So President Obama thinks America has gotten “a little soft” and that we’ve lost our competitive edge.

As Jonah notes below, it’s apparently lost on the president that the logical consequences of many of his policies would reduce more Americans to dependence and indolence.

There is a soft America and a tough America; a dependent America and an independent America; an entitlement America and a productive America. Which policies are more likely to produce a soft, dependent, and entitlement society? Which ones are more likely to produce a tough, independent, and productive society? The president seems blissfully unaware.


The Obama brand of liberalism not only is likely to contribute to a “softer” America, but a soft-headed America as well. We condemn tea-partiers and veterans as racists and potential terrorists but we release actual terrorists from Guantanamo because the evident cruelties of that country-club facility are too terrible to bear. We demonize the hard-won, self-made success of risk-takers, but shovel millions of their hard-earned dollars to prop up the uncompetitive but politically correct enterprises of the well-connected. Government policies proliferate that punish effort, risk, and success but reward sloth, identity, and failure.

Soft America calls a 26-year-old a “child” under Obamacare, but court martials him if he’s a Navy SEAL who slaps a vicious terrorist in the course of capture. Soft America promotes the expansion of speech codes on college campuses so as not to give offense to anyone or anything but the First Amendment. Soft America spends $4 trillion to no effect and then asks for more. Soft America works diligently to turn the societal safety net into a hammock. Soft America bows to tyrants but lectures allies. Soft America waters down our history to give minor or even inconsequential figures as much play as giants. Soft America eschews absolutes, derides standards, ridicules heroes, and scoffs at virtue.

If the president is worried that America might get softer and lose its competitive edge, he should take a serious look at his own administration and the ideology that motivates it.