lurching the car dangerously, it may well be a moot point whether that person intends to crash the car.  It doesn't change the fact that what he is doing could have some disastrous consequences.

One might say that attributing bad motives to Obama is at least giving him the benefit of the doubt, that he's not an idiot.  People can make very foolish and horrible choices by being blinded by their world view, and even though Obama has talked the talk of unity and compromise, his rhetoric and politics turn ugly when his opposition actually dares to oppose him.  He unveiled himself as a consummate liberal at the beginning of the year, a few months after his reelection.  His negotiation over budget was predictable:

GOP:  We need to cut spending.
Obama:  First, tax the rich.
GOP:  But that have very little effect on the deficit.
Obama:  I won't do anything unless we tax the rich.
GOP: Ok, fine, we've broken our oaths and taxed the rich.  Now, spending cuts.
Obama:  First, let's talk about taxing the rich some more.  

He's got a one-track mind.

Whether Obama really believes we can deficit spend our way to prosperity, it doesn't really matter.  Crazy is as crazy does.

We'll Dig Our Way Out

The good people on the Left who still believe in Obama also believe in these policies, so they are sure that Obama can't be steering us toward disaster, trusting that Obama is smart and sincere and noble.  He sounds so fatherly, he looks so concerned and principled.  What could go wrong?

David Limbaugh expresses it eloquently here:

My personal belief is that Obama, like so many leftist radicals, has a strong distaste for pre-Obama America and that he believes that the United States has been an imperialistic international bully, that we've consumed too much of the world's resources, that we've been an environmental felon and that our capitalistic system unfairly and inequitably distributes income and wealth -- and I think he means to effect wholesale change to rectify those sins.
Do I believe that he wants to "destroy" America, as such? No. In his mind, as warped and foreign as I think it is, he doubtlessly believes he is helping to create a better America -- a utopia of sorts.*

It could well be that Obama merely seeks to humble America and put America in its place, rather like putting Britain in its place when his diplomats told British diplomats that the U.K. was just like any other nation and couldn't expect special consideration.