I think it is important to give credit where credit is due. Regular readers know that I have been critical of President Obama in this column. Doubtless there will be future occasions for disagreement. But the president got one big thing right a few days ago, and it is incumbent upon fair-minded people to acknowledge his candor and percipience: the Massachusetts Senate race really was a referendum on the Obama agenda.
What is the Obama agenda? All eyes have been focused on the proposed bills to transform the way health care is managed, delivered, and paid for in the United States. The Democrats scored a rhetorical triumph by getting everyone, opponents as well as supporters, to refer to this proposed government takeover of medicine as “health care reform.” “Reform”? What is being proposed is “health care reform” in approximately the sense that Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture in the late 1920s was “agricultural reform.” That effort to bring hope and change to the Kulaks succeeded in what President Obama described as his goal of “spreading the wealth around,” though not, perhaps, in precisely a way that the local (de)population appreciated.
The fate of the Democratic proposals to collectivize medicine is a big issue, no doubt about it. And I for one hope that Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts last night will put the brakes on that ruinous piece of stealth-socialism masquerading as “reform.”
It is important, though, to recognize that the effort to expropriate the delivery and financing of health care — let’s stop calling it “reform” — is one spoke in the wheel of the Obama Offensive. What this administration has been about in its first year includes the collectivization of medicine. But that is only one part of a much larger goal, a goal adumbrated by Governor Mitch Daniels when he spoke of the Obama administration’s “shock and awe statism.”
This past summer, Senator Jim DeMint suggested that, were Obama foiled in his plans to collective medicine, the defeat would prove to be his “Waterloo.” Perhaps. Were the effort to collectivize medicine fail, I suspect it would be more like the battle of Leipzig: a defeat, but not a final defeat. I take the President’s threat to “double down” in the face of a victory by Scott Brown seriously. My PJM colleague Richard Fernandez is probably right that “The fundamental theme of 2010 will be a struggle for power.” As Fernandez, observes, “The polarization which began in early 2009 has increased rather than diminished. . . . Massachusetts is not the last, but the first in a series of meeting engagements between two rival factions. My own sense is that fundamental issues are now at stake.”
I always believed Obama would go down with the ship, then change course. Good article Roger.
Well, yeah, Scott Brown’s election is indeed Distributive Change. When power gets too concentrated in the Democrat party, Brown’s election helps to spread the wealth (and power) around. Rather than double-down, Barry Teh Won should just “relax and enjoy it”.
BTW, Roger, I think you mean “put the brakes” on, not “the breaks”.
“…who is paying attention?” Assuming that politicians like to stay employed, any senator or congressman who’s thinking about voting “aye” on ObamaCare.
# 3: thanks. Now fixed. You see why I failed proofreading 101. I should have studied typing in my misspent youth.
The left in this country and elsewhere persists because of a fanatical strain in the DNA. It explains their disproportionate influence despite having only a fifth of the voters in a center-right country. The left hangs in there regardless of the mercurial public. If they lose one, they figure they’ve got a good shot at the next go around because no one can match the fervor of their convictions. The old Communist cadres took control of organizations by sticking out meetings to the last. When others had gone home to their lives, the Communists were still there for the crucial vote on policies and leadership. Bill Clinton made a sharp rightward pivot after Hillarycare failed, but he had eight years of experience as a governor who had to make accommodations with conservatives. Obama has no such experience, no experience, really, in anything but speechifying, which is what community organizing is all about. Beyond that, he is a pure ideologue willing to do whatever it takes to “transform” the country according to a socialist blueprint.
Mr. Obama is now a wounded animal, and he will fight back with an abandon centered on the reality that if he loses, his socialistic utopia dies.
For supposedly being a Constitutional “scholar”, this president displays a woeful ignorance of our Constitutional history. He clearly demonstates that he has no understanding of how and why our Constitution takes the form that it does. However, it is most probable that he simply rejects (as do many liberals and progressives)its fundamental concepts of limited central authority coupled with guaranteed individual rights. To him and his collectivist cohorts, these are merely impediments to true “social justice”.
The victory in Massachusetts is a victory for the American People and the beginning of what I hope is a new American Revolution.
People from all over the Nation helped Scott Brown in many ways and have made personal decisions to become involved politically to CHANGE the direction of this Socialist Group of criminals now in control in Washington.
Obama is, for all practical purposes, finished after only a year in the White House. The economy will continue to sputter because he still doesn’t understand that the government can not spend a Nation out of a recession. He is a tyro, an amateur, with no understanding of basic economics, and his lifelong Marxist/Leftist bent will continue to bring his administration defeat after defeat.
Unless and until Obama understands that ordinary entrepreneurs and small business add jobs to our economy and this Congress cuts individual and corporate taxes across the board there will be NO IMPROVEMENT in our employment.
That is not likely to happen in 2010 and the Democrats in Congress are going to be decimated in November and again in 2012 and beyond. If Republicans can lead with honest, conservative principle in government our country will begin to heal and grow again. But there are so many issues of contention to be addressed yet.
The American People do NOT want Socialism or out of control spending by the government.
Bringing about “redistributive change” is what the Obama administration is all about. The victory of Scott Brown is a reminder that even in the most liberal state in the Union, that statist imperative inspires fear and loathing, not support.
Yes and no. The voters in Massachusetts opposed redistribution — from Massachusett to other states.
But it’s a mistake to think that they rejected the idea of “socialism in one state”. They opposed Obamacare because they supported Romneycare. I’m seeing people describe this race as a triumph for libertarianism, and nothing could be furthr from the truth.
No, he will never ‘get it’. The democrats have been bought and paid for by special interests both foreign and domestic and they expect a return on their investment. I, for one, will never believe that the democrats have change their positions. Power and control are their only goals and they will stop at nothing to get it. Past elections where democrats achieved a majority should have shown us what they will do once they have the power.
I have noticed lately that there is usually no smile on hardly any of the democrats faces. The photo of Obama with his head down in this one is just another example. Looks like he is realizing that his policies and lies about them aren’t cutting the mustard anymore.
I for one am glad to see the democrats and especially Obama without a smile on their face, I certainly was all smiles last night when it was announced the Scott Brown had won as the new Massachusetts Senator!
Banjo hits the nail on the head. Obama is handled by the three A’s (Alinski,Ayers,Axelrod) who are socialist idealogues and will never let “the mouthpiece teleprompter reader” truly backaway from their objectives including “heathcare reform/THEFT” to the federal governement. Obamanation may speak the moderation words, but he will shift back to the working model of the three A’s and get the socialist way of medicine. This is all about reducing American’s freedom and government COMMAND AND CONTROL. To think otherwise is a mistake. Obama cannot take reversals.
A derailed train causes a lot of destruction until it comes to its final, grinding halt. Momentum is a bitch. And beware the train’s contents for it could be explosive.
I apologize, I didn’t have the time to celebrate yet…
A SCOTT HEARD ‘ROUND THE WORLD !
YES YES YES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And that’s only the beginning, commies, that’s only the beginning.
GODSPEED AMERICA !!!
“…bring about redistributive change.” Hmmmm, I guess obama forgot that work and diligence is another way to do this…
I am of the opinion that, like Hitler in the Fuehrer Bunker, Obama will place the blame on The Unworthy American Public.
We will be held to blame for the unwillingness to recognize genius (sic) when we see it. Also for the unwillingness to place our futures in the worthy hands of Our Betters (shades of High Victorian Society!).
Thanks Gawd for common sense, sez I…
Yesteday was merely the 2nd engagement in the long war to thwart the creep of socialism in America. The first battle was last fall in Virginia and New Jersey. Make no mistake, yesterday’s victory in Massachusetts was an important one, but it’s merely one in a long series of battles that make up this years campaign…we can this fall, take back at least the house and possibly the Senate.
However, if we do so, we cannot allow the GOP to become complacent as they did during the 2002-2006 period where you couldn’t tell the difference twixt Democrats & the “Dem Lite”-GOP “Compassionate Conservatives”. We must insist the end of earking completely. That presently is the most invidious form of corruption in Congress today.
Obama’s strategy always requires doubling down. That’s how he’s managed eight years of damage in only one year.
Could this be the moment that will more clearly reveal whether Obama is truly a subversive fanatic, or anything like a pragmatist, as Clinton who readjusted his sails for the new winds?
It is hard for most folks to recognize the sinister side of this charmer, but it is about to become more apparent, at least I hope so. When trying so hard to decide whether this obstinate pursuit of a subversive dream is in fact malevolent or merely the product of immature incompetence, it is wise to consider the possibility of authentic evil.
Obama means to be smarter than the Constitution itself, but “a charter of negative liberties” is as juvenile and shallow a summation of it as I have ever heard.
Can you imagine the reaction of a populace accustomed to tyranny being presented with our Constitution?
Populace: “Wait — this is just a list of things we can do. Where’s the list of things we can’t do?”
Gov’t: “You write that list. As long as it doesn’t conflict with any of the freedoms listed here, you can put anything on that other list you want. We’ll call those local and state laws.”
Pops: “Holy cow. What if we decide we don’t like this list of freedoms, though?”
Gov’t: “We’ve put in a provision for that; you can amend this list as long as a majority of you goes along with it.”
Pops: “Then it looks like your only job is to make sure that we get all these freedoms on this list. There’s tons of stuff here that you can’t do to us.”
Gov’t: “That’s right.”
And Obama says this is wanting. I still don’t know whether he’s a fool or a knave.
No MR. Kimball,Obama got it wrong;Brown and the people of Massachusetts,got it right!Best Regards!
Excellent analysis Mr. Kimball! I genuinely hope that Mr. Brown’s win is a portent of a debate on the real fundamental issues of politics such as the relationship of the citizen to his/her government. I teach at a local university and one class just finished a section on the nature and purposes of American federalism. Almost none of my students, who are all smart decent kids, understand that the Constitution was intended to limit the power of government and protect the freedom of the individual. The Bill of Rights is a laundry list of the rights that the Founders saw as essential to the functioning of “a citizen.” Of course we know that since the halcyon days of the late 1960′s the public school establishment has increasingly done all it can to denigrate the Founding Fathers (slave-owners, racists, paternalistic, anti-women) and embrace a quasi-Marxist version of the Constitution. This view, which students rather lazily accept, is that government should primarily be the dispenser of “stuff” rather than a guardian of liberty. For them “freedom just happens” and is not the result of a conscious and sustained political effort. I hope that this is the debate that those on the Right (we can’t depend on the GOP to do this) initiate during the coming elections. Mr. Obama and his adherents are correct. The guarantees of the Constitution are “negative” in that they are intended to impose limitations on institutions that would otherwise imperil liberty.
However the alternative is is to subject oneself to the inexorable and crushing power of the modern state. (Government – as we know – is like a creature from a 1950′s sci-fi film that has been exposed to radiation. It just keeps growing and growing.) The Left, for whatever reason, has decided to reject the idea of individual liberty in exchange for a laundry-list of programs and entitlements (cap-and-trade and other environmental policies being the most obvious examples) which are guaranteed to erode individual freedoms. There is no such thing as a free lunch and nothing that government does (even when genuinely well-intentioned) is ever “free.” Hopefully this will be the starting point for the coming debate.
The title of the piece, “Obama gets it right”? When did
Obama ever acknowledge that the Massachusetts Senatorial election was a referendum on the Obama agenda? Even if those words were uttered by Obama, don’t believe any of it. Obama is a liar, dissembler, con artist,scammer,sheister,grifter, deceiver….. an unexperienced, inept, incompetent,irresponsible, babbling, bumbling, teleprompter reading, narcissistic, egomaniacal, pusillanimous, Marxist twerp. A puppet being controlled by Soros and company. Obama is absolutely unqualified to be residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.The words that flow from Obama’s mouth are meaningless and irrelevant. Obama will say anything at any time to anyone if it suits his immediate purpose and ends.Listen to not what Obama says, but what actions are taken.Everybody that surrounds this fraud Obama is cut out of the same cloth. Nothing but corrupt, radical, inexperienced, inept,incompetent, immature, juvenile, utopia dreaming,delusional, out of touch leftists, socialists, Marxists and Communists.
Obama’s massive ego and thin skin will not allow him to change his radical, ideological course. Democrat losses in New Jersey and Virginia didn’t slow down the Marxist radical.The American people’s dissent and poll numbers that overwhelmingly indicated the American people were against every Obama policy did not slow down Obama.To expect Obama to slow down or change course after an earth moving Democrat defeat in Massachusetts is foolhardy. The American people will turn out in record numbers in November to clean house in Washington. No incumbent is safe. The people are going to take back their country.The 2012 elections can’t come soon enough. Obama is a one termer. After one year in office; a lame duck. The purge has started in 2010. November 2010 will be historical, and in 2012 the American people will throw out the rest of the bums.
I was watching CNN yesterday – just to see them cry…
Air America today said that Obama was losing because he was not left-wing enough. Somehow, that was supposed to help him with Independents and Moderates.
Clearly, the left-wing is in complete mental disarray – but aren’t they always?
To be fair – Obama was in a tough spot to begin with – bad economy, bankrupt banks, social security, medicare, medicaid, government pensions, unionized companies – everything bad and getting worse. Any president would have a hard time – but Obama – he was able to mix the most insane left-wing policies with complete arrogance, inability to run things, hubris, hubris, hubris, arrogance, inability to communicate with people, obvious corruption, hurbis, hubris and arrogance.
I predicted in November 2008 on my blog that Obama would be a great president for America (he would drive America back to conservatism), but even I am surprised at how quickly and efficiently he did this. It’s as if he was custom built in the laboratories of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.
See my predictions here:
http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-can-live-with-obama_02.html
Obama, you are my most favourite American president! I am so happy American people elected you, not that old f*rt RINO, McCain.
Anyway, the next thing I expect from our illustrious president is to go absolutely nuts in public. Rage, baby, rage. It’s all Bush’s fault!
I was watching CNN yesterday – just to see them cry…
Air America today said that Obama was losing because he was not left-wing enough. Somehow, that was supposed to help him with Independents and Moderates.
Clearly, the left-wing is in complete mental disarray – but aren’t they always?
To be fair – Obama was in a tough spot to begin with – bad economy, bankrupt banks, social security, medicare, medicaid, government pensions, unionized companies – everything bad and getting worse. Any president would have a hard time – but Obama – he was able to mix the most insane left-wing policies with complete arrogance, inability to run things, hubris, hubris, hubris, arrogance, inability to communicate with people, obvious corruption, hurbis, hubris and arrogance.
I predicted in November 2008 on my blog that Obama would be a great president for America (he would drive America back to conservatism), but even I am surprised at how quickly and efficiently he did this. It’s as if he was custom built in the laboratories run by Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.
See my predictions here:
http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-can-live-with-obama_02.html
Obama, you are my most favourite American president! I am so happy American people elected you, not that old f*rt RINO, McCain.
Anyway, the next thing I expect from our illustrious president is to go absolutely nuts in public. Rage, baby, rage. It’s all Bush’s fault!
Massachusetts got it right for the rest of us, I don’t care what their reason was. We got momentum, we got another seat at the table, we rattled their cages, we’re going to take the fight to our own deaf dumb and blind pols with greater confidence and determination.
It’s all good this morning.
I agree with the point of the column:
we have to do with an administration of communists who have a war plan against America: the communists will not relent just because the people have (repeatedly) spoken.
For the communists the only elections that count are the ones in which they win, when they lose it’s just a “conspiracy”.
The communists of this administration will not relent, they have worked for more than forty years to reach power: they want to destroy the free-market economy, they want to destroy America’s might, they know that the only obstacle for the subversives ALL OVER THE WORLD is America, the Champion of Freedom.
The GOP needs to understand that we must defend America against a powerful group of subversives, financed from abroad, and that politics as usual will not stop the subversives from damaging the country.
Each one of us must work to create a colossal success of the forces of Freedom next November.
ROLL BACK THE COMMUNIST ADMINISTRATION !!!
#8 BT:
“For supposedly being a Constitutional “scholar”, this president displays a woeful ignorance of our Constitutional history. He clearly demonstates that he has no understanding of how and why our Constitution takes the form that it does. ”
Oh, I think he knows exactly how and why we have the Constitution that we do.
Being a “Constitutional Scholar”, the Narcissist in Chief thinks he is so smart that he can go over, around or through it to accomplish his collectivist ends anyway.
yes folks, we now have a trapped, wounded, animal on our hands, in Bojangles and the Progressives. The fight is just begun. The Progressives are SO CLOSE to achieving their dreams…they won’t give up now. Our attack must be relentless. The Progressives have succeeded often as of late and we have a lot of damage to first remove and then repair. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING of the war against Progressives/statists/Marxists. They are well entrenched in many ways and we must persevere for YEARS to remove this blight on our Constitution and our Country. We MUST have the teaching of our Constitution mandated in the schools among many other things.
I did not vote for the man but the hatred being purveyed by people like yourself is repulsive. Does he really remind you of Stalin? Are the kulaks going to be liquidated? There are a lot of things about the house and senate health care bills that are objectionable but your analogy is insane.
Try something a little more tethered to earth: how about his proposals are to health care reform as W’s prescription plan for seniors was to fiscal responsibility? A much more apt comparison, most people not driven mad by hate would probably agree.
I saw as well as I’m sure most commenters have as well, the Red Cross commercial featuring the First Lady asking for donations.
Though she never has quite the audience as her husband, she reads the teleprompter better than the President!
“Who’s paying attention” to Scott Brown’s upset of the Stalinist Democrats in Massachusetts? I’ll tell you who. We are, the People of the United States of America, home of the free and land of the brave.
We are not going to be enslaved by Democrat thugs. Pond scum like Martha Coakly, Nancy “Meatball” Pelosi and Harry “Zoning King” Reid are in our sights for this November. In the meantime, Go, Comrade Zero! Get your Gestapho rolling! Higher taxes! More gov’mint takeovers! Bigger bureaucracy! Build that mountain of debt, baby! We’re coming for you, too, you Commie rat.
Yeah, this is all nice and well, except that this map of the town by town voting results shows only that it was only the usual clueless suburbanites, who normally vote Republican anyway, had voted for Brown. The big difference between these results and last year’s Presidential election results is that voter turnout, especially in the urban areas that Coakley needed, was down a lot. And this could be easily accounted for by Coakley’s poorly run campaign, which didn’t exactly get people fired up, and Brown’s well run one, which didn’t exactly portray him as a scary right winger.
Misrepresent this all you want, but sometimes things happen because someone merely did a better job than someone else.
Barako underestimates the American people,but then it’s no wonder,he isn’t one.
Obama has bigger things to do like lowering the seas and healing the planet. This is small potatoes to him. If he doesn’t lower those sea levels then you’ll have the moment on the beach where Charleston Heston sees the Statue of Liberty. Obama knows this will be a terrible loss of freedom not foretold by the Founding Fathers or D’ Tocqueville. His Wookie wife knows this too.
Remember:
The issue is never the issue.
The issue is control.
Roger: like it or not, Obama is going to be here another 7 years!!!
I think then that the Brown victory is the Battle of the Katzbach, where Marshal Macdonald in an exposed, isolated position foolishly underestimated Blucher’s Prussians – and Bonaparte, besides having an army corps savaged, *didn’t* heed the lesson- arrogantly consolidating at Leipzig without crediting the Allies with the capacity for trapping him there.
Hooray! we were pulled back from the brink of disaster at the last moment. To Arrogant Obama, et al. if you are truly great then you are secure in that knowledge and are humble. If you are all flash and hot air with little to no substance, you become arrogant to reassure yourselves. Hence, the dems are arrogant.
@ 06. Banjo:…. Fanatical Leftist DNA
@ 14. Tarbender: Command and Control
The bad news is that those other people
are really good at playing politics,
and winning elections, and, as long as
Les Bonne Temps Roule, they can play
Tax-and-Spend, and pretend to be adults.
The good news is that during Hard Times
their immaturity, incompetence, and
cowardice send them running home
to spend more time with their families.
A Cold War quote:
“Unless you are willing to fight and die
for your cause, you are not a Communist,
you are just a Parlor Pink.”
Obama and senator (elect) Brown agree on most issues so there will not be much of a problem there. Brown just announced he does not support torture and is for human rights and environmental programs. He is also against the war in Iraq and supports international efforts in Afghanistan. The only real difference is health care reform, Brown wants the original bill scrapped and re-invented and OBama says the time for passage is now. So T-bag bobs and barbs might have a problem, but independants are quite happy with what they see thus far. I think his support for his pick up truck will satisfy the right…
An excellent companion piece to Richard F, Rodger.
Is this guy the great champion progressives have been waiting for since RFK was laid to rest or is he the lightweight fraud whose parlayed race and rhetorical gifts so over his head as to imperil our country as conservatives believe?
The machinery was put in place for this guy and his team -not just house and senate majorities – but – FILIBUSTER PROOF. Everything the democrats worked for from 2004 on culminated with this guys stunning White House victory.
And one year into his term he has all but destroyed it. He and his chosen crew have continued to bunggle a perennial straight flush into a pee pee pair week in and week out. It’s amazing and a huge relief.
Americans have now overwhelmingly rejected health care as Obama claimed to invison it because there WAS NO VISION TO BEGIN WITH. There was no plan other than craven abuse of power – i.e. – once in the majority we can force through anything and hense avoid the Hillary Care fate.
In the midst of economic chaos – tripling unemployment & historic state deficits – the Dems in washington go off on a multigenerational obsession – health care.
And we see this over and over from Obamanation. Complete disconnect from public concerns.
Dick Cheney’s been very effective in challeging the sophmoric positions that played well for Obama during the historic campaign. And Obama being Obama he gets away with a massive security breach that ends thankfully without any Americans dead.
Yet he doubles down on stupid insisting he and his Attorney Gen are correct in taking the moral high ground when taking to the criminal justice route and trying terrorists in court.
All that’s lost is the confidence of all but the dedicated left that this President can command or protect us.
Roger this president has been given many oppertunities in year zero to ammend and retrench. But he’s ignored every one. Richard Fernandez was correct. Obama gambled that Sept ’08 was as devestating as Oct ’29 and thus he was a term limited FDR – and the correct approach was go after everything all at once as FDR did – then ‘stick with what worked’.
The only buyers were an adoring media – which is now beginning to catch up to the public – and – bereft of any results to hang a hat on – with his centerpiece domestic policy in shambles – everything now shifts to yet another star moment.
The State of the Union.
And the media continues to shill some sort of eleventh hour possiblity thus presented. Yet another chance to ‘lead.’
Except the public has caught on. They’ve ALREADY STOPPED WATCHING THE STUPID SOAP OPERA. The fraud is up – from the Att. Gen to Homeland insecurity to the Ministry of EPA to Climate Czar to the cloying secretary that sacrifices security at the White House Ball to rub elbows with C list UN ‘dignitaries’ – the Chicago way has devolved into the political equivalent of the CUBS; there is a reason the LEFT hasn’t won squat since Howard Taft was in charge.
Because they are morally, and intellectually incapable of leading this country anywhere but off to The University of &*^%upIZSTAN!
The long slow decent into Jimmy Carter territory is but a few firings away – let the circus games begin! PJM should set up a site to take bets on which dept heads roll first.
My first choice – Robby (Mr Glib) Gibbs.
Under this pretenders leadership the Dems are naked and imploding heading into the 2010 elections. This is an oppertunity no conservative ever could have concieved of a year ago.
The election season has to start today – every remotely political organization should be carpet bombing the American People with a relentless campaign as to why they can lead us out of Obamanation -
#8 BT,
Obama fully understands the Constitution of the USA.
Like Chavez he will use this knowledge to twist it into his future.
Unlike Chavez, Obama underestimate the intestinal fortitude of an American.
socialism is more just than capitalism. but obama was not pushing socialism, he was pushing corporatism.
For BC:
Can you explain why you think people who live in the suburbs (mostly well-off, with good solid salaries, good education, good families, low crime rate) are more clueless than people in the urban area (hign unemployment, bad education, high crime, broken families)? I mean, a naive person would think that people who know how to organize their lives and who do not need government handouts are the ones whose advice is most valuable. Where is the error here?
I heard Kieth Uberdorks “critique” of Scott Brown. Too bad ,Uberdork, you dont have a BRAIN to go with the baritone. By the way uberdork, how about your “teabagging” with that male TREX?
“he was pushing corporatism”, #46, Walt
agreed. why anyone imagines that this dufus is a socialist is beyond me. he has been, from the outset, supported throughout his campaign and failed presidency by the corporatists, globalists and islamists. if that doesn’t nauseate you more than socialism, i give up.
I can’t wait to see the liberal pundits on Sunday morning TV especially after their tea bagger cracks. Its going to be fun to watch who sucks what! I predict a lot of gas.
#47 Hyphenated American
BRAVO!
bc, and his or her ilk, are the clueless ones.
To Hyphenated American: easy — when people are younger, especially if they are smart and educated enough, they tend to have a world view, be open minded, still be optimistic about doing things they really want to do, and be information freaks about what’s going on. As they get older, become more settled into whatever career and life they’ve settled for, have a family and move further and further out into the sticks, they become inward and very intellectually lazy, and become more interested in things like their lawns, their kids’ school, and where to take their next vacation. I have old friends like that — a year can go by between visits and it takes all of 30 seconds, if that, for them to tell me “what’s new” since the last visit. They also have an appallingly weak grasp of what’s going on outside of their neighborhood, like picking up buzz phrases to recite without knowing anything about their validity.
Worst is that they seem unable to make connections between what happens in their lives to the greater issues at stake. They might tell me some medical care horror stories involving relatives or people they know, but don’t connect that with the health care debate — they are just isolated, just one of those things as far as they are concerned. These people are *exactly* the demographic that the Republican party targets heavily: keep repeating the same sound bites, however stupid, the same imagery, however misleading, and so on, and voila! a Republican win.
People who stay in urban areas post 20′s tend to do so because they like the stimulation and variety that urban living provides, and tend to keep their mental acuity long after their old suburban buddies start behaving more like 2 legged cows.
43. Poor Citizen:
35. BC:
The correct response to the term Tea Bagger is the term Barack Sucker. (BTW you have something in your hair…)
Changing the ratio of Rs to Ds in D.C. is a good start. But – as Mr. Kimball alludes, but doesn’t elaborate – the fundamental problems in America are not political and will not be cured by Washington, no matter who is in power.
It is Progressivism – throughout the culture, in all its ugly, destructive forms – that must be cleansed from the country. That’s the only long-term solution.
That starts with recognizing what it is, then demonstrating why it’s deadly. The American people will then spontaneously reject it. But that educational process must be carried through the entire culture, not just in issues of politics. Politics is an effect, not a fundamental cause.
Actually, Obama does ‘get it’.
He is a Marxist and the Marxist takeover of America is well on course. The health care abomination will be passed.
The Marxists in the White House don’t worry about winning elections because they aren’t planning on having any more elections. They think that they can raise enough Brownshirts to put down the small number of Americans that are willing to engage in civil war to protect the Constitution. They think Americans are to fat and comfortable to raise up in defense of their freedom.
They might be right. There is a huge difference between voting and taking the deer rifle down and shooting ACORN members. All of whom will be armed and shooting back.
The ones who ‘don’t get it’ are the ones that think it can’t happen in America.
52. Close, but no cigar. What actually happens is that 30 year olds with kids realize it isn’t about them anymore, and their concerns drift toward maintaining a job, buying a house, making sure the bills get paid so the kids are taken care of, and most importantly, raising their kids right. This causes people to become more conservative as they age, because they realize that the big picture is just a composite of lots of smaller pictures- families.
It’s fascinating to see BC opening up as he or she does in 52–he or she provides a very revealing and invaluable insight into some of the most basic elements of the leftist mentality. Look at how he/she sets things up: young vs old, city vs. suburb–what is valued in the city dweller, is, essentially, that he stays young–which is to say, never leaves adolescence behind. In the end, politics is about the cool kids vs. the squares–Romanticism 101. I think that this self-image of the Leftist is still extremely powerful, and helps to explain a lot of the energy and the blindnesses we can see in each new Leftist bid to make human nature fit their own idealized self-image. We can also see how Obama was able to pull off one of the greatest con jobs in history–he got all of these leftists in the media and the academy, with all of the levers of power and cultural savvy at their disposal, working 24/7 for him. And all just because he was able to convince them that he was one of them–one of the cool kids. (I remember one sycophantic article going on about how marvelous Obama’s i-pod selections were, etc.)
@52 BC: You wrote: ‘People who stay in urban areas post 20’s tend to do so because they like the stimulation and variety that urban living provides, and tend to keep their mental acuity long after their old suburban buddies start behaving more like 2 legged cows.”
I think we are certainly in two different metropolitan areas. The inner cities areas I know on the East Coast are characterized by 10% heavily policed upper class zones, surrounded by the standard high crime, low education, broken families (actually in both zones, now that I think of it), dilapidated housing, low income, dead-enders making a “living” off charity and dumpster diving.
Such a wonderful environment…
And the intellectual accomplishments are not quite up to snuff. I mentioned Supersymmetry and String Theory last time I was in an “intellectual” environment (Multiple Universes anyone?) and was ridiculed as an “Unfeeling” yahoo.
But, oh – were their hearts in the right place!
Unfortunately, their brains had been checked at city limits.
YOu can have them, BC: they’re not worth the time to waste your breathe upon.
Unrepentant Scientist…Not A Climatologist.
Obama’s interruption of the constitution, is that it is a living document. Under this assumption it can be changed by those in power.
HIS REDISTRIBUTIVE CHANGE is granted to him by the constitution.
The marxist, socialist, muslim learnings of OBAMA, makes him an his adm., a real threat to freedom.
The AMERICAN populace must be aware of the these tactics and be persistent in their response to this danger.
The tragedy will be if OBAMA wins.
“HIS REDISTRIBUTIVE CHANGE is granted to him by the constitution.”
You’re outta your damn mind. Nowhere does the constitution even remotely hint at giving public moneys to private citizens.
Hi! I’m BC! I’m an idiot!!!!!
Hah ha hah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha – oh, mom’s calling – I gotta go.
Watch today, as Obama proposes even more controls on the heavily regulated banking industry. The banks get the privilege of being at the top of his current populist enemies list. The banks have resisted Obama’s plans to turn them into state utilities through his “financial reform” legislation, so now he threatens to bust them up. He is so vindictive that he does not worry that banks engaged in divestiture and break up won’t be paying much attention to making loans.
Obama is a Progressive in the vein of Woodrow Wilson and a plain thuggish Socialist. Government run health care is the platform on which he and the Left hope to build a European style global socialism run by them in perpetuity.
He’s an incompetent President, but he is very dangerous as a “community organizer.”
The Obama Agenda? From my side of the Atlantic, which is a long way off the action I know, it always looked as if the only agenda was to promote the Obama celebrity brand. This has never been more apparent than in the healthcare debate where the important thing was not to benefit Americans, not even those Americans who put Obama in The White House, but to get a bill, any bill, passed in order to be the President who reformed the health system.
Really Barry and Michelle are little different to David and Victoria Beckham … except Dave’s six pack and Victoria’s snake hips are no the result of airbrushing.
BC #52: any evidence for these propositions or are these just your typical liberal stereotypes? To conservatives it seems pretty obvious that liberals are the most bigoted Americans, they just have figured out how to vent their hate in socially acceptable (i.e., politically correct) channels. Liberal prejudice actually makes liberals feel smugly self-satisfied and self-righteous. But just let some black (Clarence Thomas, Condoleeza Rice), woman (Sarah Palin) or Jewish (Joe Lieberman)person fail to toe the line and watch the liberal racism, sexism and antisemitism erupt. By the way something happened to me as I got older: I grew up.
Obama did not see anything at all in fact he said people were mad and that is how he won the presidency and the same reason that Scott Brown won is that people were mad. This is kind of right but mostly wrong, while the country might have been mad at Bush in 2008, after only 1 year of Obama they were mad as hell at Obama and the Congress!
They were so mad in fact that they elected the first Republican since 1972 in the state of Massachusetts to be a Senator. No Obama the country is mad at you and your policies, they are mad that your policies are being forced by a Congress that makes back room deals with bribes and selling of votes and closed door meeting to craft legislation that is to enormous to comprehend, and voting on legislation that has not even been read.
We do want transparency not closed door legislation with one party rule, so now we are going to remove the party that is doing these things and you will be a lame duck president (hopefully dead duck)until you are removed by impeachment or voted out in 2012. You had your chance and blew it big time! You are now officially the worst President of all time!