Just like with business contracts - formal trust between parties - you also have various sciences and logics applicable to closed systems, or situations even - with intersecting systems. Within these closed situations and systems - there are models which support the strong integrity - trust - within the system and can hold "truth" to various degrees. That is how we can apply the principle of bivalence some times, and others not... But most people are not so familiar with logics, epistemology or understand what being "open minded" about information means... The brain is naturally inclined to invest heavily in some structure, and not apt to change this investment. Therefore it is important that the mental function is one of flexibility and very wide perception of what is relevant - not discriminating fluctuating influences, which may at some point be very relevant to understanding any complex dynamically adaptive system. Computers are just tools, and they can serve as an extension of your memory, understanding - as long as you know how to control and use this tool wisely. To avoid corrupting the tool, systems for extending integrity must be built with utmost attention to detail to avoid influential corruption or bias from especially human subjectivity or special interests. If getting further, you can even use the computer to extend trust structures - e.g cryptography and communication forms - but also banking, voting etc. I have done some work on Topic Maps - an XML instance of knowledge structuring - beyond the ontologies etc... but XTM is not well equipped, and I have been working on better representations.
For someone like Obama, this mix of information, his open mind, his exposure to different culture, different politics, is what scares me in the beginning. My first opinion of Obama is I can not see what he believes in. He was expose to many kinds of people and ideologies from a young boy. From a young boy of 14 maybe, he met Frank Davis who is communist party USA member. Then Obama leaves Hawaii where he met Frank Davis, and start his adult life as community organizer in Chicago. And he meets Rev Wright and goes to his church. From this information I become very hesitant about Obama because of my fear of communism, and my fear of Obama maybe taking a radical view of America. So I think (at one time) maybe Obama is extreme and his unity is really not unity, but an agenda to blame white people, and excuse black people from responsibilty for themself. But now I see it could be to Obamas benefit to have exposure to many point of view and cultures in his years growing up. In his book Obama does say Frank Davis is radical, and Obama does say he does not agree with all Rev Wright radical speech. So maybe Obama wants to be a leader, but he has to have support, and that support in the beginning can only comes from the black community, so this is where he goes. So he had to work in structure of what is available to him, to go further. And maybe that mean he does not agree with all the people he associates with, but it is his ladder to go up. I think he does see reward for hard work is necessary, and competition bring creativity, and communism crush creativity. So what first was scarey to me about Obama, (his diverse upbringing), could be what make his mind more open than most people.
In US politics - it is impossible NOT to work with the system. The two-party state in the US has shut out any competition from decades of entrenching legislation. Especially the traditions of Gerrymandering and inflated campaign financials of the US are the main corrupters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_corruption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_reform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_divisions_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_ideologies_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_election_voting_controversies http://en.wikipedia.orghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Florida,_2000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Democracy Of course, a direct democracy would rid all these systemic biases and corruption - the possibility and temptation of "human error" from elections and voting - eliminating most types of election and voting fraud. Just now the US population is not ready for democracy... they are still dreaming of "winning" with "greatness". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy
Or perhaps he is well indoctrinated in their views, and now stating otherwise for political expediency. There are philosophies that teach "the ends justify the means".
That is mostly within extremist right-wing like Neo-conservatism and extremist left-wing... All the extremists are indoctrinated with radicalism - "reasoning" extrapolated from their belief systems into practical decisions, guidelines and policies - apologetic for their actions and suppression, oppression as all "necessary" - they claim holding the "universally absolute truth" to lead others and "liberate them." So, if your impression is that Obama sounds like a left-wing extremist, then your assessment would be fair. Otherwise it seems very unreasonable and questionably weak in terms of integrity, basis or reality.