Presumptuous (adj. displaying excessive self-confidence and taking liberties)
like an enemy,
taken in,
nurtured,
allowed to reach his potential,
never defending
and ever condemning the very nation
that let him thrive.
This little ditty is one that I wrote about an acquaintance of mine…a man who was raised in Germany as a Brown Shirt; whose father was a Nazi; and who was brought to America after World War II by that very same father in order to escape persecution in his homeland. He was given every opportunity in this country. He has lived a full and rewarding life. He has married, raised a family, and has a profession that has allowed him to live the good life.
I was taken aback by the fact that this man, now in his seventies, condemns America for its role in the world, offering the all-too-familiar “Blame America First” mantra at every opportunity. He shows an intense dislike of President Bush. He consistently takes the elite stance that he and his cohorts are members of the intelligentsia and know more than the rest of us. I viewed him as presumptuous and as an ingrate. After much thought, I realized that he really is suffering from guilt about the acts of the Nazi’s and that he is now viewing everything through the same prism. He sees America as similar to Nazi Germany instead of realizing that America is doing now what it did during WWII in ridding the world of another dangerous dictator. He demonstrates a hatred for President Bush that borders on the irrational. Even though I understand the basis for his inaccurate vision of our nation, I cannot forgive it. It is generally expected that when we take a guest into our home, he shows at least a modicum of respect and appreciation.
And that brings me to George Soros. Here is another man who I would describe as a presumptuous ingrate. Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1930. As a young man, he traded in currency on the black market in Hungary. When the Nazi’s invaded his country he avoided the fate of other Jewish people by posing as the godson of a Hungarian official who was overseeing the confiscation of Jewish properties. He escaped from communist Hungary in 1947 to travel to England where he attended college. In 1956 he emigrated to the United States, where he accumulated a fortune through international investments. He views himself primarily as a philosopher (he studied under Karl Popper) who has popularized the concepts of dynamic and static disequilibrium. He blames many of the world’s problems on the failures inherent in market fundamentalism.
In 1988, Soros purchased stock in a French bank and was found by a French court in 2002 to have been guilty of insider trading and was fined $2 million. On September 16, 1992 (Black Wednesday), his speculation on the overvaluation of the Pound Sterling led to the fall of the Bank of England. Soros earned an estimated $1.1 billion in the process.
Soros has written extensively. His work primarily focuses on what is wrong with America and with capitalism, despite the fact that it was America and capitalism that allowed him to gain his fortune. Some of his books include Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power and The Crisis of Global Capitalism. He is labeled a capitalist by the Socialist party, but is described as a socialist billionaire by Phil Brennan (former National Review contributor) and a soft-money Marxist by Scott Shore of IntellectualConservative.com.
There has been much criticism of George Soros from many directions. One key issue is that his privately owned investment fund is registered in Curacao, a known haven for laundering of drug money and a site of registration that allows Soros to avoid paying taxes and to hide the nature of his investors and what he does with their money.
Throughout the years, many have pointed to the hypocrisy of his writings and actions. For example, despite the fact that America’s freedoms and market economy have allowed Soros to flourish through international currency speculation, he states that “capitalism and the spread of market values” is the number one threat to “open and democratic society”.
His hypocrisy was no more evident than in his reactions to two different presidents engaging in war. While he praised President Clinton’s military action in Bosnia despite a lack of United Nations backing, he is strongly opposed to any action ever taken by President Bush, especially that in Iraq.
Soros also showed his hypocrisy in terms of campaign law. He was a leading proponent of campaign finance reform. Now that his effort has succeeded in restricting fundraising and spending by political candidates and parties he has found a way to skirt the laws he helped to create by committing millions to organizations like MoveOn.org that focus on undermining our President and our nation in time of war.
His hypocrisy also is demonstrated in his feelings toward his own religion and traditions. He has attributed a recent resurgence of anti-Semitism to the policies of Israel and the United States and to successful Jewish people such as himself. For this he has been called a “self-hating Jewish anti-Semite”.
The danger presented by George Soros goes beyond his financial dealings and his hypocrisy. Much more critical to our nation is the fact that his core belief is that a world order based on the sovereignty of states cannot take care of our common human interests because the principle of sovereignty stands in the way. Soros has stated very clearly in his writings that the sovereignty of the United States must be subordinated to international law and international institutions such as the United Nations and its International Criminal Court. (Although frequently denied, this is a foundational principle for John Kerry as well.)
All of these facts about George Soros bring me back to my acquaintance. It can be speculated that both are self-hating and guilty about aspects of their past. Both view themselves as members of the intellectual elite (an excellent defense against self-loathing). Both demonstrate a hatred for President Bush that borders on the irrational and an overall hatred of America despite the fact that America gave them an opportunity to succeed that they would not have found anywhere else in the world. Both see the national sovereignty of the United States as a threat to the world. Both are presumptuous and hypocritical. But more importantly, although both lived through the impact of Nazi terror, neither can see the need to fight fascism in its current form. That is why both are dangerous for America since they weaken the moral and spiritual fabric of our nation in the midst of a war on islamic fascists.
Sources:
David Bossie, Editorial, The Washington Times, 11/24/03
Wikipedia
Open Society Institute biography
