Not too long ago my brother and I were discussing a purely Jewish/Israeli issue. That is, what is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s greatest fear? This was around the time that Moshe Feiglin was duking it out with Netanyahu for power in the ruling Likud Party. Feiglin was about to close in on taking control of the party’s central committee and force Netanyahu literally out of the party when Netanyahu was able to secure a court order allowing him to retroactively change the party’s charter and cancel internal party elections, knowing he would lose to Feiglin.

Anyway, I told my brother that Feiglin was and is Netanyahu’s greatest fear. My brother responded with a bit of verve and said something like, “There’s one man that strikes fear in Netanyahu’s heart, and that man is Barack Obama.”

I’ve only now come to realize that my brother was right, and that this fear is the essence of what is wrong with the American Presidency. Not with Obama as a person, though I don’t have much positive to say about him, but the office of the Presidency itself. No leader should ever “fear” an American president unless they are actually at war (DECLARED by Congress) with America. They should respect him. The office has gotten so distorted and tyrannical to the world at large that America can no longer serve as an example to the world, but rather as a big global bully that thinks it runs the place.

The presidency should be an office respected by the world, occupied by a man (or woman) who is humble enough to know he is just a man, and has no authority to interfere in the affairs of other nations at a whim.

This twisting of the office of the Presidency has gone so far that the American public now thinks that it’s necessary for other countries to “fear” the President of the USA in order to maintain global order and peace. Global order and peace has come to mean wars on every continent. This is sad, dangerous, and unsustainable.

“If so-and-so Republican is elected, then Ahmadinejad won’t dare do anything stupid because he’ll fear so-and-so!” Or some such logic. I used to think like this.

If Ron Paul is elected president, would anyone “fear” him? I seriously doubt it. He would pretty much mind his own business and simply try to trade and do business with other countries. Not wave money around (borrowed from China) and threaten to bomb places that don’t cooperate.

President Ron Paul wouldn’t “threaten” Netanyahu with anything. Israel would go about its business, and unlike America who only bombs places for reasons that are at most only tangentially connected to the concept of national security as an excuse to expand American ego, Israel bombs people who actually bomb its cities.

Everyone knew that Obama had a really big ego before he was elected, and still does. So did Bush, so did Clinton, so did the other Bush. Some people thought this would be a good thing. But what we really need is someone who is humble. In the real sense of the word. Humility.

Humility doesn’t mean someone who’s constantly down on himself. It means someone who has an accurate picture of who he really is in the grander scheme of things.

The purpose of American government is to preserve the freedom and rights of Americans. The office of the Presidency is meant to preside over that function, not push people around globally.

When Ron Paul, or someone like him, is president, America will have earned the respect it deserves as the best country in the world by example, not by force. Force will only come if America is truly threatened.

And when Moshe Feiglin, or someone like him, is the leader of the Jews, the Jewish people will have earned its place in the world as the spiritual brain of humanity.

In the meantime, King Obama will continue to flaunt his borrowed Chinese and Fed printing-press money in an attempt to force the economy to worship his Presidential will.

And Netanyahu who is also a man full of himself up the wazoo, will continue to fear both Obama and Feiglin, who may yet take over the Likud party on January 31.