As U. of Chicago Professor Obama Said "Redistribution of Wealth," Republicans Horrified

Seven years ago, when Barack Obama was a University of Chicago law professor and Illinois state senator, he granted an interview to Chicago Public Radio which has now been appropriated by pundits as evidentiary support for claims that the presidential hopeful is a— gasp!— socialist.

In the interview, Obama addressed the failure of the civil rights movement to more fully achieve social justice because of its reliance on decisions made by the Warren court, decisions which he characterized as derivative of the concept that the Constitution addresses “negative liberties,” as opposed to addressing what the government ought to do for its citizens. Essentially, Obama characterized the Warren court decisions as decisions meant only to defend constituents from governmental abuse, rather than outline provisions for constituents.

Fox News reports:

In the interview, Obama said the civil rights movement was victorious in some regards, but failed to create a "redistributive change" in its appeals to the Supreme Court, led at the time by Chief Justice Earl Warren. He suggested that such change should occur at the state legislature level, since the courts did not interpret the U.S. Constitution to permit such change.

"The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of basic issues of political and economic justice in this society…

"It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it has been interpreted.

"And the Warren court interpreted it generally in the same way -- that the Constitution is a document of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf, and that hasn't shifted.

"And I think one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was that the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and organizing activities on the ground that are able to bring about the coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways we still suffer from that," Obama said.

Of course the phrase used by Obama during the interview that is now pounced on and paraded through the media is “redistribution of wealth,” a phrase inextricably tied to Marxism. This association frightens many in this country, and yet, Americans have on a fundamental level embraced the redistribution of wealth, whether through support of community centers, public schools, or even military operations. By choosing governmental control over anarchy, we necessarily commit to a redistribution of wealth. After all, in any government which taxes its citizens (thus all governments), isn't wealth redistributed from individuals towards enterprises deemed communally beneficial?