Obama an Active Socialist in 1996

The United States has lost its bearings. That an active socialist, Barack Obama, has reached the threshold of the presidency suggests to me that the country has become too big, lazy and stupid, and it should be broken into distinct federations. This had been viewed as an option in the 1780s when Hamilton, Madison and Jay wrote the Federalist Papers, but they argued against the idea because size was necessary to strengthen the nation. Today, the returns to size are negative. The liberal establishment has bamboozled most Americans into believing their self-serving claims that book learning and academic credentials are essential to progress. But in fact America advanced by emphasizing practical innovation, not intellectual achievement, political correctness or theoretical grandeur. The error Americans made was to emulate the German university system that developed in the nineteenth century by sending many elite Americans to Germany in the late nineteenth century and then developing a parallel system here. University education leads to a belief in socialism and planning because it over-glorifies theory at the expense of experimentation and practical knowledge. University professors claim to be important, but have produced little of value except where they have worked on technology and scientific applications that would be the province of industry in a free society.

Bob McCarty (h/t Contrairimairi) produces a newspaper article about Barack Obama's involvement in the socialist New Party in 1996.