Obama to Africa: Get over your past, stop relying on others and solve your own problems

We would now like to share with you an excerpt from a speech by Ronald Reagan, in which he tells historically impoverished people that even though they've had a rough go of it, they should realize that their best hope going forward is not to blame others or to look to others to rescue them, but rather to take ownership of their futures, change their behaviors and their culture, and and take positive actions going forward so they can live better lives. Oh wait. Right message. Wrong president. Apparently when it didn't work out for him to lecture Africans about gay rights, Barack Obama transformed into a bizarro version of himself:

Speaking on Sunday in Kenya, Mr. Obama acknowledged Africa’s bleak history, from the racism his grandfather suffered as a cook for the British during the colonial era—“he was referred to as a boy, even though he was a grown man”—to the ethnic violence that erupted after a disputed election in 2007. But he argued that history is no excuse for a failed future. “For too long, I think that many looked to the outside for salvation and focused on somebody else being at fault for the problems of the continent,” he said. He notably confined his discussion of U.S. aid to two oblique paragraphs, while devoting the better part of his speech to urging Africans to build stronger and more tolerant democracies. Traditions such as female genital mutilation, or keeping girls out of school, or sticking to Masai, Kikuyo, Luo or other tribal identities, he said, “may date back centuries; they have no place in the 21st century.” At times Mr. Obama reminded us of Paul Wolfowitz, the former World Bank president who ran afoul of that organization by insisting that it actively fight corruption instead of merely pushing aid money out the door. Graft, the President said, is “not something that is just fixed by laws, or that any one person can fix. It requires a commitment by the entire nation—leaders and citizens—to change habits and change culture.”

OK, let's first give credit where due: What Obama said is absolutely correct and good advice. Now let's deal with the elephant in the room: Clearly this is exactly the opposite of what he tells impoverished people in the United States. Here, he rails against CEOs and tells people the reason they don't have what they want is that the government hasn't done enough in the area of "redistributive justice."

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How to square the two? Intellectually, you can't. Politically, maybe he's setting up the idea that Africa had better not count on any more U.S. aid because all of it's going to be needed to feed the massive welfare state he wants here. I do think one other thing is interesting about the Journal's editorial. They note that Obama "has the personal background and standing to make these points to an African audience". Allow me to ask a question about that. If something is true, and is good advice, why is it that only certain people can say it? Why is it that truthful, good advice can only come forth with someone who has the "standing" to offer it? I understand that people don't want to take advice from people who don't know what they're talking about. But let's say a white Republican goes into the ghetto area of an American city and tells poor black people that the best thing they can do for themselves is to embrace better habits and more positive thinking about their lives and their futures. That is good advice, isn't it? And it may very well be that this white Republican knows what he's talking about because he's put that same philosophy to work successfully in his own life. When someone says something true, and those who need to hear that truth reject it because of who the truth-teller is, why do we think that's understandable and OK? And by the way, if truth can only come from someone who has the credibility to offer it, then why is advice that reflects the philosophy of Ronald Reagan credible coming from a guy whose entire life has been devoted to tearing down those very ideas?