The Great Make-over
Note again, nowhere is there the courage to admit the simple truth: the American people did not wish or vote for European socialism. Under the duress of the financial meltdown, angry at Bush/Iraq, underwhelmed by McCain, captivated by the notion of electing the first African-American president, swarmed by a singularly partisan media, and assured of a centrist Bill Clinton-like Democrat, Obama won the election and with it a golden opportunity to refurbish the Democratic brand and unite the country. That idea proved not merely impossible but simply distasteful. Somehow he assumed that his own godhead could lead us, kicking and screaming, to a socialist nirvana. When that did not happen, he serially blamed the bogeymen, then our ingratitude, then our stupidity, then tried to scare and divide us into accepting his agenda.
Not Take It Anymore?
So why are people angry? I’ll end with a brief list of twenty-one months of examples in no particular order. Each incident in itself was perhaps explicable by Obama supporters given the exigencies of the time or perhaps could be contextualized by the liberal media and political establishment. But in the aggregate they confirm an overwhelmingly damning pattern of ideological extremism, polarization, and basic incompetence – to such a degree that dozens of politicians are not running on the very Obama agenda that they once voted for.
Here We Go…
A vast new health care monstrosity that will send private insurance rates through the ceiling. The Machiavellian way in which it was slammed through. Failed stimulus. Wasteful pork-barrel spending of hundreds of billions in borrowed money. Persistent near 10% unemployment. Three trillion dollars in new debt in just two years. Record levels of federal spending. The vast increase in the size of government and its share of GDP. Eight years of projected $1 trillion annual budget deficits. Record high foreclosures. Record high usage of food stamps. The Keynesian zeal of Romer/Summers/Orzag followed by their sudden resignations in the wake of failure. Constant talk of higher taxes on “them”— the promised new health care surcharge taxes, the promised return to the Clinton income tax rates, talk of a VAT, talk of lifting the caps on income subject to FICA taxes, new capital gains taxes, new inheritance taxes on the horizon.
The use of extra-cabinet czars to avoid confirmation and audit. The neglect of the law, from reversing the order of Chrysler creditors to announcing a BP $20 billion shakedown and punishments for health insurers who don’t toe the line. The ascendance of ACORN and SEIU. The months-long shutdown of Gulf drilling. The failure to encourage coal, nuclear, and oil and gas new production. The Black Panther voting intimidation mess. The bowing abroad. The apologies. The outreach to enemies, and the snubbing of allies. The unnecessary humiliation of Great Britain and Israel. The Iran serial “deadline” charade. The unnecessary announcement of Afghan troop withdrawal deadlines. “Overseas contingency operations” and “man-made disasters.” The proposed civilian trial of KSM. The Ground Zero mosque mess. The beer summit mess. NASA’s new main mission of Muslim outreach. Stopping the border fence. Suing Arizona and demonizing the state. The apologies to the Chinese over the Arizona law, which was trashed from the White House lawn by the president of Mexico, and sued by foreign governments to the apparent approval of the administration.
The constant “Bush did it” refrain. The gratuitous slurs against limb-lopping doctors. The thrashing of the “rich” going to the Super Bowl and Las Vegas. The artificial divide of them/us based on $250,000 of annual income. The racial divisiveness from a sad cast of characters that gave us “cowards,” “stupidly,” “wise Latina,” and whites polluting the ghetto. Unhinged appointees like Van Jones and Anita Dunn. The occasional unguarded admissions like “never waste a crisis” and “at some point I do think you’ve made enough money.” The wacky behavior from the whining of “like a dog” to the sudden junketing to Copenhagen to lobby for the Chicago Olympics. The Orwellian cheap damning of the Bush anti-terrorism protocols only to accept or expand tribunals, renditions, Guantanamo, Predators, Iraq, and intercepts and wiretaps. The golf obsession and Costa del Sol while trashing the indulgent rich.
I’ll stop there since we have another 27 months to go.
Again, to invoke any one or two of these can be written off as partisan nit-picking; in toto they paint a picture of ideological zealotry determined to remake the U.S. abroad into a UN neutral and at home into something like Belgium or Sweden.
I would urge everyone to vote next week…
___________________________________
* I note, for example, that Newsweek’s weird 54-40 pro Obama poll seems distorted and affects aggregate samplings of the sort that appear on realclearpolitics.com averages. Readers will no doubt explain to me what I am missing here.
We have become a trivial, unserious people unworthy of the responsibility that our form of Republican government – and the liberty that it brings – demands of us. We have turned our elections into a cheap imitation of American Idol and are reaping the consequences.
One of our great disadvantages is that the conservative mindset just wants to be left alone, hence the popularity of ‘Don’t Tread On Me’. But the progressive leftist is animated by a different motivation – call it control freakism – that drives him to insist that everyone mind his rules. And the creation of new rules is never-ending. They will never be satisfied and will never go away. Even if they are defeated next Tuesday and conservatives start regaining the ascendency, they will simply morph into another incarnation and continue their quest to dominate and oppress. Eternal vigilance is required to fight them and that pisses me off because I want to be able to live my life without watching these bastards like a hawk, every minute of every day. But the alternative is serfdom to their oppression and as I like to say -”Americans Don’t Serf”.
Every patriotic American needs to crawl over broken glass next Tuesday to vote and rescue this Republic.
Yes! Life is too short to use it baby seating Liberals. I have the feeling, almost a premonition, that this election can be the beginning of the end for the Democratic Party.
They abandoned their Jacksonian roots in 1968 when they left the American working class to fend for itself. From that time onward they became more and more the party of the academic left.
The chickens have come home to roost. They may spend the next few months fighting for their life with Captain Blind at the helm.
The Democratic Party perished some time ago. It’s now inhabited by ‘skin dancers’ – will-to-power driven monsters – yes, monsters who caper about in the skins of former Democrats.
The corollary of the will to power, for which some of the Left is more powerful than any drug, is the desire to submit.
Thus, the perfect storm of victim and victimizer, serial nihilists and Lord-of-the-Flies power-lusters. With us caught in the middle; we’re the stakes in a game of suicide poker with liars wild.
Breathtaking, isn’t it?
Desire to submit? That explains why liberals are promoting Islam!
…almost a premonition, that this election can be the beginning of the end for the Democratic Party.
I heard very similar words describing the republican party only 4 years ago – and repeated again 2 years ago.
While we do indeed need to keep an eye on what the left is doing lets keep the other eye on the republicans. I don’t trust them much more than I do the democrats.
Remember what Trent Lott said this last summer? “We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples,” Lott said in an interview. “As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.”
Co-opt them? Sounds like the Dark Lord turning a Jedi to the dark side doesn’t it? Thats what it is.
I don’t trust Lott and his buddies (McCain – Graham et al) any more than I do any democrat. Keep an eye on these slicksters too.
“… this election can be the beginning of the end for the Democratic Party.”
Let’s not pop the the hopefully Republican-led California sparkling white wine corks just yet. I thought the same thing in 2002 mid-terms when we had a Republican president and significant midterm gains in Congress.
Reagan corectly pronounced that tyranny is never more than a generation away. This is a worthy battle that will continue as long as there is the human nature to control others. I am preparing my two-year-old daughter with the mindset that defense of the Constitution will be a life-long job. And one to be embraced.
battle against evil which will never end. Embrace the battle because that is what the righteous do.
Precisely. It will not be enough to simply replace a D with an R and go about our business expecting that Republicans have learned their lesson. Unlike 1994, we now have the tools, namely the internet, to hold their feet to the fire and make sure they don’t lose their way again. As you mentioned there is a natural inclination towards tyranny (I believe it is human laziness – simply agree to raise taxes on “the rich” and all of your individual responsibility to your family and your neighbors is alleviated -see how much easier that is?), almost like gravity, and we have to keep watch around the clock, 365 days a year. Ignorance has always been on the side of liberalism; in fact liberalism depends on large quantities of it. When the internet first arrived it was Democrats who best harnessed its potential, but the instantaneous, free-flowing exchange of ideas eventually exposed the lies that progressives, with the help of the major networks, have heretofore been able to hide. The lights have been turned on and November 2nd will see the largest scurrying of roaches seen in generations. It is our job to make sure the lights stay on for good this time.
Some of the chickens have come home..roosting..not yet..
I think the elections will be interesting, and I do not believe the conservatives will be coming out on top. Americans are wishy washy..and perhaps the uneducated latino vote will make a difference that we are going to be sorry for.
Yes I said uneducated latino vote..people that do not yet appreciate a republic like the USA. It is not all take, there is a lot of give in this nation and they have yet to realize this. They have helped ruin their countries, now want to bring their nonsense here.
.AND big mouth evil people like Joy Behare on the view should be ashamed..but Walters must love the free liberal advertising of this loud mouth narrow minded biggot. After today, we are not going to watch “the view” any more, it was just too much.. There is so much “mud” in this election and it really needs to stop, it is degrading to all political parties.
I highly doubt this will be the end of the Democratic Party. I think they will sacrifice this administration and its cronies rather than see the party destroyed (which conversely, this administration seems very willing to do the reverse — kill the party to keep the administration).
If the elections do nothing more than severely weaken the administration and its cronies, possibly set the stage for the far left side of the Democratic Party being destroyed, I can live with that — one step at a time. In fact, I would say from a strategic p.o.v. it would behoove the Democrats to allow a Republican victory and set the stage for a purge the segment within the party that have become so disasterous — both for their party as well as the country.
WE make the rules. Always have, always will, as long as the dream of America lives. It may take time, turmoil, strife, even blood; but if we want to change things badly enough, there is nothing really stopping us except our own perceptions of things. And as Perusha writes further down, Change is (sometimes) good. In some ways we should thank Obama because he woke us up, made us remember who we are, what we value, what we are willing to fight for, to die for…
Radical Islam is not the only force that seeks our destruction. In a way it is history that seeks it. For History has decreed that only the strong (aware, awake, alert, focused, willful…) shall be free. There is an ancient Greek saying (I forget the source) “The love of freedom alone is not enough, unless it is coupled with the will to act. And life without danger is not given to a free nation, but to one already conquered.” So let your frustration turn into resolve to never let the scum win. the Greeks learned by hard experience that it is often your internal enemies that are the most dangerous. No small number of city-states fell to ‘foreign money’ paid to treacherous cliques seeking oligarchic power. Generally once found out, the conspirators were put to death. We live in a more humane age.
The Marxist wannabees and other fellow travelers who carefully cultivated the environmental, racial, gender, class and anti-capitalist narratives for so long just couldn’t wait any longer. They thought they had us so dazzled by their nonsense, and so riven with discord that the time had come to pull down the whole house of cards. Big mistake.
You are right. The battle is only just beginning. It is time to expose the grand leftist deception that has been underway for decades now. America is ready for the painful truth (in fact it yearns for it, much as an ill patient yearns for the treatiment, painfull though he knows it will be). It took Obama to prepare us for this moment. So again, thank Obama/Pelosi/Reid. If a more competent trio had been annointed for this dramatic climax, we would not have had time to react. As it is they blundered at every possible opportunity. One of the saddest bunch of revolutionaries in a long time. They will spend a lot of time and energy now trying to figure out what happened. (And how to hide what they did) How they went from the Dawn of the Age of The One to subpoenas and prosecutions in 2 short years. One thing for sure is that the ideologues like Jarret and Dunn will never, NEVER, be able to admit to themselves that it is their own fault. They have so self-hypnotized themselves over the years with their own clever words and elegant social schemes that they are now completely divorced from objective reality. And the more they try and convince us that they are right and we are wrong, the more we see them for the sad, alien beings that they are. The Greeks also said that those who the Gods chose to destroy, they first drove mad. I think they were right about that too. They deserve not just our contempt, but our pity too.
November 2 is only the beginning.
get real. The republican platform has always included the bit about keeping big brother government out of peoples lives but it the republicans who want to tell women what they can and can’t do with their bodies, who want to force the middle class to pay the way for the rich (yes that same old distribution that they always pull on us) As to the same old same old – the repubs have admitted that the new plan is just a rehash of the old contract with America that practically destroyed this country. The tea party folks hate change so much they want us to go back to 1776. I really just don’t get how average, middle class Americans can support a party that keeps making fools of them. In the last 40 years ALL of America has done better, economically under Democratic leadership than Republican leadership. The republicans grow government, grow the deficit and make the middle class pay for it. They boast about being the party of family values but they cheat on their wives and lie about it even with the proof in front of their faces. GET REAL AND START USING THE BRAINS YOU WERE BORN WITH!!!! Republicans = liars and hypocrites.
I believe the simple choice is—
Convert, or DIE!
The given—gift of the God of Being + Becoming?—truth is that change is constant.
So, depending on the informed or misinformed state of any of us, at any given point of time, the most vital kind of change required for the most social good for the most members of society is—conversion.
Every belief system, if even a little bit coherent and consistent, wants to grow, and to do this the extant members of that system MUST gain NEW adherents, and that necessarily demands that non-members somehow become convinced of the truth of that system.
Hence, the dominant Christian admonition, usually mocked, like in cartoons with a guy in a sandwich-like “suit” with the words, “Repent, sinner!” on it. This is simply a form of the same need.
Just so—right NOW, on the changing margin, as always, there exists a swinging set of malleable humans ripe for the change of our time: CONVERT to freedom!
We must never forget that, despite the best efforts of too many American citizens with closed minds, this country STILL “converts” many non-Americans in the form of legal and illegal immigrants, who desperately yearn to leave the mostly unfree places they come from in exchange for the freedom HERE.
Thus, is the tree of freedom watered, every day.
Likewise, those current Americans, who finally realize they have been mugged by liberal reality, reach the unavoidable tipping point of personal desperation and—CONVERT.
Exactly as hardly anyone LEAVES America—except, those who are already rich, and want to escape taxes—the same thing is true about politics. Very few people convert FROM the right to the left!
Another useful truth—experienced people rarely make mistakes. How do you become experienced? By making mistakes!
So, there is a huge pool of inexperienced people, in America. The up-and-coming younger cohorts have indeed been programmed by the pubic schools and the rotten culture that rules the entertainment and academic realms AND, they are sure to sooner or later notice how mistaken their brainwashing has made them.
Mass conversion is coming, and is absolutely happening as we live and breathe.
Let’s go underneath the “skin” of our fruit of taught belief system.
There is always a form. And, this form is always changing.
So, at any moment, one is to some extent informed, misinformed, deformed, reformed, and most especially, CONFORMED—to the prevailing CW.
Also, others are in the same mixed state of “form”, so their very existence in a wordless or wordy fashion ineluctably is informing those who see or hear or read them.
Well, these days, those on the left are actively MIS-informing us all, with the elites in this devilish camp fully aware of what they are doing—they KNOW they are lying, and take those who buy their dung to be the fools they certainly ARE. And, then there is the vast wrong majority on the left who are THEMSELVES fools and fooled by the bangles offered by these elites, who also do their plebian best to fool others—unwitting nitwits!
Therefore, while we all eschew the “horrible” change that bodily aging is, given the loss in vigor and the growing “edge” that an ever approaching death surely represents, the older mind MUST welcome, indeed embrace, the freeing change that experience offers.
Change is GOOD!
Lastly, “sin” comes from the Greek, “to miss the mark”. And, so, too many people do have SINFUL opinions, having been misformed into the deformed creatures they are, as they conform to so much that is NOT true. We are all like a shot arrow, at once hitting the target, usually NOT in the bull’s eye, and thus sinning, AND simultaneously in flight toward the next target.
Best is to CONFORM to the bull’s eye!
Note—the book, “Laws of Form”, by G. Spencer Brown, from 1969, was recommended to me by Alan Watts, right around 1971. It will blow minds, if read.
Here’s a money quote, that extends to the current political war—
“In mathematics, it becomes apparent, at some stage, that we have for some time been following a rule without being consciously aware of the fact. This might be described as the use of a COVERT convention. A recognizable aspect of the advancement of mathematics consists in the advancement of the consciousness of what we are doing, whereby the covert becomes overt. Mathematics is in this respect psychedelic.” Page 85
Since mathematics is just the most ordered “dance” of human minds, I posit that this above quote applies in CONVERTING spades to the ongoing human “war” of political ideas.
Just substitute the word “Politics” for “mathematics”, and I think we can see what is NOW going on, especially wrt the Tea Party and its opponents.
VDH, what we are witnessing is the electorate playing the groom in an arranged marriage, lifting the veil for the first time.
We look into the face of Pelosi/Reid/Obama legislation and take a good, long look at it.
The media in their pocket arranged this marriage, sold us on attributes that turned out to be worse than a sham.
The Inspector General for TARP has told us that Treasury is playing fast and loose with reporting on the costs, benefits and returns. They cook the books for October, but intend to show us the real books after the election, apparently.
Just like the cooked books at Fannie and Freddie were buried by the Water Carriers and Frank, Dodd and now it appears Barbara Boxer…intended to keep all that swept nicely under the rug.
It’s funny…all non-leftists are called “racist” at the drop of a hat. Yet that’s not how it plays out in real life. Just ask Juan Williams. The people who stood by him, who defended him, who had his back…the dreaded Fox News. And the people who shamefully treated him shabbily, fired him by cell phone, said “there is nothing you can say”, who said he needed a psychiatrist…were the “genteel and well-mannered” NPR queens.
The Glenn Beck rally was a nice outing, with respectful people who cleaned up after themselves. The “great unwashed” were meticulous in keeping the grounds looking pristine.
The “environmentalism” loving sociaists? Treated the grounds like a personal waste dump.
The “transparency lovers” have met in secret and passed legislation in the dark, hired “czars” to do their dirty work and cooked the books at every turn.
The irony cannot be lost on anyone except the mindless drivel spouters, “useless idiots” at Kos, and the Soros funded media hacks. The whole 40 year narrative has been an fraud of inversion.
The veil has been lifted. And the ugliness is there for all to see.
But THE VEIL HAS BEEN LIFTED. At last! That is of utmost importance.
How can anybody doubt that Obama’s goal is to radically change the United States? As VDH says, there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of indications, ranging from trivial to country-shattering.
And it’s not like the moron is an inconsistent dweeb wandering about the ideological landscape. Any of us, given a choice of two extremes, could pick with 100% certainty the one he would pick. Every one of his actions undermines the country, chips away at the middle class, increases divisiveness in the country, moves assets to his allies, consolidates power in the government, sabotages free expression, champions entitlements vs hard work, makes people dependent on government and on and on. He may be stupid when separated from TOTUS, but he or whoever is running him isn’t stupid about maintaining laser focus on his or their agenda. They don’t take a breath unless that breath weakens the United States.
This isn’t a casual game led by a stumblebum like Jimmy Carter. This is an organized, maniacally focused, decade’s long campaign to disable this country.
The problem is, as Mark Steyn said yesterday, the tipping point is certainly near, if not already passed. We can’t “hope for the best” for the next couple of years, and assume the momentum of this November will translate into Obama’s defeat in 2012. Gridlock will be sweet relief for two years, but these people are frenetic subversives and they will find thousands of ways to continue undermining our way of life.
If the Republicans don’t get it real quick, then they have to go as well.
“And Obama was looking forward to an imminent social revolution, literally a movement where the working classes would overthrow the ruling class and institute a kind of socialist Utopia in the United States. I mean, that’s how extreme his views were his sophomore year of college.”
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2010/10/exclusive-transcript-obama-at.html
All correct. And yes, the tipping point has already been passed.
The Country Club Repubs will re-install Beaner and continue a John McCain charade.
Meanwhile, the hardcore Marxist/Socialist/Communist/Radical movement will do what they always do when their nonsense doesn’t work and the useful idiots start to grumble — they’ll pull out their guns and machetes and re-education camps.
Look for it this coming decade.
“If the Republicans don’t get it real quick, then they have to go as well.” – proreason(?)
LOL. Yeah, right. Get a grip and get real. I’ll attribute your silly pomposity to your youth.
“Dianne” was more honest.
But according to Dianne, it isn’t possible for an upstart party to replace one of the dominant political parties, kind of, you know, like the Republicans did 150 years ago.
In the real world, it has already happened in 2010. It’s just that the name hasn’t been changed. And the quivering ruling class republicans who don’t understand it and change their behavior will become struggling lobbyists in 2012.
Thanks VDH.
Time to take out the trash.
PM
VDH just took at the trash.
Add to the list an impeachable act. The Oregon State University basketball coach fielded a losing team and was under scrutiny by the Alumni and Board. A woman from the Obama administration showed up with $17M in stimulus money that no one asked for, and all discussion on the coach ceased. The couch is Obama’s brother-in-law.
Obama’s got a sofa for a brother-in-law?
Every time we are lectured by Obama for our intolerance and latent bigotry (cf ground zero mosque, arizona law etc) we should just remember that we’re not the ones who had to apologise to the head of the special olympics for comparing our sub-par bowling to that of an intellectually disabled person.
Somebody has to compile this list! Thank you, but I fear it must ruin your morning writing it all out.
You forgot one of my favorites, bitter clinger to rule of law that I am – the shorting of the bondholders in the auto company bailouts.
Aside from the many fine blogs chronicling this amazing quagmire we are sinking deeper into each day this man plays at POTUS, there are two consistently fine archival efforts available for your perusal. The first is, of course, Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey and his “Obamateurism of the Day” and the once-per-week culmination of POTUS escapades (which you can vote upon). A sample of today’s OOTD can be found here:
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/10/26/obamateurism-of-the-day-385/
Another site, where the blogger — a fine young gentleman who documents the daily transgressions in a truly fine and workmanlike manner — is the Obama Fail Blog. It can be found here:
http://www.obamafailblog.net/
It is not as flashy as Hot Air, but will be one of those sites where you heave alongside on 21 January 2012 and download the entirety of its contents for a disbelieving posterity.
In any event, go over to the Obama Fail Blog and offer a pat on the back to the author. He certainly deserves it.
Please add one more example. Obama’s attempt to give the nation of Honduras to Hugo Chavez.
Everyone I know is looking forward to voting next week. We are very concerned about possible cheating, however. We are also concerned about voter intimidation not in the rural areas but the large urban areas.
We are hopeful that a whole bunch of new faces will bloom into a renaissance in the political spectrum. Americans are very resilient. We will have to demonstrate that for the next two years.
The incompetence of this clown is the saving grace of this situation. The Hildabeast is smart enough to know that you boil a frog by turning the heat up slowly. By over-reaching like he did His “O”lliness not only woke the frog up but royally pissed it off as well. I still feel vindicated in my preference of “anyone but Clinton” but mark my words, by hook, or by crook she is planning to be the candidate in 2012. No one crosses the Clinton machine and gets away with it. We can not relax for even one moment after the mid-terms, the left is well known for burying it’s wounded and the current regime is going to finish it’s time hobbled and broken, but beware of the Beast from Arkansas.
Oh please, let Hillary run in 2012. She’ll win the primary, and be thoroughly trashed in the election. I don’t think the Clinton magic has quite the shine anymore.
Really, no need to worry then huh, I remember saying the same thing when her hubby ran, and again when he ran the second time. Maybe you guys should go over to Drudge and take a look at what’s going on right now with the voting machines maintained by SEIU technicians.
Do not for one moment underestimate what these people are willing to do.
Clinton magic?
Never was any…he was the medias first dry run at completely discounting the the truth about a known, documented, leftist scumbag, and proclaiming him a wonderful centrist…
He got 41% of the vote first time around…6 of 10 voters wanted someone else….he got 43% the second time around, same story.
His “magic” was a viable third party candidate, and a fawning media that simply declared him “so freaking popular!” when MOST Americans had a different opinion in the voting booth, both times.
Wunt no magic, but for what they SAID was magic.
DONT VALIDATE THE LIE ANY FURTHER
Amen. Even people that don’t care for the Clintons don’t realize that more than 50% chose someone else twice.
She’s overrated. American voters are also extremely visual/photogenic/telegenic-oriented. Hilary looks her age. She’s saddled with Bill. He wouldn’t help in a general election. Barring an Obama Surprise, he’s done, and any Republican will win in 2012. McCain could run again and win.
“McCain could run again and win.” – PLEASE don’t say that.
(How about a Paul Ryan?)
I just don’t want you to be surprised when the Sedona Surprise happens. :)
Oh, please! Hillary lacks Bill’s political chops, including his ability to “feel our pain”. And Clinton is piling up a stream of foreign policy failures that will demand explanation. And saying “Obama made me do it” won’t cut it.
An experienced prosecutor could not have made a better summmation. The jury will no doubt come in with a verdict of guilty as charged on November 2nd.
Agree with JusAl. Hillary will be the Democratic candidate in 2012. And she may well win.
And a nit: “the first presidential candidate in modern history to refuse public financing of presidential general elections” would, I believe, be Ron Paul in 1980. At least, I heard the claim made by my Libertarian friends at the time, who considered it a huge positive.
I second this: I believe that Hillary will challenge Obama in the primary, and the Republicans may be hard pressed to beat her. Either that or a more photogenic member of the Clinton camp gets put up; you’d be getting the same thing in a different package.
The Republicans (if they win in a week) will be put through the grinder and smeared by the media nonstop. The American public is in a volatile mood and willing to lashout at politicians. The Republicans are in for a thankless task soon; I believe it will be spun in 2012 that the Republicans “failed” (which I don’t believe they will have failed, but putting the brakes on this trainwreck of an administration is going to cost them sme political capital). BDS is still alive as well; Obama all but discredited; Hillary runs as a “centrist” like Bill was (I know, I know…but public perception being what it is). While Republicans/conservatives may scoff at a Hillary campaign success, I think a lot of Dems and liberal leaning independents would be overjoyed to vote for her — gives them the chance to make amends for their big mistake as it were, and then there’s the first female president thing. Never underestimate guilt and novelty as human motivation.
I consider Hillary to be a very, bad choice for president (and the final nail in the coffin of our republic), but it would be unrealistic to not consider what may happen.
“Those that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.”
Biblical wisdom the Democrats shouldn’t forget. Specifically, I’m thinking the failure, intentional or not, to ensure that our elections are fair and honest and accurate.
If voting is no longer a remedy for poor and/or corrupt government, then trust in government disappears along with its moral and legal legitimacy. The next escalation for concerned citizens will not be pretty and might not be non-violent.
Let’s hope that the Democrats know when to stop cheating.
#7 mary d:
Regarding voter intimidation in large urban areas, I can think of no opportunity to engage that I’d like better than to meet a “poll watcher” with a night stick and paramilitary garb and have a reasonable “curbside discussion”
Not likely…
In Philly, you would be “sole person” of your , ahem, “ethnic group” for several miles.
You would be beaten, your car vanadlized (if not simply stolen) and NO ONE will call 911. If the Po-Po do by chance show up, THEY might beat you too, for causing a fight.
Most likely you would simply be given bogus info about being at the wrong voting both, and given ficticious directions to a non existant polling location in even worse neighborhood, where you will be robbed or or (hopefully for them) killed.
Should you live through this ordeal, and complaints about “voter intimidation” will be viewed as racially motivated sour grapes of a crime victim, as NO ONE will corroborate your story.
Philly is Bammatown, donchaknow?
Contrary to the good doctor Hanson’s advice, I would not urge everyone to vote for the same reason that I would not urge everyone to own a gun. Likewise I would disrespect vote-by-mail or computer, because “elections have consequences” and some effort should be required with citizenship.
As for Mr. Obama, he is definitely the president of the ultra-blue districts, president of the whole country in name only, and would well placed if he were more ignored. Verbally attacking his fellow Americans as vehemently and frequently as he is prone to repeat is grounds for ostracization.
As for the list, it’s almost become too long for any one person to recollect. Every week seems to bring a new revelation, and this election cycle has shown Obama to be the petty man that he is. He chums for votes from every “aggrieved” minority, sex, age or partisan group, and fails as the president of the entire electorate, whether or not they voted for him. He shames the 43 individuals who came before him. Jimmy Carter’s prayers must have been answered, and it’s regrettable that it had to be the first black president to reach that low waterline. He’s managed to set back race relations decades in a short 18 month.
I think you’ve answered Guliani’s question: “What is a community orgainzer?” This president-in-name-only (PINO) is a voice from the hill shouting encouragement to his troops and disparaging his enemies all within earshot. He wasn’t elected to ‘lead’ America, but to stage a fight among Americans that he hopes will destroy capitalism and individual liberty- replacing it with socialism and tyranny.
How do you get two boxers into the ring? You offer them a prize if they win. But first, you need an Organizer. Obama is only doing his impression of the troll-doll-haired Don King while hoping to take the title of Most Despicable Creature Alive from him.
Worse, he’s organizing a fight while trying to fix it for his side. I don’t know how we elected this street punk to the highest office in the land, but I do know what he’s up to and it ain’t pretty. Hang in there, y’all, it gets bumpy after Nov.2.
Community organizing is organized voting fraud.
I’m not as optimistic. I live in northern Sacramento. My area it’s fairly conservative, our politicians are republicans. Statewide though, the big populations are in L.A. and the S.F. Bay area. These areas are solidly liberal. Brown is leading Whitman and Boxer is in a dead heat with Carly. These elections shouldn’t even be close. Whitman and Carly should be easily leading even though they may not have been the greatest candidates. I weep for my state.
Liberals are merely degenerates and they are not going away next week, at least not in California. California is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Actually, it may never get better. I believe we’ve reached a tipping point here: the freeloaders and degenerates (synonym for liberals) finally outnumber the sensible productive American citizens so the state and it is doomed.
I just hope the rest of the country wakes up and doesn’t let it happen to them. Please go out and vote next week. Knock those degenerates (Synonym for liberals) to the curb and begin to save your country. It’s not too late, but if things don’t change the end is near. We will turn into another s$%t-hole third world country in less than 10 years the way things are going.
Voting is only one step though, the good citizens of this country really need to fight and take back the current bastions of the degenerates.(Synonym for liberals) These bastions are the leadership of academia, bureaucracy, most unions and much of the judiciary. There’s no reason that these entities need to be run by degenerates.(Synonym for liberals) The military is largely conservative and they are part of the public sector, so it can be done. There are many conservatives in these liberal bastions, but they are too afraid to be identified. It’s time for all conservatives to stand up and be as shrill as their degenerate (Synonym for liberal) brethren. There is strength in numbers. The more people that standup and be counted, the greater their numbers will be and the more obvious it will be that it is okay to be a conservative. Maybe it’s time for the degenerates (Synonym for liberals) to be intimidated for a change.
Tuesday will be the day when a complete assault on those who are warring against America is officially kicked off in full force. After Tuesday, we must continue to remain fully engaged at all levels across this nation and never, never, never relent in our dedication to bringing down and exorcising the infectious disease known as Obama socialism. We must maintain a perpetual vigilance and hold our own accountable once they reach the confines of the Beltway and never let up. Never allow the ones we send to become entrenched in the ways of the career politicians who hold no allegiance to anyone or anything other than re-election.
For once, the public has been shaken out of a deep slumber and like the oft quoted line from Tora! Tora! Tora!, let it be said by Democrats, liberals, and their socialist allies, “We fear that all we have succeeded in doing is to awaken the sleeping giant known as America and filled the citizens with a terrible resolve.” Keep the Tea Party idea alive and vibrant. If we relent now and let the short term victory suffice, we will allow the infection to remain and revive, eventually killing the patient.
Our battle won’t be fought with guns but with the firm belief in the ideas of a great America, not the hollow shell Obama has willingly allowed us to become. I am in my late 60s and never in my life have I witnessed degradation of a nation by a leader to the extent and degree Obama has succeeded in doing.
The real menace beyond Obama is Hillary Clinton. If anything, she will be much worse because she knows how to play the game much better and appear to be “one of us”. Come 2012, she will be the face of the enemy who has the potential of driving the final nail in the coffin. JustAl is absolutely correct with his warning. “Beware the Beast from Arkansas”.
“Beware the Beast from Arkansas”, indeed. THE HILLDEBEAST!!!
The 4th estate is still supporting Obama and his anti business agenda. They remain the single most destructive force opeerating within the political area. After watching Rachel Maddow on NBC Meet the Press last Sunday, I am convenced the elite left media are shadow terrorist, bent upon destroying The Republic. All, so they and the “Left” can have total control over the country. The Maddow woman is in need of serious help. That, and she loves to hear herself talk.
Yes, but the one thing they cannot actually do is vote for us. That is something we (presumably) still get to do ourselves.
I am afraid that the present situation was what it was going to take to wake up America. Obama has done his job – his presidency has hinted at the ultimate destination of statist policies and morality that have dominated politics for decades.
The wake up call is not too late, but has it roused the American people sufficiently? Time will tell. As a Canadian and a fellow lover of freedom, I hope so. You are our best hope. I, for one, am optimistic. Thanks to VDH for this call to arms.
I am 89 years of age. I believe I am active and alert, moreso than many of my age. The first Presidential election of which I have recollection is that of 1928, in which Herbert Hoover lost to Franklin D Roosevelt. I have observed every Presidential cammpaign since then with keen interest. President Obama is frightening in his denunciation of anyone who opposes him, (or worse) whom he thinks opposes him. To the best of my knowledge, during my lifetime, no incumbent President, nor any candidate for that office has characterized his opposition as has Barack Obama. His foes are “dishonest”, “deceitful” “conniving” and not only unworthy of his office, but incapable.
Yes, and he is holding back, big time. He’s like a cauldron that is simmering just below the boiling point.
Mr. Hanson has listed the clues many times: “they bring a knife, we bring a gun”, “your enemies”, “bitter clingers”, “they should thank me”….there are hundreds of examples.
This man can turn into a Lenin or worse in a flash if he thinks he can get away with it. People like Lenin are his heroes. He is obviously boiling with rage inside, not at Germany’s enemies, or at China’s oppressors, at his own countrymen. And the fact that 60 to 70% of the country rejects him isn’t improving his attitude.
Amen to that.
A good friend of mine, an Italian immigrant in his late 70′s, said to me that Obama reminded him greatly of Mussolini. He was not optimistic.
I pity the fool who tries to vote before I do on Tuesday morning.
No disrespect intended, PaulM, but FDR defeated Herbert Hoover in the 1932 election, not the 1928 election. Republican Herbert Hoover defeated Democrat Al Smith in 1928. See Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1928 for more details.
Henry: Thank you for the correction.
I should like to add to my remarks: Last evening it was reported that President Obama, in discussing his opposition, remarked that his opponents can come along but must sit “in the back.” In the back was the place where black citizens were required to sit. During my Marine Corps service in WWII, I was transported to and from Parris Island by train. Railroad coaches in the South, in those days, had a separate section in each coach for black citizens, in the rear of the coach. Seats were benches, not cushioned. Black citizens were disenfranchised then. Does President Obama mean that his opponents also should be disenfranchised?
Looking back on history and PaulM is correct. However, FDR did campaign against “those malfactors of great wealth” and named names, specifically Samuel Insul, CEO of one of the largest public utilities in the country and former TA Edison associate.
Once FDR got power, he used the IRS to harrass his opponents, including the previous Secretary of Treasury, Andrew Mellon, and even Joe Lewis, the boxer. Publishers of opposition newspapers like Annenberg were even sent to prison.
I recommend a book called “New Deal or Raw Deal?” that covers the screwups and evildoing of FDR’s administration.
It looks like Obama is using FDR’s playbook – and making the same policy mistakes.
This is the best blog.
Question: is there any limit to where right wingers will go in trashing people they don’t like politically? It’s a given that facts, context, and fairness are things that right wingers, or the Republican Party at large for that matter, doesn’t really pay much, if, any mind to, but is there a line that will not be crossed? You guys have been attacking Obama with smears and insane rubbish before even he was elected, and it has just continued on. You guys can’t even give him credit for going balls to walls in going after al-Qaeda, just as he said he would, because….your faces would melt off or something? Would you rather he invade some random country like Bush did instead of actually going after the people who were behind 9/11?
You guys are like a real life adult version of “Lord of the Flies.”
I don’t suppose you bothered to read the list Roger compiled – either that or you simply chose to ignore it.
No ammo for return fire eh?
Thought so.
There was no point in going beyond “health care monstrosity” – an ignorant and cliche right wing talking point that completely ignores how pretty much every single health care expert says that we need reform badly because of the insane escalation in cost versus quality. Obama’s plan is not perfect, especially after the public option was very foolishly dropped for political reasons to appease useless Republicans, but it was a real plan, unlike the BS, completely unresearched list of right wing cliches that the Republicans tried to belatedly slip in as a supposed “plan“.
BC – just out of idle curiosity, do you actually have a job? And if so, is it funded by family money and/or somehow linked to the Democratic apparatus and all that lovely overseas Arab money that Obama raked in in 2008? I can’t imagine that any god-fearing capitalist (or atheist, for that matter) would pay you to breathe, and you do seem to be here plunking away for OleJugEars 24/7.
To NahnCee: Yes I do indeed have a job — thank you for asking; now may I ask in return if you have a brain? Do you not know that history did not begin on January 20, 2009, and that anything before that is not just all mystical mumbo jumbo? And Obama’s “raking in” of Arab money is beyond eye rolling when compared to this and this.
Reality may not fit your personal opinions, but thems are the breaks.
You are ignorant about national health care systems. I wish I could trade places with you. You come here and live with the Canadian health care system and I’ll go there and live with the health care that will be restored after Obamacare is repealed. The Canadian health care system is horrible: months and months of waiting for medical appointments, even if you’ve discovered a lump or have an acute condition (both of these would get immediate attention in the U.S.); the unavailibility of doctors–it took us two and a half years to find a doctor who was taking on new patients; rationing of health care, especially for older patients; lack of state-of-the art medical equipment; much lower survival rates for almost any disease there is. Add to this the fact that every product and service here costs two to three times what they cost in the U.S. because we are paying for this inferior health care system every time we go to a cash register to pay for something. Sounds wonderful, right? Ready to trade places?
Well BC you leave 2 points to work with. First, you only read the first point so your post is deficient to say the least. Second point is a straw man. Many health care people did say that reform was needed. However most medical professionals that actually practice medicine condemn this bill as more expensive, destructive to our high level of care and will lead to rationing. The only “medical” people left that are for it are the ones that are administrators who were doctors many years ago and those who never were doctors. If this monstrosity goes through tens of thousands of doctors will leave the field.
There really is no good reason for you to be here BC. As your posts have shown for many months your underling philosophy is socialist. Most readers and posters here have as their bedrock philosophy liberty and responsibility. When fundamental values are so diametrically opposed then a meeting of the minds are virtually impossible. You are wasting your time and ours.
“Not Perfect!!!???”
“Obama’s plan was NOT PERFECT?!”
My ears still ringith! My hands still rubbith mine eyes!
The originator of the famous “Crotch Salute” (as opposed to hand over heart) devised a plan that’s NOT PERFECT…
“I think I’m having chest pains… indeed, an actual heart attack! Please someone call 911!”
But this brings up the philosophical conundrum of how can something NOT perfect emanate from something that IS in fact perfect? It’s like saying G-d created an “imperfect Universe” — or that there is no such thing as a “perfect Sphere” — these statements along with the President’s Health Plan, which, truly Sir, you jest, HAD, of COURSE to be perfect in retrospect, as, these all underscore the blissful harmony of the:
Obama-centered-Universe
BC, Obama cannot bring himself to realize that Al-Qaeda is a symptom of the Middle Eastern political culture. It is that political culture we are fighting, or more appropriately, it is that culture that is fighting us. It is nebulous and ill-defined, but one look at the Middle-eastern media (see the Memri website) and you’ll get the idea. And it pre-existed George Bush. Bush did understand this and it was one of the three reasons he gave for going into Iraq (the other two was Saddam’s support for terrorism and WMD). Obama’s counter-terrorism adviser Brennan thinks poverty causes terrorism, which is not the case, see Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer for details.
One does not defeat his enemies in the middle east by trying to be loved, or negotiating, as is Obama. He defeats by putting heads on spikes. Read Leon Uris’s The Haj for details on how an amoral society works. Also visit the Rubin Report to get further details on how Obama is making a mess out of the whole counter-terrorism war.
Thanks for your comment, bob from virginia. Yes, Al Qaeda is a symptom of the ME culture. This has been thoroughly analyze in such research as ‘The Looming Tower’ by L. Wright, an analysis of the emergence of Al Qaeda in the late 19th c.
The real reason for Islamic fascism (Al Qaeda) is of course, not poverty and certainly, not America. It’s the refusal by the political authorities in these ME countries to move, politically and economically, from a tribal structure to a civic structure.
A tribal political/economic structure is two-class, with a hereditary elite in control over the mass of the population who have little to only local control over the political/economic activities of life.
But, in an industrial economy – which the ME moved into in the late 19th c – and one in which the population surged and moved from a rural to an urban location…the political and economic control must move out of the rigid kin bonds of tribalism and into a civic structure. That it, it must enable a middle class.
The ME Islamic states have rejected the development of a middle class..and this has resulted in Islamic fascism, a movement trying to gain control of the nation by the people. It’s a degenerate and cancerous result, for the focus is on a rejection of industrialism and modernization to return to a presumed ‘golden age of purity’. The tribal elite, trying to maintain control of their population and prevent a middle class in economic and political power..would even promote this fascism..and above all, divert it externally.
The external diversion is to Israel-Palestine and the US. Both are ‘false targets’ but again, the real agenda is to divert the anger and agenda from a structural INTERNAL change in the ME nation..and prevent the growth of a middle class.
Bush understood this, which is why he went into Iraq to enable the development of a democracy there – and a middle class. He hoped that this would then spread to the other Islamic nations. He was right to do this; but it can’t happen in a nanosecond; it takes a generation to change tribalism to democracy.
The “middle east political climate” is a function of Islam, not something that popped up in the last few years. The climate has been consistant for centuries. The only thing exceptional about Al Queda is they got lucky and scored a sucker punch. There are tens of millions (at least) of others trying to do the same.
There are only two ways to solve the problem. Remove the host, or make it so dangerous for the vermin that they mutate into something more benign.
Oh, I don’t know, maybe the same limits the left observed during the Bush presidency? Just a guess. Which means there’s still room for the right for inventive vilification. Anyone know of any mainstream plays recently written, or movies made, that fantasize on the murder of Obama? I may have missed that one on or off-Broadway.
To Odysseus: Ah yes, Bush was unfairly bashed, so turnaround is fair, no? No. One not so slight difference is that Bush not only more than deserved his bashing, but the bashing didn’t go far enough: as memos get declassified, as former insiders on his team speak out, it becomes more than clear that there was never any such thing as “BDS” — Bush really was a monumental liar and incompetent.
In contrast, the attacks on Obama started before he was even elected, and were and have been 99.9% vindictive, bitter BS.
Characterize the criticisms of either Bush or Obama as you wish: it is of no matter to me. You asked a simple question: “(I)s there any limit to where right wingers will go in trashing people they don’t like politically?” I proposed a simple metric: If a limit is to be found it will lie somewhere at or beyond the boundary set by the left. Fairness to you, and the timing, of the right’s criticism of Obama has nothing to do with your question as stated or the metric as proposed. Fairness or timing of the left’s criticisms of Bush also has nothing to do with it; only the range is at issue.
However, regarding fairness: Life is not fair and in the most fundamental of ways, it isn’t meant to be. I doubt that the criticisms of Bush by the left, or of Obama by the right, matter at all to either man. That they matter at all to you, is interesting, but of no consequence.
So, to support your position, you link to a “non-partisan” organization funded by left-leaning foundations and a book written by a disgruntled ex-staffer? No bias there, you betcha!
Pathetic even by liberal standards.
By your logic, O-boy should be getting even more bashing than he is, as he has shown himself to be a pathological liar and to be incompetent at everything save campaigning.
you make me think of the verse ….”there are none so blind as those who refuse to see”
try a dose of critical thinking. start by looking in a mirror as you reflect your own comments quite well.
Okay BC- I think Obama is “marvelous” for going after the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Now- try to respond and support Obama in the 100 other items VDH listed.
BC, make that BS,
“Balls to the Wall” indeed, by having our troops beg for air and artillery only to be turned down because it might upset someone. My son will be there with his hands tied next summer you POS and you can go straight to hell if you think the fascist you worship in DC is doing anything to get him back alive.
I would like to thank your son for his service, and those like him for my freedom.
Bob, you are a gentleman….
Gee BitChie, Mr. President has balls?
How about that first pitch thrown out, (Like a Virgin! Hum that tune!) and that wonderful non-ability to manipulate that bowling ball toss? No teleprompter mojo there!
War on terror? Military… Balls. That Betray Us Guy?
Come on now BitChie, all Mr. President needs is a little ego boost. Get down baby, get down! ….Prey!
You know, your duck bill BitChie quacking victim rap is cute. It’s everyone’s fault. Except You Know Who-ma. Yet only that Bush demon did it.
Hey BitChie, be like NPR. Don’t let your Knee Grow!
kinda like NPR did with Juan! That was fair and reasonable. So was Behar et al.. It goes on and on.
“It’s a given that facts, context, and fairness are things that right wingers, or the Republican Party at large for that matter, doesn’t really pay much, if, any mind to, but is there a line that will not be crossed?”
You have it backwards BC. We’ve given up trying to talk to you for a variety of reasons. They include:
1. You are not interested in real exchanges of ideas in order to arrive at truth, or even compromise. You operate from a premise of power and control, first and foremost; and all your arguments are mere rationalizations as to why it is you who must hold power.
2. That is why you so quickly resort to ad hominems when you are backed into a corner. You cannot concede that you may be wrong, rather you feel the urge to destroy your opponent.
3. You also use various other propaganda techniques. You pick extreme examples and make them emblematic. You exclude contradictory evidence (and threaten the careers of of those who object – see Climategate), you are prepared to lie and distort (see Grayson’s ‘Taliban Dan’ ad), you use exceptions (there are always exceptions because the universe is more complex than our limited understanding) to attempt to negate first principles, etc. etc.
4. You have no moral framework other than raw will to power to guide you. So you think nothing of trashing the centuries old traditions and values that keep us strong and free, even if it means bondage and death for your fellow citizens. (I know you think I over-react, which just supports my next point…)
5. You are ignorant of history. And so cannot really engage in meaningful political debates to begin with.
6. You have demonstrated your contempt for democracy and your fellow citizens through your support of The One’s program of massive government expansion, and the indenturing of the citizenry. You have declared yourselves to be our ‘class enemies’ because we believe that political power should reside with the people, and not with some some self-appointed technocratic elite.
7. You assume that we are monolithic in our thinking (that we cannot see where we have also gone wrong, that we do not care about poverty, crime, corruption…) and so are unprepared to acknowledge that we (like you) have some valid concerns.
8. Your whole worldview leads inexorably towards statism, the curbing of individual freedom and the dissolution of the moral traditions that keep societies functioning, let alone thriving. That is why we now also see you as hostile to us.
9. You (speaking of the left-left to far-left as a whole) have found a way to internalize all of these ugly habits and still live with yourselves. This hypocrisy makes you disturbing and unpleasant to interact with. So…
We have reached a point where dialog is impossible (except with the moderates in your camp, who have a lot to account for in not opposing Obama/Pelosi/Reid sooner, only now when their political careers are about to disappear.) So we will have to find other means to settle our differences. The polls are where we start next Tuesday. We’ll take it from there…
Don’t fret about the specifics. We’ll uncover them together.
BC
You’re blind to evidence. Your post is trite.
Section 4 – Disqualification
The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of , Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Take your pick, the theft of General Motors is my favorite.
Obama’s losing it. You can see it. The only thing he seems to be enjoying is doing his slurpee stump speech. Like a little kid who repeats his adult-pleasing trick over and over again to the point of being annoying. He’s putting himself in front of college kids in Orgeon and bitter factory workers in Woonsocket (yeah, that will move the needle! this is the left’s equivalent of touring military bases) and getting on radio w/Al Sharpton. Is this all he and his people have left?
VDH is right– the Dems have to be in “yikes!” territory about now. When the cap’n starts acting like an erratic nut, it must be incredibly dispiriting to guys like Bob Beckel et al. As much as a commie as Beckel is, he seems like an adult. I’d buy him a dozen rounds to really find out what he thinks of his AA novelty president these days…
Anonymous donors, demonizing opponents, crazy preachers, mountainous deficits, empty promises of bipartisanship, tribunals, renditions, Guantanamo, Predators, Iraq, intercepts and wiretaps, media partnership . . . oh, wait, I thought this was Bush. I guess we both have to admit to this stuff, eh? Twas ever thus. So the only difference is who has the power. Principle is less than convenient; it’s irrelevant. The only question is how quickly you abandon your charade.
Welcome to the machine.
Hi Kyber.
Consuming another tray of lawn chocolates while drumming up the old hypocrite thing? Get some bleach.
Did Alice Bottoms get to Wonderland? You know, that shack out back of the White House that was recently built with Printed Stimulus Paper for those who need to “get in back”.
Where’s How Silly, Yesterday’s Flush. Too much methane? And Van who?
Boom! Kick Me sign nailed! Is that a form of Modern Liberal penance?
Whatever.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
“Wash. Rinse. Repeat.”
Another form of Modern Liberal penance. Interesting, cleansing in a cesspool makes the Modern Liberal free.
Nice to tag yourself Born Senseless. Twisting in the wind in front of a crowd as an unknown is not fun at all. Think Mr. President…
Bark it loud and bark it proud! Be as many Persons Galore as you can be!
Mmm, mmm, mmm. Where did the Happy Time go?
Where is How Silly? And that Twilight Zone Dummy?
Whatever.
VDH, shame on you, you forgot that Obama tried to force Honduras to turn itself into a left wing dictatorship rather than keep to its democratic constitution.
But Dear Leader has done so much wrong I guess it is hard to get them all, so I forgive you. In fact, here are a few others for the list (consider them a gift):
-Giving a Medal of Freedom to Mary Robinson, chairperson of the 2001 Durbin anti-Israel hatefest,
-allowing J-street, the anti-Israel organization claiming to be a pro-Israel organization, easy access to the White House,
-creating an antisemitism czar who is a leader in J-Street (an antisemitism czar working to kill Jews, innovative to say the least, Obama should advertise this as symbolic of his original thinking)
-maintaining and supporting sham peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians,
and the top thing he should be condemned for
NOT DESTROYING IRAN’S NUCLEAR BOMB FACTORIES.
A small thing I know, but everything else listed can be set right, but being blown to bits by a madman is forever so I gave it priority.
BC = Butt Crack.
Seriously.
BC’s just another malignant narcissist / utopian fantasist who absolutely must maintain a rigid bento box-like compartmentalization of a staggering array of contradictory, false and patently ludicous ideas in order to find a reason to live. We can only speculate as to what combination of personal failures and/or mental disorders have driven him and others like him to side with the dark side of human nature. It’s as if someone contracted a disfiguring disease, but rationaizes it by saying in effect, “Yeah, but on ME it looks good.”
How did Barack Obama get to be voted in as President of the United States, not to speak of having been nominated as the Democratic candidate in 2008? His record was clearly foul – member of the church of the Reverend Timothy Wright, buddy friends with Bill Ayers, communist terrorist, close friend of Rashid Khalidi, of P.L.O. fame, friend and recipient of the largess of Tony Rezko? And nothing to commend him.
Christopher Kennedy is on the board of trustees of the University of Illinois, who led the fight to prevent Bill Ayers, buddy of Obama, from becoming a professor emeritus because Ayers had written a book supporting violent revolution, dedicating it to Sirhan Sirhan, who had assassinated Kennedy’s father, Robert Kennedy. Will the University of Illinois trustees now scrutinize the policies of the University of Illinois, which hired Bill Ayers? I suspect that the Kennedys will not be supporting Obama;.
While I am optimistic in the short term, I can’t muster up much in the long term.
Both GOP and TEA party are only speaking in terms of rolling back what the Alleged Hawaiian and the Congressional Soviet of the past four years have done.
Gee, that’s swell and all, but without further structural initiatives, isn’t that just like New Orleans pumping out the Katrina floodwaters, repairing the levees and then going right back to business as usual while waiting for the next Category 3 or worse storm behind the exact same systems that just failed?
By all means, repeal and neutralize what this DemocRat soviet has lately wrought, but then you have to DE-SUBSIDIZE the Left.
That means no more government grants to “foundations” of any stripe.
Taking a chainsaw to government student loans, (tuitions fund academia…academia is a Leftist partisan reservoir).
Flat income tax with NO different brackets,(tapping some folks more than others is divisive upon the body politics, if we are all Americans, then we all take a 20% bite out of the Federal shit-biscuit, whether we bring home $100 a day or $10,000.)
Sealing the borders and deporting the illegals…like, yesterday.
De-construct urban America, (we don’t work in factories requiring 3 8-hour shifts a day anymore, why do we live like we do? And that would allow the market to get rid of much old and undesirable housing)
And, (one that I’d personally dearly like to see), throw the entire White House Press Corps out onto Pennsylvania Ave.
What law allowed certain private news orgs to set up offices in the Executive Mansion?
I suspect that a lot of them creeps get to thinking that the guy I elected to live and work there as being “just a temp”.
Well those clowns can do their performance on camera standing with the rest of the freaks out behind the fence.
I don’t hear anyone from the right or the center talking about these kinds of initiatives, which is why Obama is Carter 2.0, and Carter was LBJ 2.0, and LBJ was FDR 2.0…
There must be a fundamental change…at the very foundations, or 25 years from now, we or our kids will be wading through this same shit-filled political floodwater AGAIN…and for the exact same reason we are sitting on our roofs and waiting for the helicopters today.
“Academia a partisan reservoir.” Ain’t that bloody truth? The only reason the Germans didn’t beat Russia, well other than not going right to Moscow, was that the Russians could keep throwing bodies at them. They just grew exhausted fighting them. If we stymie this congress, and throw out this group of louses, there is another generation who just graduated from the federal funded school of lower learning with their socialist ideals supplanted in the mushy heads. While I agree that the cost of liberty is eternal vigilance against these ant like invaders, I also think some reforms, like those mentioned above would go a long way to retarding their progress.
I would also add, NO property ownership for Congress in Virginia, Maryland, or the District of Columbia unless you are a representative of Maryland or Virginia. Congress must go home when congress is not in session, not hanging around working on their graft. Of course the leadership goes home, but its the senior congressman and women who hang around DC. I say they all live in a single apartment block when they are in DC, paid for by them. If their states want to foot the bill, then fine, but if not, it comes out of their pockets.
99% Agree Bilgeman, But I still think national sales tax and import tarriffs are better than income tax. That’s the only way to tax income derived illegally.
Y’know, I’d be okay with the the national sales tax, except how would you tax a “service”?
If cash changed hands, how would anyone prove that a commercial service was performed?
As far as import tariffs go, I don’t think that would fly because we have treaties with other nations about them, and a ratified treaty is law of the land, (something we in the RTKBA community have LONG eyed with suspicion). Plus, the foreign devils can tariff us right back.
Even if we could slap import tariffs, to my mind that still would smack a little too close to the moonbats’ mythical “big business taxes”, that only an abysmally ignorant moonbat believes isn’t passed right along to the business’s customers.
They STILL insist, and their thralls STILL believe, in the rainbow-colored unicorn farts of “free money”, and this particular shared mass delusion of theirs has caused us all just no end of troubles.
So while I have no particular principled objection to a VAT and a tariff, I think Income is the thing to focus on. Granted we would need to reform the definition of “income”, but the idea is to have everyone suck it up proportionately equally.
If we ain’t all in this together, then we ain’t all in this together.
Honestly, my fear is that the GOP puts Scott Brown up as a candidate. He is an unknown quantity. Something isn’t quite right. He came in on the backs of the people and at his first coming out ball he danced all night with Wolf Blitzer. We know nothing of him besides his being telegenic and having a good one liner. It’s the people’s seat? I think he is just hanging around sitting in the people’s seat. Obama did a deft end run around Scott Brown’s 41st vote. It never came to light. We are just stuck with another pretty boy from Massachusetts who could be the GOP nominee just because the cameras like him.
Scott Brown is a RINO and must be replaced as soon as he’s up for re-election!
I don’t think you will find much else in that part of the country. What passes for conservative there is pretty laughable elsewhere. If the GOP nominates somebody like Romney for president, it’s over, they won’t carry the south again for decades.
[...] The faux-Greek columns of 2008 have turned into pillars of sand, as the president’s Gallup ratings hit 43-2%, [...]
Sorry, an update re dba Obama’s ratings – the Harris poll shows him at #7% approval –
Nice -
The sort-of President is capable of anything, he might go all Bill Ayers on the heads of the Americans and open the alleged FEMA camps for real, or he might sulk off into the hairy halls of some Chicago men’s club and never return. That’s part of his charm. In the end, he will be foiled and removed from office. The questions are more like ‘how did he happen’ and ‘what stops another version of him from happening again’?
Here in ND we stand the chance to rid ourselves of Democratic House Representation in the form of Earl Pomeroy. As exciting as that is, Rick Berg is isn’t an exciting replacement, as I think he is another career politician. What evil are we replacing with another? We don’t need another career politician.
Same goes for the “up for grabs” Senate seat left by Dorgan. The successful Governor John Hoeven really has been good for North Dakota, but again, he seems to be a career politician. Granted he has actually ran a state, but if it weren’t for our oil “boom” where would we have been? Will he be a puppet for the national GOP party or actually change things? Sorry but the cynicism in me says no…
I am a conservative that really isn’t excited about my voting choices. They are better than the career politicians we have voted in before, but how much better?
B.O.: “But I’m entitled!!”
“The carefully applied veneer of the 2008 campaign is slowly being stripped away under the surprise and pique that the American people are rejecting his effort to turn the U.S. into a European-like, 40-50% government-controlled economy.”
Too late.
Total government spending is already $6.4 trillion dollars out of a $14.6 trillion GDP.
That’s 43% government spending in relation to total GDP.
Daddy’s little boy, Obama-Mao, a malignant narcissist, has no intention of moving anywhere except further left. He will use his “special gift” to whip up the sheep against his opposition, no matter who belongs or who he thinks belongs to such a group.
He will create such energies that a wacko will come forward and try to remove him from office. If he survives this, expect him to even go more overboard, for he is playing out a psycho game mirroring his Daddy…
You watch, all the while keep working and saving your monies, for really hard times are yet to arrive, but they are on their way.
Evil doesn’t leave without a major fight!
Obama was elected president largely because of his race. Black Americans voted for him because they were rightly proud that a serious, well educated, and personable black man* was running for such a high office. (*By comparison to such black candidates as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.)
White Americans voted for Obama for the same reason plus one important additional reason. Many whites felt personal pride in voting for Obama as a black man as a means by which the white voter could say to himself, “I am not bigoted. Race no longer matters to me. Let us get on with the business of living our lives together as Americans.”
Unfortunately, the shiny new car that Obama was represented to be could not be taken out for a test drive prior to his election.
The test drive of the last two years revealed a lemon and America now wants a different car or its money back. The car salesman, on the other hand, chides and blames the car buyer for being easily conned. And if he could so easily con America, it is reasonable for Obama, the unscrupulous car salesman, to believe the electorate has been further conned by the Tea Party and the Republican Party.
“Unfortunately, the shiny new car that Obama was represented to be could not be taken out for a test drive prior to his election.”
But it could have been. Obama’s congressional voting record was available. His books were available. Information was available on his ties to ACORN and on ACORN’s corruption. The bilious sputterings of Reverend Wright were known. Obama’s ties to terrorist Bill Ayers were known. So were his ties to sleazy Chicago politicians and criminals. The problems were that the mainstream media refused to report the facts, and the vast majority of the public willfully opted to remain ignorant when just a few hours of web searching would have uncovered the real Obama.
That’s why I am not optimistic about the upcoming elections. The mainstream media retains its huge left-liberal biases and downplays the flaws of its favored Democratic Party candidates and libels Republican Party or independent candidates. Most people will accept what TV and newspapers throw at them. Their laziness and lack of skepticism will result in the usual: reelection of a vast majority of incumbents and new elections of too many left wingers.
The only mystery remains how Obama was able to turn a polarizing career in Chicago, and the most partisan and ideological record in the U.S. Senate, for over a year of campaigning into a unity, across-the-aisle, reach out candidacy. I know, I know — a media that proclaimed him a “god” and experienced Catullan-like physical sensations at the sound of his voice.
Do I harp on it too much, I wonder? It admittedly is a consistent theme throughout my comments, the consistent theme. The leftist media cabal, I believe, intentionally destroyed my information stream. It is not merely that they proclaimed Obama the messiah, it’s not that they built a golden calf, called it “liberal” and worshipped it for the last 40 years. It is the fact that they lie with impunity, distort with regularity, bury stories of utmost importance, hide the truth, and form a journolista secret society to call people racist, forge documents, give away state secrets to sworn enemies, photoshop pictures to redden eyes and make non-leftists look evil, stage events with guys in Green Helmets, …this is not merely “cheerleading” and “leg tingling” groupie-ism. It is actively propagandizing for an extremist ideology. By any means necessary.
It is not merely Obama who is the recipient, it is the whole of us who are treated as the enemy. Slandered as racist. Treated as ignorant…and worse, stupid.
This gives the Department of Justice cover for selective prosecution of our laws. It infects every election, local, statewide or national…and therefore, the very manner in which we self-govern this land of ours.
Do I overstate the case when I say that it impacts every single decision that is made on our behalf in the “representative” self-governance system we have set up for ourselves? When Obama and his team shut off the credit card check, when he threw those people off the plane, when he created “czars” to circumvent the checks and balances we have instituted for passing of legislation for ourselves…the media cabal sat on their hands, got out their shovels and buried the investigation and critique of how our defenses against being ruled, rather than self-governed.
Yet, is there an honest person alive who would suggest that if a Republican had done those same things, the pens would have been hitting paper with such a fury that sparks would fly from the pages?
We ALL suffer, when the rules are “massaged” with impunity…no matter which “side” does it. Look at the current elections. The DOJ won’t enforce our laws against open and naked racism. The voting machines are quite possibly rigged in North Carolina and Nevada. In Nevada they are giving away gift cards and free food. In Cincinnati they are taking high schoolers to their first vote, with only Democratic names on the ballots in which they drive these students to the polls.
If these had been “coincidentally” all favoring Republicans rather than the media cabal’s party…would we be able to hear the crickets chirping as we do when it runs the other way?
I believe this, VDH. It is high time that everyone in America goes out and buys Jonah Goldberg’s book, Liberal Fascism. It is not merely a primer on why they act as they do, it is the siren for our times. The bell tolls, VDH.
In the five part series with Peter Robinson with Thomas Sowell (and the one with you), Dr. Sowell said that we have reached the crossroads. The series is called Uncommon Knowledge, but it’s more than that. It’s hidden truth. If we, the people do not fully understand that our checks and balances, our manner of self-governance has been chipped away, we cannot and will not appreciate the gravity of what is happening. Or where we truly stand today.
We are on the precipice. This election can be stolen. But, more importantly…our information stream has been stolen. The truth, fairness, checks and balances…our very Constitution…has been stolen.
Do I overstate the case? Does Dr. Sowell? Does Jonah Goldberg? Does J. Christian Adams?
Jon Stewart and his sidekick Colbert want to have a tongue in cheek rally to “Restore Sanity”. Me? I would like to have a national day where all good Americans stand together and ask that we restore Truth and Honor. That’s our first order of business on Tuesday. By margins that exceed the ability to cheat and steal and rig these elections. The second order of business is to get our information stream back. The truth matters. In everything we do and stand for. No matter where we stand on any single issue of the day, if we don’t stand for truth and honor…we stand for nothing.
“Do I harp on it too much, I wonder?”
Short answer: NO.
“Do I overstate the case?”
Absolutely not.
“The truth matters.”
“WORDS MATTER”… but the truth matters more.
You don’t overstate the case. You understate it.
You can see this President’s attitude, try as he might to gloss it over with the grin.
His largest gesture to date is uttering some vapid words about working more with republicans. Said republicans, however, will have to understand that their place is the back seat of the car (the man is fixated on car analogies) or, even, ominously enough, the back of the bus.
He doesn’t get it. As a rigid ideologue, he can’t get it.
In his eyes, the problem is that we the bitter clingers are too unenlightened to grasp the science and the reason.
That, of course, is the same science and reason that has increased the national debt something like $5 trillion in less than 2 years and has provided nothing to America beyond exponential (ok, near exponential) increases in the bureaucracy and public sector employment, i.e., individuals who spend their days dreaming up rules and regulations and writing memoranda, who have great benefits and huge pensions.
Michelle tells us not to stop the music. Sweet pea, the music is a cacophony of failure. …But do enjoy your escape to India for some more R&R in one of the 500+ odd rooms at Mumbai’s finest hotel for the Presidential entourage. We’re delighted you’re going off on another jaunt and are happy to pay the egregious bill for your dalliances.
Thank you, Dr. Hanson, for another stellar article, and for using the terms ‘incompetent’ and ‘petulant’. I’ve been using these terms for three years, since they seem to be so accurate. There are many more adjectives that can apply to the description of this juvenile.
Barrack Hussein Obama (aka Barry Soetero) MODERATE with Republicans? Not hardly. He has been awarded for his complete lack of accomplishment for as far back as he can remember.
What we have, is a recalcitrant juvenile, acting as an adult, that still needs adult supervision. And if it weren’t for the high public profile he has always had, would be a guest at Tamms super-max prison at Tamms, Illinois.
He is the most highly decorated UNDER-ACHIEVER the planet earth has ever had. and with this reinforcement of that behavior, he will never change.
The United States is only halfway through this parade of incompetence; It looks like it will get a lot more ugly and bitter before he’s gone.
My favorite Obamism occurred when he gave the Queen an Ipod with a collection of his speeches.
What will future generations say when we did have that man declared mentally incompetent for that alone.
I think it is a basic part of Obama’s psychological nature to reject reality. He’s unable to deal with the real world of facts and hard data. As I (and I’m hardly alone in this) have said repeatedly, he’s a pathological narcissist; that’s not a trivial state; it’s almost sociopathic and one that he probably moved into as a young boy.
Essentially it means that he can only live in a world, a fictional world, run by him. He can’t handle anyone or anything moving into this world that he feels is not within his control. That means he can’t deal with the real world and can’t interact on a direct basis with people.
His tactics of controlling events and people are purely psychological. He’s a pathological liar, he misinforms telling one audience one thing and the next day, its contrary to a different audience; he’s emotionally manipulative, charming and threatening by stages. And if you reject or dissent his control, he’ll accuse you of bias: political, racial, religious..and ignorance.
He is emotionally, not intellectually, embedded within socialism because it, as a political mode, rests within a structure of an elite who control the masses. I say he is not intellectually committed to socialism because Obama is not an intellect. He is intellectually shallow, lazy, ignorant, without curiosity and without the will and strength to explore and deeply analyze a situation. That’s why he delegates everything and leaves, for himself, the role only of promoting, campaigning, and cajoling ..and threatening.
He’s unable to change. Suggestions that he ‘might do a Clinton’ and move to the centre, which is where America has always rested, do not understand Obama’s neurosis. Obama cannot hand control over ‘his realm’ to anyone or he will feel personally threatened.
You can see this fear in his speeches, where he polarizes people into adversarial groups pitting them against each other (rather than against his Will); where he denigrates the presidential role by smearing news analysts who criticize him, where he sneers at the Will of the People – by defining the people who reject His Will as ignorant, racist, greedy. This disrespect of a president for the people is outrageous.
His limited capacity to interact with the real world – I’m saying he can’t interact with reality but only within a fictional world that he controls – means that his foreign policy as well as his domestic policy is a shambles. We’ve seen that his domestic policy is all about massive authoritarian control by a central government. His foreign policy is to rename reality and seek to control it that way.
So, we get a refusal to define Islamic fascist attacks as such, a refusal to use the term ‘terrorism’; a name-change to ‘man-caused disasters’ which ignores the reality of these ‘disasters’; namely, the causal reality of Islamic fascism. His arrogant and naive assumption that all that has to be done is to reach out and smile at these fascists and they will be in His control has resulted in a resurgence of their power. Obama refuses to deal with this and his ‘date-of-leaving’ in Afghanistan has meant that they are simply waiting for that time to move back into power.
His support of Zelaya in Honduras – Zelaya was attempting to subvert the constitution – was beyond rational belief. His snubs to US allies (UK, Germany, France, Israel, Canada)…and his empty rhetoric praising Muslim accomplishments in science and politcs (???)….are equally beyond belief.
Obama cannot deal with the world outside his fictional world that he controls. I suspect that he will retreat more into this world, define himself more and more, as he is already doing, as the victim of ‘evil forces’ and ‘bias’, lash out more and more against Americans..and the Democrats will have to get rid of him to save their own party.
“the Democrats will have to get rid of him to save their own party.”
That’s why it’s so important to win as many seats as possible.
He will be just as evil after the election as before, and he will have 2 years left to recede deeper and deeper into his manias. By tradition and law, the best the opposition can do is block formal initiatives. But Obama is too deeply committed to his vision to let history, process or the law stop him. He will continue unabated by any means and even with no legislative support, he may well be able to topple the country in two more years.
The fear of god has to be put in the Democrats, many of whom are as crazy as Obama is. But the majority of the Dimwits still value their personal fortunes far above the country, and if their bowels are made to move with sufficient force Nov 2, there is some chance a sizeable number will decide that they want to live politically beyond 2012.
Something under 50 seats, and all bets are off. If the victory is no larger than that, the next few years will be uglier than it has been for many decades in this country.
Voter fraud appears to be built into the system right now with Dr. Evil (Soros) and the unions pulling some strings. Let’s pray for a complete uncovering of this fraud and a Justice Dept. that will enforce the law. VDH: If Satan were President right now, how would the ‘king of all liars’ differ from Mr. Obama? Great deception has been the hallmark of this President, if lies were cord wood Obama would be kept as warm as toast through a deep Alaskan winter. Corrupt and stupid (ignorant of the ways of righteousness) and hating the Creator so much he has to be forced to say the word ‘creator’. We can all be assured that there is nothing too low for the President and minions, crawling on their bellies like they do. Shame on us all if we allow this deception to continue any longer than it already has. The next step is to vote, the step after that is verify the vote, the step after that is to remain vigilant on the watchtowers to make sure our enemy (the lie) is exposed at every turn. Only then can we be assured of truth and justice being found in our streets once again. Thanks for doing your part Dr. Hanson.
Here’s an idea, let’s have a post-election PJM Celebration Convention. That way everybody can meet the real person behind the screen name. I’d love that.
I’d like a preview of your lesson, oh honorable sensei!
Sure Born Senseless. You can be the doormat. Yeah, “Love”.
Someone is bound to leave you a lawn chocolate gratuity scraped onto your Modern Liberal “Love” Che T-shirt.
Party Hardy!
Happy Van Jonesing!
Whatever.
No, no, no, I said “celebration.” You heard “dog turd.” I understand, “dog turd” is your version of Gollum’s “precious.”
You can make my name tag in advance.
ONE TIME Nevada and Washington.
Violence is the final refuge of the incompetent. In this case it’s verbal violence. Tuesday we start to clean House.
So what happens if the GOP takes the House and the Senate? Can Obama do the Clinton shift and move toward the center? Everyone thinks he will, but the real question is can he?
Clinton was a Southerner and a centrist governor. His liberalism was that of the boomer educated classes. It was a verneer. He was really a southern boy and once he was able to drop his liberal pals he did.
Can Obama? I doubt it.
Don`t bet on it.
Thanks,Dr. Hanson, for this superb dissection of a failed attempt to turn the US into Venezuela,with Obama as its Chavez.
#22 BC Spewed:”you guys are like a real life version of Lord of the flies”. I thought you libtards LIKED community organizers! You should know about flies,BC;they’re attracted to excrement.I can’t wait to watch them settle on the post-election, moribund corpse of the Obama regime, and the demtard party.
A SOLEMN PRAYER FOR ALL CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS, INDEPENDENTS AND PATRIOTIC MEMBERS OF THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT:
GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS!!!
OKAY, FOLKS! THIS IS IT! IN A FEW DAYS’ TIME, THE GREATEST POLITICAL BATTLES EVER WILL UNFOLD IN AMERICA AND I WISH TO PERSONALLY PRAY FOR ALL OF YOU TO BE VICTORIOUS! GOOD LUCK, GODSPEED AND MAY THE “FORCE” BE WITH YOU!!!
I AM BUT A HUMBLE SINNER; YET, WITH ALL MY HEART AND SOUL, I BEG OUR LORD GOD ALMIGHTY TO BLESS ALL OF YOU FOR THE NOBLE PURPOSE OF RESTORING HONOR, DECENCY AND CHRISTIANITY TO THE WOEBEGONE STATUS OF THE UNITED OF THE STATES OF AMERICA.
THE FOLLOWING PRAYER IS FOR ALL OF YOU:
O LORD, BLESS YOUR CHRISTIAN SONS AND DAUGHTERS AS THEY VENTURE FORTH TO DO POLITICAL BATTLES WITH DEMOCRATS, COMMUNISTS, MARXISTS, SOCIALISTS, LEFTISTS, LIBERALS, PROGRESSIVES AND A WHOLE SLEW OF EVIL FORCES OUT THERE WHO, WITH THEIR “DARK” AGENDA, WOULD TOTALLY DESTROY AMERICA BY INSIDIOUSLY IMPOSING THEIR GODLESS IDEOLOGY AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL POLICIES UPON ALL AMERICANS.
DEIGN TO MAKE VICTORIOUS ALL DECENT, CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN CANDIDATES IN AMERICA AND KEEP THEM OUT OF HARM’S WAY WITH YOUR DIVINE PROTECTION.
ALL THESE THINGS I HUMBLY, HUMBLY ASK OF THEE O LORD IN THE MIGHTY NAME OF JESUS, AMEN!!!!!!!
#27 DITCH DIGGER Also,BC=Beyond cretinism.
My 93 year old father just voted again (here in Oregon we have mail-in ballots)and he again voted the strict democratic line. But this time it was associated with a great deal of angst and soul searching. He feels betrayed by the direction in which the Democratic Party has taken the country. He is very much aware of a hidden agenda in the Democratic leadership, which makes him sad and defensive. He doesn’t think Obsama is man enough for the job, but he feels that the Tea Party reaction towards him is racism pure and simple. Bottom line, he voted the strict democratic line for the 35th straight time.
My dad’s biggest republican boogeyman is Mitch McConnell, not someone I would have expected.
My dad told me yesterday: “I think this impass will not be solved at the ballot box. I’m afraid there is going to be a war and I’m glad I won’t be around to see it.”
Over the years, I have come to respect my dad’s opinions even if I don’t always share them.
With all due respect, I am sad that anyone votes this way. My parents did. The only time they would have voted republican is when obama ran on the democrat ticket, because he is black. Not because he was not qualified, but he is black and they were ol school southerners. Many friends of ours that are registered democrats, voted against Obama (not for McCain, but against Obama)and vow to continue to do so in any way possible because of the agenda that he has brought to our country.
I do hope and pray for our republic o stand that people vote for what the person is, has been, associates with etc.
I also agree with your dad, this impasse will NOT be solved at the ballot box. If Dems win they will go full bore with disassembling our country. If republicans win, obama will blame them for any failure of his programs..gotta watch the republicans also..we could get more Specters and Browns slithering in.
You are correct; We hate white people or half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, ad infinitum.
If you ain’t ‘colored’, you BAD!!!!
Philgrimm: The URSS and Poland’s Communist regime fell almost without violence (considering the enormity of the changes that is a true miracle). I think the same can happen here. The enormous amount of debt and the failure of the leftist model are now more and more evident. The dream they had turned out to be a nightmare, just like the Russian “liberators” of Poland turned out to be worse than Hitler.
The Polish people looked around one day and they realize that the Communists were not only few, they were weak. The situation is not the same here but Obama’s incompetence has accelerated the decay.
This is the beginning of the end of Liberalism. They are just running out of fools to tax.
Republicans entering Congress should look and learn. It can happen to them too.
VDH writes essentially the same column as 18 of the last 20. Brilliant. Why do I keep hoping that we may get something beside partisan boilerplate written reasonably well? I blame you folks, the red meat base. You seem to eat it up, so why should he come up with something different?
That having been said, the first three commenters were a click or two above the norm here in their approach. But then we have the Great Eastern Philosopher offering up his prayer in caps. God help us is right.
Running for office requires someone be willing to take horrible personal attacks, live in a fishbowl, and never speak unguardedly. Almost requires someone crazy – how do we change this?
Our culture has become dependent on instant gratification, the sound bite, and has discarded dignity and standards – how do we change this?
If we “get the government we deserve”, how do we deserve better?
I hope David Limbaugh sees this. Mr. Hanson has given him great fodder for volume II of Crimes Against Liberty.
This regime must be neutralized at the ballot box and Mr. Hanson has given us a litany of reasons why.
VDH: Right on! However, Conservatives cannot get cocky, as Insty always says, but we must vote and vote for only other Conservatives. RINOs must be turned out of office whenever possible.
However, what will Obama do the day after the elections? Will Obama’s handmaiden Pelosi and Harry Reid use the Lame Duck Congress to vote to fund the civilian national police force Obama called for in 2008 while campaigning in Colorado?
Will McConnell and Boehner advise Obama to not use the lame duck session to ram through more of Obama’s Socialist agenda?
Somehow, I expect that Obama’s huge ego will not allow him to accept a Congressional defeat on November 2nd, so how will Obama respond to that rejection?
Starting with my first paycheck in October, my employer-provided health insurance went from $80 a month to $600 a month–basically cutting my moderate income down by $500 a month. I can’t afford any more change like this! I’m a single mom with three children (1 a college graduate, one a freshman, and an 11 yearold) and I’m barely getting by now. I posted this info on a health care forum at a liberal news aggregater (I think the Daily Beast) and a bunch of posters actually attacked me, essentially saying that I’m trying to make ObamaCare look bad and trashing me. I responded, “What if it really is bad for middle class types?” Now I hear that payroll taxes are going up in January. I must say, at this point I think that Obama has an afinity for the elites and the poor, but he doesn’t care at all about the folks in the middle. Can’t wait for next Tuesday, and on to 2012.
The Soft Underbelly of Democracy
Churchill’s contribution to political theory was that democratic government was messy and inefficient but way ahead of other forms of governance. But time is beginning to show that unfettered government of the people, and for the people, may, like the dinosaur, have taken the wrong turn in its evolution. It has become over-sized, brain deficient, and functionally challenged. While the dinosaur was as big as a house, its brain was the size of one’s fist. As George Kenan once wrote, to get it mad, one virtually needed to cut its tail off, but then it could destroy you, and its own natural habitat.
Enter Ben Laden. He cut the country’s tail off. As a result, we have gone to war in Afghanistan, adopted nation building as a policy extension, toppled Saddam Hussein, assumed the responsibility for reconstructing Iraq, tarred Iran along with North Korea as evil empires, massively increased domestic security expenditures, and, increased the already large investment of about $200 billion in the Middle East to gain the peace only to see it go down the toilet as the Sharon government continues to pursue a Greater Israel through settlements and West Bank expansion. Along the way, we have alienated much of Europe and, perhaps, Asia as well. The nation’s wealth, measured by the stock market, has dropped by over 30 percent, and the dollar, in terms of the Euro, by over 20 percent. Then there’s the 6 percent unemployment. And that’s just for openers!
The Ben Laden attack forces us to review our view of reality and the world. What is it that feeds anti-Americanism to the point of violence here and abroad? What can we do to defend ourselves against it? Individuals and groups here are alienated from government and society as a whole. Some are crazies who fell off the turnip truck a way back and need to be pacified, bought off, or spanked like the children they are. But, for the mainstream, we need to rethink where our national interests lie and can best be served. Beliefs and policies that once sounded good have outlived their shelf life and need to be junked or allowed to whither away.
Democracy is supposed to have begun in Greece where decisions were taken by voice vote in the public square. Politicians hired men with the loudest voices for support. When our Founding Fathers set up shop for the U.S., they chose to mute the role of organized clacks by qualifying voter participation using such screens as property, race, sex, and age. Since then, the Constitution has been amended to include the property-less, all races, women, and 18 year olds. As a consequence, most of the qualities above the waist are now subsumed to those below it. Given present technology, the agitating skills of campaign managers, and the chattering of the media class, democracy has become more entertainment than governance. Elections and votes are now garnered and won after television has hooked voter attention with shows featuring sex, booze and mayhem. Campaign ads are designed to stimulate fear, hate, and the love of God, country and little children. After all of that, you can forget about voting with your head.
Democracy is admired as a reflection of common sense and wisdom of the people. But think about it for a moment. More than half those of voting age are functionally illiterate. One wouldn’t trust the average voter with the keys to your car much less the investment of your savings, or how to spend half your income. But you do through the decisions on tax policies and program expenditures taken by the duly elected.
Our elected officials are a reflection of the system. These bright and conscientious representatives are buffeted by the winds and whims of unstable and pliant voters. Picture this! They cling to their perches with wet fingers in the air, and ears to the ground to better sense the mood of the moment. They respond to the will of the mob as tutored and magnified by the media. Through their rantings, the country has gone to war fanned by an overload of sloganeering, e.g., “Remember the Maine, Tonkin Gulf, or 9-11.” The media strums the emotions of the masses with charged words, like terror, race, abortion, and equality, effectively neutralizing their rational meaning and fostering unthinking Pavlovian conditioned responses. So much for the watchdogs of democracy.
Actually, no. Given that most of the voting public is led by instinct and reactions, it falls on the agitating and political classes to frame election issues and alternatives. The media record is a yo-yo of hysterics and abysmal failures. One day they call the election a public robbery. Next, they call the President an uneducated, evangelical lout. Then they say Saddam isn’t worth fighting. But then they glory in victory and the triumph of national leadership. The way the media turns hot and cold, one would think they were in need of hormone therapy and are reliable and steadfast as a baby keeping its diapers dry.
We need to parse out what we mean as democracy. To begin with, non-democracy isn’t always bad. Take Hongkong. The voters never elected their ruler under the British. The Crown took care of that. Now they vote, but the outcome is as consequential as those held in Cuba. On the other hand, a democratic tally in Chicago circa 1962 had its farcical side. What was important in Hongkong and Chicago, but absent in Cuba, was a predictable system of laws and private property rights – capitalism to neo-socialists – and a freedom of thought and speech. While opinion found release in the media and the press, its consequences were not as changeable and damaging as the weather in monsoon season. There was, occasionally, serious digestive venting, but the system adjusted to the passions of the mob preserving reasonable dynamic societal stability.
The administration of democratic elections used to be in the hands of the States, as prescribed by Our Founding Fathers. No longer. The government continues to be composed of member States, and balances population in the House with the equality of States in the Senate. Were population to be the sole criteria, the present government in Washington would be more white, Christian, female, coastal, urban, materially egalitarian, and mediocre. Not such a good idea.
Washington has cut into the administrative responsibilities of the States. Voter registers have been expanded by eliminating a literacy requirement. The vote has been locked in with State automobile licensing administrations. The independence of the electoral college has been neutered. Which all goes to show that we continue to look toward more direct democracy as the solution to problems of governance. Wrong.
We need to ponder the problems excessive democracy is creating. Ballots are now confusingly populated by county councils, school boards, party organizations, judges, etc., as well as state and national offices. And then, of course, there are the amendments to charters, legislative initiatives, and referendums providing grist to the agitating and chattering classes. With so many decisions, it isn’t surprising that elections are more an emotional and irreverent roll of the dice than a thoughtful exercise of choice. Even informed voters have to draw on “cheat sheets” confectioned by the local newspapers, teachers’ unions, or hot button advocates, appealing to prejudice rather than thought.
To those who worship at the altar of direct democracy, they need to consider the risks involved. Deciding our national direction and leadership on hot button issues is full of risks if left to the exercise of direct democracy. I doubt that we really want the average voter to vote directly on issues such as our health care coverage, our social and economic security, the education of our child, or the defense of the country. There is no assurance that direct democracy makes for intelligent, moral, or equitable decision. To the contrary. Recall that Hitler, Mussolini, and Peron were elected democratically once upon a time. The word “Bolshevik” means “majority” which the commies claimed to mislead the electorate after one voting victory.
Let’s take a simple example of democracy in operation. If three individuals go for a cup of coffee, and two vote for the third to pay. That hardly seems fair, intelligent, or moral. But it is democratic. Let’s color that scenario a little bit. Two of the individuals are men, or Jewish, or black, or seventeen, or Republican. Does that make a difference? No, unless….. Careful! Your head may be being overrun by your habitual, or inherited, conditioned response.
Our Founding Fathers knew of the hazards of direct democracy and took them into consideration when framing the Constitution. They provided for the President to be chosen indirectly by an Electoral College equal in number to the number of representatives and senators of each state. The Electoral College was to be chosen by each State Legislature, but none of the Members of the Electoral College were to be Members of the Legislature. Members of the House of Representatives were to be elected by voters within the States, and Senators were to be elected by State Legislatures. This form of democracy was designed clearly to filter the momentary emotions of mass politics through layers and intermediaries of voters.. It fostered deliberation and thought at each level of the election process. The Founding Fathers also crafted a Bill of Rights for everyone outside the reach of ordinary legislation. Finally, they retained those authorities not delegated specifically to the Government in Washington to the states.
We need to revisit the wisdom of our Founding Fathers. We may have sacrificed too much of their wisdom and constitutional design on the altar or direct democracy.
You all may recall the canard that God gave Man two heads, but enough blood to make only one work at any one time. It fits the democratic process. Which head dominates is a function of accident. Take the Presidential elections. Between 50 to 60 percent of the voting-age population actually votes. The difference between candidates is very rarely as high as 10 percent. The Clinton-Bush race had a 4 percent spread, and the Bush-Gore election by a rounding error. That means that the Presidency can be won by affecting a single digit percentage of actual voters, and half that of the voting age population. Politically speaking, that’s spillage. The outcome is a matter of chance.
So, what were the issues that decide elections? Ask Carter. It was Iranian hostages. Ask Bush. It was the economy, stupid. Neither of these issues related to their administrative performance. And Clinton? Blame it on cigars. Carter and Bush were overtaken by events totally out of their control. Clinton was just out of control. About 90 million votes are cast, so a swing of 1.8 million votes or less could carry the day. Any voting groupie can be had, not all of the time, or some of the time, but on any given election day. Since a swing of a single digit percentage of the votes can decide most elections, the political game is to affect the issue of what is affectionately called the ‘bullet’ or ‘hot button’ vote galvanized by organized or special interest agitators. The appeal is to the heart, the stomach, or the lower anatomy. A year ago “W” lost the popular vote. Today, his popularity is near 70 percent. That indicates that national leadership and and direction is unstable and a matter of chance. Like I said, democracy is a crap shoot. It’s roulette, not statecraft. Also dangerous.
There needs to be a better design that does not leave the possibility of an Armageddon dependent of the whims of the mob. One might be optimistic that a mistake will not be made that costs the existence of humanity. But, that’s not good enough. We need to stop regressing to the primitive democracy of the Greeks. We need more wisdom like that demonstrated by our Founding Fathers. Or perhaps one needs to take up a belief and begin learning how to pray.
“…an overwhelmingly damning pattern of ideological extremism, polarization, and basic incompetence…”
Liberal flacks rue the fact Obama “lost the narrative”. In other words, the American public managed to fill in that famous blank slate with the truth about Obama, despite the machinations of the MSM. Never forget the media’s role in this mess, or the counterbalancing role of the Internet in a return to sanity. Sites like this one have been critical in the turn around. Kudos to VDH and his like-minded colleagues for their commonsense commentary.
You forgot to list the pictures of the president with his feet on my desk in the Oval Office. Yes, it’s mine. And yours. If he came in my house and put his shoes on my furniture, he wouldn’t come in again.
Does anyone here remember listening to Obama speak during the election? No…Not longer than five minutes anyway. This country has been so tuned out, dropped out and/or turned on for so long that Elmer Fudd could have won the Presidency.
I would urge everyone to vote next week… TOUCHE’
It is so fun watching America fall apart. You have a population subsisting on a diet of 23% “food like substances”, heavy pharmaceuticals recycling through the water supply and the blood stream, 34 percent of adults are obese, an aging population becoming economically redundant and a new generation with the highest autistic rates in the world. Did I mention how stupid they are after all the education cuts and TV dumbing down?
On top of that, it is a nation hopefully over extended, indebted beyound its ability to repay and surviving on tribute extracted from a world held economically hostage, and all they can do is argue about which flavour M&M they want leading them, red or blue?
And then they fear. They fear their economic betters; the European Union, those swarmy socialist with their social justice and checks and balances on the malevolent impulses of cabals of business oligarchs, their sane health care policies, their food quality controls, their educational equality and investment. They spew venom at their biggest creditor, China, the slaveshop of their factories and megamalls, and deny the rights they themselves rally around to the brown skinned hornet’s nest they continually jab sticks into, all the while complaining that the fruits of their empire keep falling on their heads. Islamist nutjobs have nothing but history to fuel their rage as they sit on the oil American refuses to ween itself off of.
It sure is a fun show to watch from safer havens in mother Europa, as the fat people of America overwhelm the lifeboat and blame the iceberg they ran into rather than the drunken pilots steering the ship of state right into it. Have fun fatties!
The damage has already been done; most of it is irreversible. Cast your eyes eastwards and observe what has happened there; what The Long March has achieved already. You will see your future. “America Alone” Mr Steyn? Naahh…. America also!
#51 PHILLGRIMM Your dad is an irresponsible political cretin,who voted for a party that has led the country to its destruction which he knows is coming and which he will not have to endureHe doesn’t seem to mind leaving you and your children to face the disatrous consequences of his political stupidity.Like many elderly entitlement parasites, he’s just a selfish, egotistical and cowardly geriatric fool,whose brain has been shot through with racial guilt , demtard propaganda and Alzheimer’s. Let’s hope he’s not around to vote Democrat during the next election cycle.
Right on, Doc. I know you’ve but so many words/time to work with but I too enjoyed the quote, ‘We will spend our way out of debt’.
It still befuddles me that one such as Obama possesses so little/no economic and financial understanding, partisan thinking, constant lying (he continues this tripe on the John Stewart appearance whereas ObamaScare is going to SAVE $1 billion.. even though the CBO redacted that claim MONTHS AGO..), or his unwillingness to admit when wrong.
His smugness-type response during the ridiculously staged ‘bipartisan’ meeting regarding ObamaScare. Senator Coburn stated the health ‘reform’ bill will raise coverage rates for particular recipients.. in the end Coburn was right and Obama didn’t apologize or thank Senator Coburn for his assistance.
Nope, instead Obama stated the rates would go up in 1-2 seconds and continued on with his lecturing, err, ‘discussion’.
The man is clinically stupid. No one has narcissism of this ionosphere-like ineptitude!
#21 PHILGIMM Your 93 year-old father who thinks that Mitch McConnell is a greater threat to the nation than Obama, and that the Tea party is racist, can be accurately described in a two word phrase:”USEFUL IDIOT”!
Joe. . this is “On the verge of bankruptcy being overtaken by third world islamic immigrants with a rapidly declining birthrate’ Europe, you are talking about. . rigght?
For all the snide remarks about Republicans, professional politicians should know that an established political party either reflects the will of its constituents or they will have no constituents. The Republican Party is legitimate only to the extent that its leaders serve the aspirations of the people who elect them. We want small, responsible government and low taxes. From this follows the freedom to run our own lives without interference from ignorant, stupid, ideological nannies.
John Kerry is everything that America has fought wars against. This cheap-seat socialist phony is elite only because he’s rich on his wife’s money. He has never accomplished one honest thing. Kerry is not smart. Kerry is not wise. Kerry is a knee-jerk leftard robot who understands nothing and who holds his fellow citizens in contempt. Above all, Senator John Kerry is as disloyal to his country as anyone can be who dares to openly walk the streets.
It begins to look as if the American people are beginning to wake up take their government seriously. The day they do is bad news for creeps like Kerry and Obama.
Best article I have read that really sums up Obama’s missed opportunity! Excellent!
Just to repeat something about Pvt. Manning: He was NOT a hacker and he was NOT a spy. He didn’t do anything especially deceptive or risky. He did not need any special computer skills or unusual cleverness to get those cables. All he needed was access to the network they were stored on, plus a case of malignant narcissism. The riskiest part was probably burning his “Lady Gaga” CD on a classified PC and sneaking it out of the office.
The system failed when somebody mistook Manning for a grownup and gave him access to the network. Trouble is, a lot of people need access in order to do their jobs. How do you spot a “potential leaker,” anyway? Especially in a war zone with soldiers rotating in and out all the time? As usual, people are the weak link.
“He doesn’t think Obsama is man enough for the job, but he feels that the Tea Party reaction towards him is racism pure and simple. Bottom line, he voted the strict democratic line for the 35th straight time.”
The Tea Party got started as soon as a black man got elected. they say ther’re against his policies and overspending. the very same policies and overspending they were for under Bush. 11 percent admitted their racism towards obama and they’re NOT racist? YES THEY ARE! Just like how most people who are against Obama are racist, bigoted idiots. They don’t know what socialism or communism means. Never have i’ve hatred so digusting to the point to question this man mental health, because he doesn;t think like a white american. The Public spoke and they showed how stupid they are voting back the people who both got us into this mess and basically said that their is to get rid of the scary black man. they say “repeat a lie enough, people are bound to believe it”. that’s how stupid the american people has gotten. so dumb that they believe anthing coming from the racist, bigoted mouth of rushie the racist pig, faux news and hate radio.