More on the New Horizon
Such a Strange Malady
A strange thing, this Obama worship (cf. the New York Times op-ed on Sunday where the columnist imagined having sexual relations with Obama) and Bush hatred (cf. the Will Farrell Broadway show trashing Bush, and showing images of his purported penis). They are flipside manifestations of the same sickness that has taken hold of a large subset of the population. Millions seems to think by demonizing A and worshipping B, then once intractable problems (that transcend both A’s faults and B’s merits) suddenly, magically will disappear. But the apocalyptic style is quite dangerous, and the 20th century should have told us that answers are not found through fixating evil on “them” and seeking a “He” to address it. In the meantime, civility is prized, and one should criticize Obama in a spirit and tone that are the exact opposites of the way in which Bush was demonized.
That said, stranger, read on:
Change You Can Imagine
Americans know that Obama announced his candidacy on certain principles and positions on the issues that are now, well, “problematic”— 1) campaign financing reform, 2) coal burning, 3) nuclear power, 4) off-shore drilling, 4) NAFTA, 5) hand-gun control, 6) capital punishment, 7) the surge, 8) withdrawal from Iraq, 9) FISA, 10) the Patriot Act, 11) renditions, 12) talking with Iran, 13) Jerusalem, 14) lobbyists and ethics and on and on. Most are silent about this metamorphosis, since the change from his initial positions was in many cases for the good. I agree that the newer Obama is far more realistic than the 2006-7 version. Some welcomed common sense I guess trumps the charge of hypocrisy.
Three observations about such flexibility:
a) Yes, all primary candidates shift positions in the general elections and then often shift back in the first year or two of office (until they get burned and need to return to triangulation). So even Obama’s breath-taking flip-flop-flips have some historical precedents. (Still, I do not understand why Obama didn’t Morris-like triangulate against the Congressional Democrats and the Republicans—something like “x gave you this mess, and y wants the same old, same old pork rather than my z-way out.”)
b) That said, I think a number of Americans are not quite sure what the current Obama position is on tax cuts, the future of publicly financed Presidential elections, rendition, ethics in government—or really on anything. Everything, in contrast, seems in play on any given day. Any position can be hoped and changed with soaring cadences, so the question is what position will fit today, but perhaps not tomorrow?
c) That said again, I think from the first three weeks in office, and the rhetoric of the base, and a few solid facts, we can assume there are about five areas in which Obama really will break from the past, and these issues will prove contentious in the next year or so. Here are examples.
1. Big Brother. In the past eight years there was great acrimony about “shredding the Constitution”. Some of us did not think the Patriot Act, FISA, renditions, or Guantanamo had, by historical measures during the exigencies of war, damaged the civil liberties of Americans, but in toto had made it much more difficult for radical Islamists to repeat 9/11.
Many disagreed. But recently Obama has mentioned a number of things that suggest the government or private concerns might in other areas be quite intrusive—and they will be so without the watchdog Left that was once keen to any perceived intrusion of Mr. Bush’s administration: A) We hear that the President wants “eyes and ears” to monitor the stimulus bill, as in reporting those to a website who supposedly stray from proper conduct (do we really want a nationally-sanctioned, electronic vigilante group reporting to the White House each time a nebulous “they” purportedly takes away their “fair share” of government “stimulus” hand-outs?);
B) Did you have a strange cough in 1978? We are told that our health records, which of course are blueprints to how our lives were lived, will become part of a national data base (do we really wish some clerk in HHS or a regional office, with instant access to the details of 300 million Americans, leaking (cf. Joe the Plumber and leaks about his post-marriage problems) information that candidate X, critic Y, or political opponent Z had a positive TB test once, or took some meds for some unmentionable disease, or tried an anti-depressant for a month or so?);
C) Then there are a number of internet companies like Google that are developing technologies that allow retrieval of information in quite unprecedented fashion (e.g., I am amazed that we spend hours beating ourselves up over the FISA acts about wiretapping terrorists’ phone calls, but are unworried about the ability, in just a few seconds, to find out what the backyard patio, or the condition of the roof, of any American looks like through Google Earth.)
D) Obama is fixated on talk radio—serially mentioning Limbaugh and Hannity, the two top draws. I remember talk radio in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Yes, many of you remember?—it was sort of “OK, let’s discuss the local sewer plant”, or “Aliens have been among us since 1951” or “Call in to vote on your favorite heavy metal band.” So do not believe that the ‘fairness’ doctrine’ is dead—it isn’t and the argument won’t be made that we need “free” speech, but rather we need “kind” and “civilized discourse” so that the “selfish” and “hate-mongers” don’t drown out the chance for a small, occasional “progressive” “response”.
2) Israel. If Netanyahu is elected in Israel, and if the Obama team feels that the key to historic “progress” in the Middle East lies in rehabilitating Hamas, or in forcing 99.9% withdrawal from the West, or hinges on normalization with Iran, then look for a fundamental recalibration of our relationship with Israel, as we lock horns with our traditional ally. I’ll leave it at that. (Note well: one of Obama’s first acts was to allot $20 million for help in settling refugees from Gaza, apparently (?) in the United States. That seems to be unwise, especially given the Palestinian clapping to news of 9/11 on the West Bank. E.g.,
By the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 2(c)(1) of the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962 (the “Act”), as amended (22 U.S.C. 2601), I hereby determine, pursuant to section 2 (c) (1) of the Act, that it is important to the national interest to furnish assistance under the Act in an amount not to exceed $20.3 million from the United States Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund for the purpose of meeting unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs, including by contributions to international, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations and payment of administrative expenses of Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the Department of State, related to humanitarian needs of Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza.
3) Afghanistan. In the current World Affairs, I wrote about the politicization by the Left of the Afghanistan/good war, and Iraq/bad war, and how that contortion was disingenuous. The upshot was that when Iraq settled down, as it likely would, then chest-beating liberals on Afghanistan were sort of forced into a ‘put your money where you mouth was’ stance. They had preened that we unfortunately shorted the right war due to the quagmire in Iraq—and logically of course now have their chance to rectify things. Yet with no more quagmire in Iraq, I doubt they will now wish to “put their eye on the ball” in Afghanistan. Again, the bottom line is that soon a rationalization (watch the op-ed columns first, then State Dept communiqués) will emerge that Afghanistan is either not worth it or unwinnable— as we slowly back out of the country.
4) Taxes everywhere? Conservatives used to call supply-side economics “starving the beast” on the flawed assumption that with less revenue, there would be commensurate cuts in wasteful government spending. Hardly. Now liberals are “force-feeding the beast” on the valid assumption that by spending astronomical sums on government, there will have to be tax hikes and the long desired return to redistributions of income.
If one were to do the math on the multi-trillions in aggregate debt and annual deficits in the next 4 years, then one would conclude as soon as we get to positive GDP growth, and get back to unemployment below 7%, we will see some stunning tax-increases. I can envision combined state and federal income tax increases to levels of well over 50-60% in aggregate (we are almost there now), which, when combined with existing (and perhaps soon to be increased) FICA rates, would easily put those above $150,000 (or will the hit level be at 200-250K? voiced during the campaign?) in the 70% income tax bracket. And such hikes will be justified as “patriotic”, and “paying your fair share”, coupled with rhetoric about “the rich” otherwise flying to the super bowl in private jets (see the Monday Obama press conference)—as if the professional couple making $225,000 routinely gets in their $40 million Citation X to fly cross-country. There will always be an example cited of some Wall Street selfish SOB to justify the raising of taxes on the local hardware store owner—until the upscale lawyer or community doctor or full professor at last cries out “Wait, why I am included with the greedy “they” who must pay higher taxes?”)
5) Counting everybody. I think we will also see a radical redirection on the census, which in its most expansive manifestation is the linchpin for everything from congressional redistricting and justification for affirmative action to national statistical data that is key to justifying redistributive efforts of government. As it comes under the White House umbrella (had Karl Rove tried that….), I would imagine a radical surge in the number of women and minorities who are counted, and issues of immigration and legality becoming suddenly problematic.
Change, at last…
In other words, many of us cynics—who did not quite believe the Obama Hope and Change caravans last summer, and who were quick to tally all the times Obama simply trashed Bush and then adopted his positions, or flip-flopped on his original stances to beat Hillary and then Bush—will have to grant that Obama on issues like the above really is going to bring radical change.
So yes, hope and change in some sense are on the way, and I think there is a very good chance that the government and/or sympathetic private concerns will both know more about us, and know more about us for “patriotic” and “good” reasons than ever before. And I believe in four years our foreign policy will essentially become indistinguishable from that of the European Union’s . Finally with the stimulus, restructuring of the census, and recalibration of taxation, we will see traditional Democratic constituencies strengthened and institutionalized in ways we have not seen since the 1930s.
Another great article Doc. Keep them coming.
Of course I defer to your wisdom on all matters military but I fear we may have already lost Afghanistan. Obama has sat idle while our routes of supply have been cut off. First, the Taliban has interdicted our supply line through Pakistan. This was followed by the Kyrgyzs announcing that they’ll close Manas AFB, thus eliminating air supply and air refuling. Lastly, the Russians now control what can and cannot be shipped through their country. If I’m correct, Pakistan has also said “no” to any further preditor attacks. I doubt if we’ll be able to get sufficient supplies of toilet paper to the troops, much less ammo.
Who knows, it might be for the best that we not fight a war in Afghanistan under Democratic control. We know how the Dems fight wars. If Obama keeps us in, I suspect we’ll see some bizarre rules of engagement along with a lot of micro management. That would just get a lot of good troops killed for nothing. So, I am hoping Obama doesn’t get they idea that he needs to show some macho by sending our brave soldiers to fight a war that he doesn’t intend to win.
Your guess is as good as anybody’s about what Obama actually believes in or what he really plans to do. Will he follow the polls like Clinton or will he try to accomplish a heart felt Marxist agenda that he’s longed for since college? Is Obama his own man or is there a secret, Chicago puppet master, pulling the strings and telling the “One” what to do?
I also wonder how soon he’ll start to lose supporters. The conservative blogosphere is obviously fired up but I still encounter many people who think he’s great….and yes, even know a few women who want to have sex with him. What will it take; everyone’s 401 Ks being wiped out, mass foreclosures, high unemployment figures, confiscating all fire arms, outlawing home schooling, a nuclear attack on the USA? What’s the breaking point?
“Any position can be hoped and changed with soaring cadences, so the question is what position will fit today, but perhaps not tomorrow?”
This is the nature of pragmatism, a philosophical flaw that results in moral ones, currently being touted as superior to ‘ideology’, i.e. actually holding a comprehensive, coherent viewpoint.
Sadly, it doesn’t merely engulf Obama but is the default modus operandi of most of the population.
VDH,
Eloquent and quite civil.
“Still, I do not understand why Obama didn’t Morris-like triangulate against the Congressional Democrats and the Republicans…”
He’s testing the water before he tries to walk on it. Either that or he has no stomach at all for confrontation with the Democratic leadership in Congress. Perhaps he construes his election mandate only allows him to keep bashing the Republicans, while Reid and Pelosi determine policy and effectively run the Government. We elected a symbol, a grand spokesmen for the Left, not a true leader.
Doc on KSFO yesterday evening, guest-hosted by John Batchelor. The best of all worlds!
There is a change occuring in the new administration. Before it was the old formula of tax and spend. Now it is spend and tax. POTUS mentioned in his press conference that he was still going to have difficulties of raising the trillions after passage of the “stimulus bills.” Does any American or foreign power want to buy up that much American debt when the president himself has tried to sell the economy as “the worst since the great depression”. What about the tax bill coming due? Why again should I invest in crime and failure and someone else’s overspending?
Now, here’s an example of chutzpah: The Republicans didn’t get their act together enough to challenge Obama for not being constitutionally qualified to be President as an Article 2 “natural born citizen” so Obama’s White House steals the census from the Commerce Department against the specific instructions of the constitution itself — “actual enumeration” under Article 1
I think many voters will recoil at Obama’s moves. Clearly, he’s overreached with the “Stimulus” package. (I, too, can’t figure out for the life of me why he signed on to Pelosi/Reid.) And he’ll be weak on foreign affairs. He’s clearly in over his head and one can only hide that for so long.
The public rejected Clinton’s overreach in ’94, and they rejected Carter. They’ll reject BO soon enough.
Andy
Thank you again good professor.
Now I feel up-to-date on the current insanity.
I hope some of your predictions are wrong. We think that people are being hoodwinked by a smooth talker. Many Democrats think we on the right are very bad people.
But what if he’s that good? What if he actually leads us into socialism and big brother spying like you suggest? It will be us Republicans who will become the new John Connors’. It will be us against The Man.
So the cycle will be complete. Neocons who were actually leftists who changed, will be in the position or even needed to protest the injustice that may come from the now left wing power elite.
Power to the people right on.
Obama’s very pointed targetting of Limbaugh and Hannity is telling, especially when one considers the extremely thin skin he’s shown with the press on the rare occasions where they get impertinent and ask any questions more challenging that “can I have your autograph?”
And the medical records bit it telling when you consider the odd habit his political opponents back in Chicago had of having embarrasing court records show up at inopportune moments of the campaign.
And then the census takeover is also telling when you consider that Obama worked for Vote Fraud Incorporated, otherwise known as ACORN.
He has at least a two year window to cause a great deal of damge. Hopefully the 2010 elections will turn his Democrat allies from Congress, though I suspect their opponents will need at least 55% of the vote to overcome the fraud margin. That will depend on whether the Republican party can manage to get its act together and stop being the party of “we’re not as bad as them.”
I just wonder how much of the money Obama et al are stealing from the taxpayers can be recovered once he’s out of office.
While I appreciate Mr. Hanson’s civility and thoughtfulness, I have nothing but the darkest and most negative expectations of Obama.
I am also beginning to question the conservative habit of restraint in the dialogue with the left, if indeed it can even be called a dialogue.
I believe that the left will generally do what they accuse their opponents of doing.
If the left is over the top in their detestation of GW — presumably as some sort of authoritarian monster — then we can probably expect authoritarian excesses from their president.
And we will probably do well to say so loudly and in the most negative terms possible.
Some may be willing to wait and withhold judgment, hoping that Obama will “move to the center”.
For my own part I will be expecting him to undermine American wealth, freedom, military power and prestige at every opportunity, large or small.
Until I am solidly convinced that I am wrong, I will be saying so.
I’ll even bet money on it. And I won’t be alone in that.
With the country distracted by more pressing problems, Obama has a few more months to mull over his options in Afghanistan. But when the snow melts and the passes through the Hindu Kush re-open, that place is really going to heat up. Many observers (c.f. Michael Yon) expect increased attacks and attendant casualties this fighting season. At that point, Obama is going to have to come clean with the American people re his plans this war. And unlike formulating economic policy, presidents prosecute wars without a lot of CYA from Congress. He won’t be able to recuse himself on Afghanistan/Pakistan decision making the way he did with the stimulus package. It’ll be his war and his decisions will matter.
My prediction: I think Obama plans to more or less dither in his decision making on this war. He won’t commit to it fully, despite his campaign rhetoric. He’ll defer to his generals on strategy (surely a good thing) while he limits their objectives. He’ll waffle with our “allies” and not hold them to their commitments to our combined effort, all the while seeking to enhance his stature with European governments and the UN. He won’t try to win, as George Bush did in Iraq, as that would be too risky, and not possible in four years (if ever). And he won’t withdraw. Until his second term, that is. Then we’re gone, and for all he cares the Afghans can go back to playing stickerball with each other’s heads. To wit, his campaign promises on Afghanistan were all smoke and mirrors, i.e., lies.
The Middle East is an infected sore that will never heal. Israel serves the world as primary physician, occasionally draining the wound to prevent the infection from going systemic. The Israelis hit the Osirak reactor without apologies. Statesmen clucked about it on the world stage, but many were secretly thankful. Ditto for the Israeli strike against the Syrians last year against what many think was a nuclear facility. Not much clucking from the Arabs that time; a sign of progress, maybe?
Michael Yon (for whom I have much respect) has said that Afghanistan is too primitive to become a nation-state, and too wild to be pacified. He’s the best authority I know, so I’ll take his analysis as a given. Nevertheless, I don’t see a NATO retreat as the best option even if the situation will never see a resolution. Forward bases provide NATO with the equivalent of a Hadrian’s Wall against the barbarians. We don’t need a win in Afghanistan. We can sustain a low intensity conflict forever if that’s what the situation calls for. Casualties are low and the cost in treasure is minor.
President Obama has said that he will not weaponize space. That’s rather like Robert E. Lee saying he won’t take the high ground because it provides his troops with an unfair advantage. Are you serious, Mr. President? It’s not like there’s an ecosystem in the stratosphere that needs protection. The only thing I can remember from my (failed) days as an engineering student is the following: “Higher and faster, baby, always higher and faster, that’s what we do.” Spot on.
I must say, I like the (inadvertent?) smiley-face after “the surge” in your second sub-section!
“The Middle East is an infected sore that will never heal. Israel serves the world as primary physician, occasionally draining the wound to prevent the infection from going systemic.” (#12. Paules)
Well said. Shame Israel has to carry the weight for the rest of the civilized world. Unlike the Arabs, Israel fights it’s own battles, never asking for US forces, so it was disgraceful that Bush denied Israel Iraqi air-space last yr when it planed to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons. Time is not on anyone’s side. Now, under Obama, apparently it pays to be a US enemy instead of ally.
~Paules:
I tend to agree with what you say about Afghanistan. A clear cut win may not be possible, or not worth the cost. Regardless, a containment strategy against the barbarians, centered on Afghanistan, will be necessary for the foreseeable future. Obama’s problem will be selling that to the American electorate. It contradicts his campaign rhetoric, exposes the Dems to charges of hypocrisy re the good war/bad war conundrum (c.f. VDH’s writings), and may sound like a euphemism for quagmire to the general public. Unless the situation there improves dramatically in the next 6-12 months, Obama’s going to look for an out. After all, the real war for him is back here at home against the Republicans.
VDH: I use a RSS reader to help in browsing several blogs, including this blog. One frustrating aspect of this blog is when the reader indicates a change to the blog and all that’s obvious is that you’ve expanded the posting from everything being on one page to the posting now being on more than one page. As a favor, could you indicate where the change is; in fact a minor point, one that does NOT take away my interest in reading your posts.
A fascinating posts as usual. I get a sinking feeling in my gut that perhaps the USA is becoming more like the Euros. When that does happen, what hope will there be for the future of mankind without that bright city on the hill?
I very much enjoyed this posting! I wish you had said a bit more about Afghanistan and the signals we’re getting from the administration. I realize you just wrote about it at length in World Affairs, and skimming it very briefly, you touched on these arguments, but: To what degree is the war on terror globalized that retreating in the face of the Taliban isn’t really an option?
#2- Jeff,
You are letting Obama define himself as a pragmatist. He is not. He is an opportunist. The former would change his actions based on new information and experience; the latter, on the basis of self interest. The former would be able to say why he had changed his mind; the latter says, “As I said before,” while flopping around like a flounder on deck.
“”"(Note well: one of Obama’s first acts was to allot $20 million for help in settling refugees from Gaza, apparently (?) in the United States. “”"
I had no idea they were arranging the importation of terrorists (palestinian refugees) already. All the liberal Jews who voted for Obama will be pleased. You voted yourselves crowds chanting ‘kill awl joos” in the US. I guess a democracy really is a suicide pact.
Those of us who thought he would not be a good president were wrong. He is on his way to being awful.
I really was hoping for better.
I think it bears repeating. The new admin will do about the same kind of job of protecting us as the SEC Enforcement Director Linda Thomsen did from Madoff.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9ebea1b8-f794-11dd-81f7-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
it is over. it has gotten to the point of the absurd. let us borrow and spend ourselves to death. as in other socialist states we will have tax rates that are well over 50%, and our standard of living. there is a consequence to the path we are on, and it is really bad.
The”Campaigner in Chief” will not last four years, at this rate. And neither will the U.S.A.
Mr. Hanson;
You are spot on with this article. Thank you very much for such a poignant essay.
Critical thinking and writing are sadly in short supply, today. I salute you and will support you in any way I can.
Limbo and Hannity display hate for Obama because they want to keep their listeners happy and make a ton of money. Their opinion is worth zilch.
People voted for Obama not for what he was saying but for his pragmatic thinking. This is no time to cry for partisanship. The financial situation is pretty bad and no one is coming up with practical solutions. If you want solutions, don’t criticize, offer alternatives that make sense. We are where we are because we created it.
7. Andy from San Jose wrote:
The public rejected Clinton’s overreach in ‘94, and they rejected Carter. They’ll reject BO soon enough.
Peter comments: My fear is that by the time the public wakes up ans starts to reject ‘The One,’ it will be too late and we will all already be required to hang a picture of Dear Leader above our mantles and highway toll booths will not just collect tolls but check your papers to make sure you are authorized to travel to that area of the country.
11. TLM wrote:
But when the snow melts and the passes through the Hindu Kush re-open, that place is really going to heat up. Many observers (c.f. Michael Yon) expect increased attacks and attendant casualties this fighting season.
Peter points out: It has already started. News reports today that the Taliban has attacked a government building in Afghanistan and killed at least 17.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,490825,00.html
We can be tracked physically and on-line, for our own protection, of course.
Our medical records will be accessible to our friends and enemies, for our own good, of course.
Google will work with the administration to track our energy use via the Energy Grid,to save us money, for our own good, of course.
Rush Limbaugh will be turned off, for a fair and just society, of course.
Facebook: We Know Who Your Friends Are (and we’re really close to the Obama administration), for the public welfare, of course.
Google monitors and tracks our internet searches, for our own good, of course.
Obama refused to salute the flag and hung around Marxist professors.
If the puzzle pieces fit, it’s usually because they’re meant to. Of course.
Sounds like Obama got smacked on the head…
Like this!
DoubleTapper
DoubleTapper@gmail.com
DoubleTapper, blogging on Guns Politics Defense from Israel
Second paragraph of 10.joeblough identifies an issue.
I don’t take it to mean that everybody has to start yelling, but when can conservatives lay aside the communications strait jacket that insists that “if we are nice and never bluntly confront lies and dark motives” that our opponents will automatically be 30% more likely to believe what we say?
If we assert that we are fighting mad over the danger to the future welfare of our nation, at what point can we focus on the fight instead of on the volume of discourse? Our silent Republicans in Congress are one of the greatest frights for me right now. I know a few of them are speaking, but not often, not loudly and not to any particular effect.
Doc, re your first observation. I doubt that Team 44 had a z option to offer, therefore differed to team Pelosi-Reid.
VDH:
“(Still, I do not understand why Obama didn’t Morris-like triangulate against the Congressional Democrats and the Republicans—something like “x gave you this mess, and y wants the same old, same old pork rather than my z-way out.”)”
Because if he trashes his Democratic Congress, they won’t play ball with him for these first two years.
And after that, he will either no longer have a Democratic Congress, or one with a substantially weakened majority.
It’s not polite to mention the fact, but Congress’ approval ratings were even lower than “W”‘s.
Despite what his cheerleaders might publicly proclaim, his margin of victory wasn’t that big, and his coat-tails aren’t particulary sturdy.
That’s one of the reasons that Goodfella Pelosi shepherded the Democrat Political Sponsor Reward Bill through when she did.
The Democrat Power Players want their payoff NOW…TODAY.
As they see it, they’ve waited for eight long years in the Wilderness, and they won’t brook a “Patience…you’ll get paid” promise.
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy:
“We may not be in charge in 2011, so hit ‘em while the hittin’s good”.
And that “hittin’” will be all it takes for Obama to lose what gains he may have scratched out in suburbia and among his college-student core supporters who are going to be (supposedly), working and paying their own way,(and their taxes), two years from now.
He’s already lost Big Business, the executive set won’t forget that he showed them for the greedy and out-of-touch dirtbags that they are.
Big Labor has been a criminal joke, it’s a busted flush and has been losing membership for decades. 4 years of Obama ain’t going to change that.
Dead-tree print media is going the way of the horse and buggy, the writing is on the wall for them and only the most self-delusional or hopelessly dullard can deny it.
As is broadcast TV.
Women will still have that predictable sea-change in their attitudes from when they’re single and without children to when they become mothers,(and hopefully married ones), and they get the rude awakening that “social spending” means taking food off of THEIR kids’ tables to feed the bastards of some irresponsible tramp.
African-Americans might just take a closer look under Obama’s skin color and realize that his personal history doesn’t share the baneful heritage of American slavery, and that his liberal positions on Gay Marriage and the like are anathema to their own personal morality.
AfrAms should also bear in mind,(and they should need no reminder), that when White America sneezes, Black America gets pneumonia.
Hispanics might likewise wake up if they reaize that our legal immigrant and natural born citizen Hispanics are being taxed to pay benefits for campesino wetbacks. And that these subsidies are bringing MORE, not less, flies over the border to the honeypot.
I still predict that this fellow who claims to have been born in Hawaii is going to be a one-termer…and perhaps voluntarily.
He might not WANT to preside over the America that results from his policies and those of Pelosi and Reid.
BHO is the first POTUS to actively hate the country that he was elected to lead. He sees America as this significantly flawed, cruel unfair nation of bourgeois whites. You can practically feel the insecurity oozing from this Communist. I hope his policies fail. I hope he fails. I hope and pray for our nation’s sake that he matches step-for-step the path of JFK.
You may now open my file, SS.
#27 vivo:
“People voted for Obama not for what he was saying but for his pragmatic thinking.”
Where did you learn to read someone’s mind?
That would be a handy skill to have.
The rest of us have to wait until they verbalize it, write it down, or take some sort of action.
You were already a peculiar one, now you’re getting downright strange.
# 27 Vivio
People voted for Obama for one and only one reason: “The September meltdown in the Stock Market” When the average person saw their retirement accounts and portfolios collapse in mid September, they were shaken to their bones. Obama took advantage of that fear and moved dramatically to the right of McCain. McCain and Palin were up by 4 points before the meltdown.
We are being sold a bill of goods in this bailout package. It will do more harm than good. People are being frightened by the rhetoric and hyperbole. This stimulus package is nothing more than the wishes of the left for increased gov’t control and a socialized economy for the past 40 or so years coming to fruition.
There is a thaw in the credit markets as companies like Cisco just secured a few billion dollars in financing. I am not so sure if we really even need any sort of package if the credit markets start to recover from their big chill.
Hey vivo, you may not understand the implications of what obama is saying, but someone does:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/world/asia/12afghan.html?hp
So far, the change I see most is incompetence in rolling out new programs. Obama seems to be stuck in campaign mode. The rhetoric of the new administration already has reached my tolerance level for vague sloganeering, and I’m starting to wonder if any of them will be able to focus and put a real plan together.
Geithner’s plan says it all. Propping up the old is exactly what that plan is about.
The 20th century should have taught us many things (as should all the recorded centuries that passed before it). R. J. Rummel would remind us of some Two Hundred Fifty Million things in particular. To paraphrase a truly qualified Presidential candidate from that century, I would remind you that incivility in defense of liberty is no vice.
Is it uncivil to recognize that “I won” is the language of a despot, not of a leader?
Is it uncivil to recognize BHO’s intended usurpation of authority over the Census as completely unconstitutional? Too uncivil to recognize this move as identical in tone and intent to FDR’s failed attempt to stack the Supreme Court with leftist justices who might stop overturning his unconstitutional programs? Too uncivil to note how FDR’s creepy power grab has been all but completely airbrushed from public memory?
Is it uncivil to recall the brief, revealing insight we were given into BHO’s desire for “redistributive Change™” (read: socialism) and how his desire should be foisted onto the People? Too uncivil to note his position that the courts were not the place to pursue that Change™, and to see that as his motivation, no, justification for subverting the Census? The end justifies the means, remember?
Is it uncivil to recognize the enormous parallels between the Democrats’ false “stimulus” plan and FDR’s unconstitutional National Industrial Recovery Act? Too uncivil to demand that this mendacious legislation be subjected to judicial review before a word of it is implemented? Too uncivil to demand that the few portions of it that actually provide stimulus be broken out and voted on first? And that the rest be held back until we see the results? Too uncivil to guess that objections to that course would reveal the legislation’s true intent?
Conservatives are playing the same losing civility game Bush played throughout his two terms as a relentlessly attacked and thoroughly demonized President. His civility gave us the marxist-socialist empty suit currently residing in our White House.
BHO has learned from history. Perhaps it’s simply uncivil to note that he appears to be the only one.
27. vivo: “The financial situation is pretty bad and no one is coming up with practical solutions. If you want solutions, don’t criticize, offer alternatives that make sense. We are where we are because we created it.”
Alternate solutions were offered by Republicans to the current economic downturn and the Democrats rejected them. Yet, the Republicans are the bad guys. They wanted money spent on assisting with health insurance for those that have been laid off, changes in the tax brackets to lower taxes for middle income (15%-25% brackets). Money much better spent than what the Democrats have passed. Vivo, you must be young and fail to realize that this isn’t as bad as our President is saying. The 80′s saw a lot worse…and what got us out of that mess was tax cuts put in place by Reagan. Obama wants to strike fear in America so he can get his first steps of socialism in place before the economy starts to right itself. Things are slowly starting to get better without his stimulus so it must be passed quickly so he can get credit while giving the federal government more control.
Thanks for another insightful article.
I am greatly concerned that before opposition to massive changes in our economic and political system can be effective, that damage will be irreversible. I reject that, but like many Americans today, I am floundering in search of an effective way of combating the juggernaut.
Given that major damage may be done before the 2010 elections, what do you see as effective short term resistance that may stand a chance of forestalling the worst of the damage?
Gawd….liking Obama is like enjoying a milk shake on a hot day, while hating Bush is like being furious at a habitually reckless, often drunk driver. When will the numskulls here get the memo about how Bush was a terrible, TERRIBLE President who also didn’t have exactly a lot going for him ethically. Liking Obama and hoping for a change is a bit more comparable to spring arriving after a long, cold and miserable storm-filled winter.
Gee so all those people want sex with obama. Goodness. Just think 10 times that many wanted sex with Hitler. So it just proves the celeb??? worship is still alive and kicking. The citizens of this country prove every day they are more and more stupid.
We have got to learn how to package our beliefs in ways like this. Otherwise we’re just old farts penning decorous thoughts that nobody except us will ever read.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=oFXIALf9zDA
20. Samerica . . . Most of what you’re complaining about was in the Patriot Act. Now conservatives are complaining about a loss of civil liberties? Lack of privacy? Don’t like the idea of being randomly surveilled? Maybe you need to hear what WE heard (and you probably said) for the last 8 years . . . “If you’re not doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about.” Doesn’t stand up when some FBI team is rifling through your house while you’re at work, does it? And they don’t need a warrant and they don’t even need to tell you they did it when they’re done. All they need is a “letter.” Glad you finally opened your eyes. I suggest you take it up with Dick Cheney, I’m sure he’s rolling around somewhere. The first place I’d check is inside your walls.
43. BC wrote:
Liking Obama and hoping for a change is a bit more comparable to spring arriving after a long, cold and miserable storm-filled winter.
Peter writes: All I’m seeing from what has been going on is liking Obama is like being hit by a catagory six hurricane two days after being hit by the ice storm of the century and then once the hurricane clears we get hit by 12 feet of snow.
Obama has been about nothing but doom and gloom since inauguration day.
And history will judge Bush a much better president than any dumbocrat will ever be willing to admit anytime soon. History will be the vindicator.
A great bit of thinking & forecasting. The supply-side justification for tax cuts, as I understand it, was not that tax cuts would “starve the beast” but that they would create economic growth sizable enough to make the Beast’s drain on GDP relatively small, i.e. cut taxes enough and you can spend what you want.
“Again, the bottom line is that soon a rationalization (watch the op-ed columns first, then State Dept communiqués) will emerge that Afghanistan is either not worth it or unwinnable— as we slowly back out of the country.”
Who would have thought that Michael Yon could be one of these writers?
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/how-much-is-afghanistan-really-worth-to-us.htm
46. mister man wrote:
Don’t like the idea of being randomly surveilled? Maybe you need to hear what WE heard (and you probably said) for the last 8 years . . .
Peter writes: The difference being for the last 8 years it was only delusions and accusations of liberals. The reality now is we have already had a presidentail candidate try and shut down radio stations featuring people speaking against him. A president trying to steal control of the census away from the department that by Constitutional law is required to carry that burden. A single party trying to ram through appropriations that will bankrupt this nation for decades to pay off their friends and relatives and stifling of any dissent by trying to impose things like the so-called ‘Fairness Doctine.’ In less than a MONTH, the Obama administration has made more grabs for dictatorial power than liberals could have fantasized Bush making in his entire 8 YEARS!
There is so much wrong with this legislation, I can’t even come to terms with it.
I’m still proud of myself for never having bought into the whole Hope and Change crap. I guess I was in the minority that kept wondering when he was going to mention details about the Change and questioning his motives when he never provided any. It’s becoming pretty obvious now though why he didn’t let the public in on his “plan”. I am enjoying reading posts from those who are still valiantly trying to defend him. Pointless. His actions are speaking for themselves now. We’ve moved past words and glossy magazine pics.
#43 BC:
“When will the numskulls here get the memo about how Bush was a terrible, TERRIBLE President who also didn’t have exactly a lot going for him ethically.”
You’re trolling, right?
If you’re not, then this may come as a bit of a shock to you, but not EVERYBODY awaits a memo to arrive before the decide what to think.
Liberalism is a man made religion that is
practiced by scores of zealots reminiscent
of earlier eras. Bush among others are
the “evil ones”. The role of Obama in this
religion is obvious and has already been made.
The logic is that since Bush is evil, anything
he does is evil even if it looks good. Obama
is good therefore anything he does is good,
even when he fails. His intention is saintly,
therefore worldly evil is responsible for
thwarting that good.
Bush, Limbaugh, Cheney etc are going to be
in use for a long time. They are essential.
Rush Limbaugh was right when he said that the MSM and liberals would never allow Obama to fail. How are Americans functionally with so many people living with their head in the sand?
Two words: John Galt.
#46
There will be no “randomness” in the collection of data (medical records online for ALL). Everyone will be tracked. All of the time. For control purposes, for the benefit of the collective, the common good, the welfare of humanity, of course.
BTW. Did I mention my thoughts about Bush? Are you living in the past? Do two wrongs make a right?
You all can’t continue to blame Bush forever. Sooner or later, you’ll realize that it’s your baby now. Defend it.
Hey Doc,
This attack in Kabul today might not be a Tet Offensive but it sure ain’t an encouraging sign. http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/02/taliban_assault_mini.php
I wonder what the Messiah is going to do about this especially seeing how his supply lines are being cut significantly?
Will Obama run away and hide under the bed or will he do an LBJ and send hundreds of thousandss of troops to Afghanistan to be targets? Now that Pakistan is no longer friendly, I don’t expect to see Obama doing any Cambodia or Laos like incursions to destroy Taliban safe havens.
If this wasn’t so serious it would be fun watching the “One” trying to deal with this. Biden won’t be much help either.
vivo
Just how much Kool Aid can you consume. You arrear to have OD’ed a long time ago.
I surely hope you are not much older than 30
These a great points made in a logical, cohesive manner. Radical change, for better or worse, seems to be on the horizon. I would imagine there will be a lot more worse before we see better. The census comments are alarming as we may see a new sort of federal gerrymandering in favor of the dems.
These are…
SAF,
I think you need to wait at least a year to dub a president ‘awful’.
What would it be like if Joseph Stalin were elected President of the United States of America?
Exactly like this.
“The jury’s still out on the ‘Hope’ part.”
By the end of the Obamanator’s first month in office, most sane Americans will be hoping this has all been just a nightmare. He’s not really our president, is he? And Congress didn’t really fork over another trillion to Nancy Pelosi’s Amerikan wet dream program….did they?
“Human beings are going to make mistakes, whether in the market or in the government. The difference is that survival in the market requires recognizing mistakes and changing course before you go bankrupt. But survival in politics requires denying mistakes and sticking with the policies you advocated, while blaming others for the bad results.”
Thomas Sowell weighs in on Obama and the Democrats in his new article titled “random Thoughts”. http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell021109.php3
The real agenda of the recently sworn in President of this country is now becoming increasingly apparent. The nomination of “moderates” to positions subject to Senate confirmation was no more than window dressing. The key appointments point to extraordinary control vested in the Oval office. I remain of the opinion that the President is a Marxist. Everything he does is perfectly consistent with that view.
Strange that you find “strengthened and institutionalized Democratic constituencies” more frightening than total economic collapse…
But hey, everyone’s entitled to their opinion.
Victor: I admire your work greatly. Let me make a prediction: In the mid-term elections two years from now, the Democrats will lose at least fifty seats in the House and at least five seats in the Senate, and four years from now, Barack Obama will be out of office. Gertrude Stein, in referring to Oakland California, said: “there is no there there.” The same can be said of Barack Obama. There is no there there.
Mises asked: “Is it possible that the scions of the builders of western civilization should renounce their freedom and voluntarily surrender to the suzerainty of omnipotent government? Should the mentality of the arrested civilizations sweep the ideals for the ascendancy of which thousands and thousands have sacrificed their lives? Ruere in servitium, they plunged into slavery…”. Here we go
Obama is a con man. In a year or two, this will be evident.
I see that Congress and the President have agreed to spend $789 billion dollars on the “stimulus” package. The next step is to decide how to spend that money.
In my house, when we agree on an amount to spend, and then try to decide how to spend it, that is called “Christmas”.
27. vivo: “The financial situation is pretty bad and no one is coming up with practical solutions. If you want solutions, don’t criticize, offer alternatives that make sense. We are where we are because we created it.”
You are correct – “We are where we are because we created it.” This is a self-inflicted wound. So then, why should we just say – OK, let’s just dig the hole deeper and make it worse.
I thought dissent was the highest form of patriotism. Now, patriotism is accepting a big fat porkroll that will, in the opinion of many, not do what it is being sold to us to do, i.e., it is a lie. Kind of like what Bush was accused of many times. There are very convincing arguments that this package will in fact make the problem worse.
So, on to alternatives that make sense, there are plenty:
1) Do nothing. This is, in fact, an alternative. We have survived though economic times much worse than this. The down side to this is that businesses will fail and people will lose their jobs and politicians will be seen as doing nothing, which is, of course, never a good idea for a politician. The up side to this is that businesses will fail and people will lose there jobs. This is what is supposed to happen when a business makes stupid decisions – failure. You may not like this result – I know I do not – I want people to succeed in spite of what you may think. But, it does happen every day. The beauty of this is that newer, better, more productive ideas emerge from the failure, also, every day.
2) Tax cuts. Lowering the burden on businesses and on the citizenry is an easy and immediate way to “put money in [productive] peoples pockets.” I add “productive” because lowering the taxes on those who do not pay any is not a tax cut. It is a give away, which does nothing in the long run. Businesses do not invest and hire new people (i.e., create jobs) unless they believe the risk is worth it, unless, of course, they make stupid decisions (See 1). Welfare give-aways do not reduce risk for business. They will in fact increase it due to the extra burden of paying for unproductive people.
3) Spend wisely. If you must spend, do so wisely. Justify the new road, jobs training program, etc. and you might see a different attitude. You may say that the contents of this bill are wise spending. I disagree. There are too many sections of this package that are clearly meant as political payments for votes. Furthermore, for anyone, the government, you, me, to simply spend money for the sake of spending money is plainly idiotic. This is basically what Obama is saying we must do. Let me ask you a hypothetical question. If you had 1 billion dollars and someone came to you and said, “Hey, we need to resurface the highway. Will you give us the money to do it? Trust us. We will put people to work and we will all end up with a nice, shiny new highway.” Sounds great, right? Will you write that check? It’s your patriotic, civic duty, right? What if you learn that part of the money will be used for other projects, for projects that have nothing to do with a highway and purported jobs creation that in fact portions of the money will be simply given away (after an appropriate amount is skimmed to cover overhead)? Does it still sound like a great idea?
4) Try talking positively. Obama and the rest are supposed to be about Hope and Change. Business cycles aside, economies are driven by how people feel about their future prospects. Where’s the hope? Where’s the vision that says America is a great nation and we will get through this as we always have? Give Americans something to be proud of. All I hear is gloom and doom and that the sky is falling that we have to do something quick or else… JFK said “…my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Obama, Pelosi, Reid are saying “how much do you want me to give you. Don’t worry. I’m going to take it from the billionaire over there (that really means you and me). A house, a car, pizza and beer money, what do you ‘need’?” “And, oh by the way, I know you won’t mind if I just give some if it away to my friends.”
In keeping with the rule of thumb to never ascribe to malice what can be ascribed to stupidity, I wonder what the role of inexperience has been playing in Pres. Obama’s less-than-stellar performance? Remember, his only experience in national (or any electoral) politics has been in legislatures. This is his first time in an actual executive office, & I think he’s still viewing Pelosi, Reid, et al. as colleagues, not realizing that he is no longer even in the same building as they.
This would explain some of his apparent passivity in letting Congressional Democrats pretty much shape the Mother of All Bailouts; he delegated the task to them, assuming that they would come up with something that would automatically help him. And, being a former legislator himself, he may still hold to the notion that he ought to defer to the wishes of the majority of the legislature. It can take a while for this sort of attitude to wear off.
As to whether Obama truly loves the country, or whether his notions of what’s good for it are going to actually help us, I don’t know.
We never called for this. People hate change.
http://hateonme.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie37ciAOOQ0
STOP IT!
Stop your hateful, racist attacks on our new Leader.
Face reality: We won, you lost, and you will never get another chance.
Get over it and get with the program.
Praise HIM!
Praise The ONE!
Praise OBAMA!
ALLAHU AKBAR!
43. BC: I bet you are one of those that want to have sex with Obama.
@70. Matt: - Obama is a con man. In a year or two, this will be evident.
Matt, two years hence?? This truth was self-evident to anyone paying even cursory attention two years… ago.
#67 Herb – Yes, I find the thought of a permanent one-party rule more frightening than a hyperventilated “economic collapse”. Don’t drink the kool-aid. The economy is NOT going to collapse.
Just FYI, the job losses really started piling up on Nov 5. The losses since Obama was elected are truly extraordinary. The DOW has likewise dropped. It drops every time Obama opens his doom-and-gloom mouth. All this is indicative of Business’ lack of confidence in Obama. They know they’re about to get screwed and are moving to minimize the damage. This is the result of John Galt speaking. Now, that is change I can believe in!
What part of “We are soooo screwed” don’t you understand?
I just left a ladies luncheon crying. Stimulus talk came up and all the ladies were very upset at the pork. When I referenced the ACORN payout they ALL asked me “Who is ACORN?”. We are screwed folks.
75. Yes We Did:
Pull the rip cord, you fool.
In God We Trust.
signed;
American Infidel.
Afghanistan is beginning to smell like Vietnam in 1961;
And you forgot to mention statehood for the District of Columbia.
Again, I say YesWeCan has to be using sarcasm. His/her/its posts cannot be real.
“I can envision combined state and federal income tax increases to levels of well over 50-60% in aggregate (we are almost there now)__”
Exactly right! The choking taxes are already discouraging enough for people with small businesses who already pay taxes up the ying-yang. The taxation of America is one big circle-of-thievery. We’re taxed up, down and sideways and back again and then we’re supposed to smile and say, “Oh well. I never did mind about the little things” while the Fat-Cat DemoSnots get busted for tax evasion. The more the Democrats want to steal from the productive to give to the unproductive the more people will just throw their hands up and say, “Why try if I’m going to work so hard to only make the same pay as the idiot bloke who’s sitting on his fat, lardy arse making hardly an effort and getting to suckle on the Gov. teat?” It’s Communism 101. Nobody gets ahead or cares to be stupid enough to try any longer because the incentive is gone, baby, gone. –And, THEN where does the tax money come from when everyone is sinking on the same ship? Does it come from the people that are already millionaires and have paid their taxes on their earnings and are holding on to their money with a death-grip? I don’t think so!
The way I see it: We’re already working for the money-grubbin’ Government a good portion of our lives every year as it is and lowercase-‘o’ wants to make it so we’re working for the Gov. for the majority of our lives. Well, ain’t that EXTRA special?
0bama’s idea that medical care will get greatly improved by “getting rid of ‘paper’ and moving on to computers” is his not-so-clever cover for big-brother being all up in your business with document-snooping ease but it sounds so much ‘prettier’ when he goes all rhetoric on the masses of 0-bots who nod and drool. Mister Smokey Joe himself better never need lung cancer treatment…oh wait…never mind…his theories and plans are for the unwashed masses and don’t include himself. Typical.
I’ll save my rant about talk radio and internet blogs and the freedom of speech stuff for another day.
I’m so disgusted my arms are sore from punching the air. My head hurts.
Herb:
I absolutely find “institutionalized Democratic constituencies” more worrisome than possible total economic collapse. In fact, I’d rather lose my job and go broke than work in that system and have my tax dollars support the dismantling of this democracy.
WASHINGTON DC IS FUBAR
Oh the mess we are in and most of it has been caused by government.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/02/government-insanity.html
Liking Obama and hoping for a change is a bit more comparable to spring arriving after a long, cold and miserable storm-filled winter.
Like and hope are not action verbs.
This is spring ? More like the winter of our discontent.
Payouts and offerings so all of you sheeple will come to rely (even more) on handouts from your Big Brother, priming the pump for your incipient slave status.
Today…following her presidential kiss yesterday (no sex), Henrietta Hughes was offered a house. Aren’t you jealous, BC ? Where’s your free house ?
Let’s up the ante from free lunches to free houses !
Obviously patience is not a virtue around here. The change is not going to come overnight. But in a way, it already did last November 4.
#67, actually “strengthened and institutionalized Democratic constituencies” is the same thing as “total economic collapse.”
@ 72
#5
And keep Ken Geithner off TV.
Lemme get this straight: Hanson, who’s been screeching about the horrors of Islam for ten years, now tells us it’s wrong to divide the world into “us” and “them”?
This confirms my longstanding belief that “Victor Davis Hanson” is a pen name used by some unknown comic genius.
I found the Israel paragraph highlighting Obama’s 20m for Gaza refugees with the suggestion that this might be for US resettlement to be frightening. We asked our local Jewish Federation to follow-up on the details of the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act and they made contact with some of their Washington contacts. Who knows what is really true. Here’s the reply:
“I checked with some colleagues in Washington. The $20.3 million referenced below is money that the United States has given towards emergency relief in Gaza. None of it, not a single penny, will go towards bringing any Palestinians, those loyal to Hamas or otherwise, to the United States. I’m not sure where the italicized language from your e-mail came from. It may in fact be the real language from the Administration, but it doesn’t mean that this is money for refugee resettlement. We know that it’s not, instead it’s money to help refugees actually in Gaza.”
12,18, 29, 32, 48, 194, etc.. mister man:
I don’t think you are either; A mister or a man.
You whine like a beaten woman that enjoys it.
#75 A sheep diving over the CLIFF..”"THE ONE”? MY ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes “IN GOD WE TRUST”
It’s time to take on the Obama boot lickers at their own game, as Rush said today. We need to get into the fox holes and pop a cap in these m-fers.
After all, they are trying to bleed “We The People”. And with all this comedy going on, who in the world respects us?
Ask our best historians what we are respected for. It’s not Opra-Bama.
Being civil can also be described as not getting down in the mud with the pigs–but I sometimes wonder if the pigs understand anything besides mud. (Sometimes known as offal, dung or s**t or collectively as “that cesspool in Washington D.C.”)
For any who haven’t read Amity Shlaes’ book The Forgotten Man, which outlines the breathtakingly socialist measures implemented by the FDR administration between 1933 and 1937, now would be the time.
Our often-compromised and much-excoriated Supreme Court turned out to be the last bulwark against unconstitutional federal intrusiveness in the 1930s. (Which was the reason FDR tried, autocrat-fashion, to stack the Court, when it began balking his executive branch.)
With a Congress effectively owned by the Democrats now, the judiciary may be our only hope of averting the worst excesses of Hope and Change. The best use of political donations in the next few years may be contributing to lawsuits against the technology-accelerated “New Deal” being offered by Obama and the Congressional Democrats.
HT:
“Business cycles aside, economies are driven by how people feel about their future prospects. Where’s the hope?”
I’m close to being an economic illiterate, but what you say in your post makes sense. Point #4 especially.
If people are worried about their future economic prospects, the over the top campaign style rhetoric coming from Obama and the Democratic leadership is, at a minimum, counter-productive.
Hard to believe that the Democrats in congress, chagrined that they rolled over to George Bush’s “fear-mongering” during the run up to the Iraq invasion, now expect their Republican colleagues to do the same on the stimulus package.
Hard to reconcile Obama shilling for the Pelosi/Reid legislation, when he seems to have had so little input himself. What if he’s selling the country a defective product? Who does that redound to? Him more than them, possibly. In part, Americans may be uneasy about all this because Obama’s actions don’t seem to make political sense.
One worries that the Dems are shoving this down our throats on the fast track because they worry the economy may turn around before they have a chance to “fix” it. For good.
VDH’s piece on Afghanistan in ‘World Affairs Journal’ mentioned above is another exhibit in the indictment against conservative success in the public debate. In other words, why are VDH’s views so at variance with what we hear day in and day out?
In that piece he makes many references to specific events, followed by insightful observations consistent with those events, which persuasively point to our intrinsic interest to preserve Western influence in Iraq and Afghanistan, for the good of their populations and ours.
Yet, the steady advance of “strange and twisted” interpretations of this historical record prevails in the mainstream conventional wisdom.
In other words, we are losing the battle for hearts and minds here in America. There is a political fight to be waged in elections, but also one in how we deal with our media, schools, colleagues, neighbors, family, and children.
Offer his books as gifts, talk about his columns and about other conservative commentators. We need to advance the conservative cause. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, or remain silent.
Just wondering when the civil unrest begins and the people with pitchforks in their hands and fire in their hearts grab the country back before it’s lost forever?
It’s quite obvious that we are facing an evil, evil force. Obama, his sycophant henchmen and his delusional and entirely worthless flock just may succeed in destroying the USA as we know it.
Don’t believe me about delusion and mental illness on display in the face of “The One” just watch this. Look at the pain and sickness in this woman’s eyes. Sad really:
Woman Mouths I Love You Barack
Sorry to send you to huffpo but just watch it real quick, take a few seconds to pick your chin up off the floor, read a few of the crazy-parrot comments and then go dust off your pitchforks. This is not a game anymore my friends.
You identify a problem. You can reduce solving the problem to one of three simple (or simplistic) scenarios:
1) You understand the problem. You devise an acceptable solution. You set a time course for implementing your solution.
2) You understand the problem. There is no acceptable solution. You do nothing (intervention is considered futile).
3) The problem is complex and difficult to understand. Intervention to effect a solution is considered feasible and necessary. Proposed solutions, however, are all problematic, costly and risky. Time to intervention impacts decision making.
Yeah, I jerry-rigged this for a reason. #1 & #2 are no-brainer type scenarios. #3 is where decision-makers earn their keep. For those challenged by economic principles, myself included, the meltdown in the financial markets and subsequent economic crisis is the ultimate type #3 problem. It has been the most significant problem facing this country for the past 6 months, and may have been the decisive issue which led to the election of Barack Obama. How is it possible, then, that he took a back seat role to Reid and Pelosi in devising a solution to this crisis? Is he challenged by the complexity of it? Does he understand basic economics? Does he lack confidence in making decisions of this magnitude? Or is he merely afraid to invest his political capital on a risky venture, preferring Congress take the lead (and the hit if it fails)? And finally, why the apocalyptic rhetoric portraying the solution to this complex problem a no-brainer, misunderstood only by witless obstructionist Republicans?
Never let a crisis go to waste… Right. That’s reassuring. How about: Never waste the opportunity a crisis presents to better understand the person who leads this country. Especially when that person is the ever enigmatic Barack Obama. Someone just ask him a few questions, please. Absent that, the sense of unease grows.
36. Bilgeman:
“Where did you learn to read someone’s mind?
You were already a peculiar one, now you’re getting downright strange.”
A lot of people will not verbalize their inclinations, so I’m giving you a generalized guess. You don’t need to talk to people to find out what they are thinking, their actions show it. Just like body language. You assume that your fellow Republicans think like you. You are quite right and don’t need to poll them. And opinions are opinions.
38. Mongoose:
“Hey vivo, you may not understand the implications of what obama is saying, but someone does:”
The Taliban will keep suicide bombing REGARDLESS of what world leaders say. They have a fix mentality and purpose. So, don’t exaggerate things.
41. Ms. Attitude:
“Alternate solutions were offered by Republicans to the current economic downturn and the Democrats rejected them.”
The Republicans may have had good ideas, but I’m guessing that the Dems had their priorities and wanted then implemented before the wind changes. It’s their turn (this doesn’t make it right). They also believe that the policies of the last administration was a total failure. I see the financial markets like pure gambling, nobody knows what’s going to happen and risks are taken.
Just like football, make a move, stumble, make another move, stumble, sometime you’ll get a touchdown or a field goal, or an interception. I think gov’t and politics are pretty much like football.
72. HT:
“So, on to alternatives that make sense, there are plenty:
1) Do nothing. ”
That’s what Bush did. It didn’t work.
“The beauty of this is that newer, better, more productive ideas emerge from the failure”
I agree.
2) Tax cuts.
I’m sure there will be some down the line.
Economists will have to calculate the tradeoff.
3) Spend wisely.
Isn’t that what the managers are supposed to do? They get paid to spend wisely. The problem is accountability.
4) Try talking positively.
I agree. Leadership needs a positive and encouraging outlook.
Good points, HT!
How soon they forget…
The left has been trying to explain this to the GOP for eight solid years – you are preaching to the choir. Bush’s “with us or against us” and “axis of evil” rhetoric is exactly the type of thing America voted against. Obama is not focusing on “them” he is focusing on “we”, as in “yes we can”.
This would have been the “Clinton/Morris” style of triangulation. Obama is operating on a slightly higher strategic level. He understands that there is no benefit to him in gratuitously pointing out the failures of Democrats and Republicans in Congress – it is part of what cost Clinton his Congressional support. Obama instead will address the People directly, and work to make clear that his job is not about political maneuvering, but about practical solutions to pressing problems.
The doctor, lawyer and professor are more than likely aware of the overall benefits of a rational and progressive tax system, and are unlikely to be upset. The Wall Street folks simply have a different sub-culture, and therefore believe their greed is justified. A 70% tax rate is not out of line with historical norms, and generally is associated with positive economic benefits for all citizens.
As we should expect, given the massive failure of the GOP on the economy, the budget, and the Constitution under Bush. Why would the nation not move forcefully to the alternative, after what the GOP has wrought?
Those who believed Obama could not win, or believe that he can not bring the hope and change he offered, will be forced to change their tune. America is ready to embrace some practical and realistic solutions after wandering in the desert with the GOP for forty years.
It’s about time.
Peace.
DS
This may be why they are “waiting” on announcing what the tarp 2 is really about
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/
look at some of the comment
So behind close doors they decide what banks they take over?
It is a coup. It is the destruction of everyone oin the establsihment that is not with them. Just beyond belief.
#105 vivo:
“A lot of people will not verbalize their inclinations, so I’m giving you a generalized guess.”
Ah, so you cannot, after all, read minds…you guess like the rest of us.
Hey, that’s okay, but the problem is when you extrapolate from that guess and
write certainties like this one:
“People voted for Obama not for what he was saying but for his pragmatic thinking.”
See, that’s one of the problems in our society. We think we know it all, we think we have the definitive answer, and we’re pig-headed about it, even when we’re demonstrably wrong.
Like here:
“Limbo and Hannity display hate for Obama because they want to keep their listeners happy and make a ton of money. Their opinion is worth zilch.” your #27
Look, chap, if Limabugh and Hannity are indeed making millions, then their opinions are definitely worth considerably more than “zilch”, follow?
MY opinions are worth zilch, and unless someone is showering filthy lucre upon you for posting here, YOUR opinions are worth zilch as well.
This lack of humility leads us to take actions that are absolutely detrimental to our common good…”Hate” crime laws being the most egregious example.
We can, and we must, punish a criminal ACT, but with these kinds of laws, we presume to “know” what was in a complete stranger’s mind and heart when he or she committed the act.
This phenomena is mostly a fault of the Left…the punishment of what we guess was the “thought”.
What goes around comes around, and if that isn’t enough to give you some deep misgivings, you’re an odder specimen than I ever suspected.
Dick Morris on Foxnews said last week that “if the Dems get just 3 yes votes for the porkulus bill from ostensible Republicans, then that would effectively signal the end of the Republican Party, because hundreds of billions in the bill were slated for that exact purpose.” And, here we are.
I believe Morris’ prediction. Since Republicans are now destined for ineffectuality (tokenism), then those who still believe in a democratic republic need to organize and energize the taxpayers in a dramatic fashion. Right now!
The RNC and the remaining believers in Congress should adopt the “Save Our Republic” campaign slogan, and incite “all taxpayers to withhold their tax payments until we can get a few things ironed out.”
Ten million holdouts will send a big enough counter-signal. We need a taxpayer’s manifesto.
My Top 10 list of demands:
1st demand – Rangel, Dodd, Frank, Pelosi and Reid must be stripped of their Congressional status and be sent home in disgrace with no pensions (add your list of favorites)
2nd demand – the stimulus bill will be entirely retracted within 10 days, and half disburesed as tax relief to only those who’ve paid taxes.
3rd demand – the FBI and the IRS will be directed to immediately deploy the resources necessary to audit the financials of every member and ex-member of Congress for every year in office, and report within 180 days of their findings on all sources of outside income, with any such income compared to earmarks and publicized – no fewer than 5,000 agents will be assigned to this task, with 10% of any illicit funds discovered then paid as bonuses to the investigators
4th demand – the military budget will be increased with the other half of the stimulus funds that were allocated elswhere, over the next 4 years
5th demand – Energy independence will be instantiated for the US – public discussion and participation will be encouraged and facilitated and those found to be lying about the facts will be barred from participating in the public debate for 10 years (ie, no lobbying, consulting, etc.) – begin drilling everywhere there’s oil and building refineries – clear the way for massive and immediate use of all indiginous energy supplies, to include nuclear (on military bases) and coal, etc.
6th demand – all discressionary spending will cease – no Congressperson can cast a vote on any bill they cannot be shown to have read, with penalty being immediate dismissal from all duties (should cut down on the 30,000 bills proposed every year, shorten them, reduce their complexity and improve readability) – all Congressional negotiations will be televised and open to the public input (if nothing else, it’ll slow down the lawmaking machine and the need for the compliance monitoring rackets)
7th demand – close the borders to illegal immigration starting now, begin deporting all illegals, starting with the 1 million criminals, use the NatGuard, stop HI-X visas and curtail all immigration until our unemployment rate falls below 5%
8th demand – make all civil lawsuits “loser pays” – make frivolous lawsuits an automatic 90-day jail sentence for all losing parties, plaintiff and attorney[s]
9th demand – Commense the military tribunals, with sentencing for the remaining slimeballs due in 180 days max, and execution sentences carried out within 24 hours – no taxpayer funding will be made available to lawfirms representing jihadis..it’s a conflict of legal interest on a national level, ie, our paying for our enemies to win is absurd…let their allies fund their case.
10th demand – announce every day for one year by all available means that the people of the US are really, really tired of dealing with jihad, and any further attacks on our interests will result in instant and severe retaliatory measures against the sponsors and the families of those responsible. Anyone found to be funding jihad can expect to be targeted, whenever and wherever they can be located, and immense collateral damage is unfortunately anticipated.
We cannot continue to volantarily fund those who are so obvioulsly plannning to use the money to destroy us. Isn’t that the basis of jizzah,/b>?
Bret @ 56
It’s amazing isn’t it that if Ms. Rand were alive to publish an Atlas Shrugged Version 2, no edits would be necessary.
@75 Yes We Did.
I am too tired today to entertain your stupidity. Take yourself out to the woodshed and teach yourself a lesson.
@ 109 David S.
First let me comment that I appreciate the tone of your post. Honest and calm come to mind. Now, let me disagree.
“The left has been trying to explain this to the GOP for eight solid years – you are preaching to the choir. Bush’s “with us or against us” and “axis of evil” rhetoric is exactly the type of thing America voted against. Obama is not focusing on “them” he is focusing on “we”, as in “yes we can”.”
Rhetoric is only destructive if it is vague or untrue. Neither of which apply to Bush’s comments. People are either with us in the fight against terrorism or against us. Simple. There is an axis of evil, state sponsored terrorism exists, and Bush identified them. Fact. “They/Them” need to be identified so “we” can manage ourselves accordingly and not get attacked again. The problem will not go away by itself.
“This would have been the “Clinton/Morris” style of triangulation. Obama is operating on a slightly higher strategic level. He understands that there is no benefit to him in gratuitously pointing out the failures of Democrats and Republicans in Congress – it is part of what cost Clinton his Congressional support. Obama instead will address the People directly, and work to make clear that his job is not about political maneuvering, but about practical solutions to pressing problems.”
I agree in theory with what you are saying, however, Obama is not addressing the people when he states “I won”. That is just a statement to the opposing party. By elevating himself above the Congress and it’s partisanship, he is detaching himself from the very people he is supposed to represent, all of us. He is a politician, there is not one move made by any politician that is not political maneuvering, and he has already shown that he is not above it. Which is expected, because he is a politician.
“The doctor, lawyer and professor are more than likely aware of the overall benefits of a rational and progressive tax system, and are unlikely to be upset. The Wall Street folks simply have a different sub-culture, and therefore believe their greed is justified. A 70% tax rate is not out of line with historical norms, and generally is associated with positive economic benefits for all citizens.”
I am all for helping others. I prefer to help them help themselves. I will not however be taxed through the roof. To imply that a blue-collar worker can not interpret or foresee the benefit of overt taxation is a display of liberal elitism. It has already been shown that conservatives give more time and money to charity than liberals do, please do not force it down my throat as it then gains a disagreeable taste. If one is in such favor of a 70% tax rate, then let it start at the top. Let Obama and his cabinet guide by example. Oh, wait….. (Sorry I could not resist).
“As we should expect, given the massive failure of the GOP on the economy, the budget, and the Constitution under Bush. Why would the nation not move forcefully to the alternative, after what the GOP has wrought?”
The reports are in that the economy really did not suffer as much as we thought during Bush. The budget was fine, not great, but we were/are/will be at war. The Constitution was never threatened under Bush’s reign, this is demonstrated by the fact that Obama has not changed a single thing. He has talked about changing rendition, Guantanamo, etc. but no change has been or likely will be put forth. I believe fervently, that there are far better alternatives to the stimulus fiasco winding it’s way though the administration right now.
“Those who believed Obama could not win, or believe that he can not bring the hope and change he offered, will be forced to change their tune. America is ready to embrace some practical and realistic solutions after wandering in the desert with the GOP for forty years.”
If Obama can do those things he championed without dividing the nation, I will reconsider my political leanings and I may become more moderate (lol). So far he is off to a rocky start. The desert that you describe is one that, I for one, am proud of. Look at the innovation and prosperity we have enjoyed. Can you site another country that has enjoyed the same benefits we have in the last half century. I am happy to be wandering here.
Again, I appreciate your post-
Pete H
# 109 David. Your arguments are sophomoric without a scintilla of empiricism or facts. Everything you say is based on “feelings”, not facts. Three thousand people were brutally murdered on 9/11 and you have the temerity to posit this nonsense about people voting against Bush because of his axis of evil speech. The idea that people voted for Obama because of this is not even ludicrous, it is laughable. Obama won for one reason only: The meltdown in the financial markets which shook the electorate to its bones. McCain was leading in the polls by 4% until the meltdown, and this was in spite of the media’s assault on Bush and 24/7 adoration of Obama.
Let me tell you something else: Living in California, we have seen an exodus of the educated professional and business class leaving the state because of the tax and social burdens imposed on the electorate by the state bureaucracy. These professionals have been replaced by uneducated, illegal aliens who have placed an enormous burden on the State’s economy, resulting in the collapse of our economy. So, please don’t generalize and speak for all the professors, doctors and lawyers who you claim will tamely submit to a 70% tax rate.
Keynesian economics did not work in the 30′s. Unemployment never went below 15% for more than ten years until WWII.
One last thing: Congratulations on completing Sociology 101. You now have the experience and professional accreditation to advise our current president and enlighten all the rest of us skeptics.
@109. David S: Bush’s “with us or against us”…
Get your facts straight. Hillary Clinton is the person who claimed every nation had to be “with us, or against us”, not GWB. Bush’s comment, a week later, may have sounded similar to you, but it was different in a critical way that was obviously too subtle for you to comprehend. And BHO is focusing on exactly what all other raging narcissists focus on: himself.
- Obama is operating on a slightly higher strategic level. He understands …
It must be truly fascinating to have the ability to read people’s minds, Zippy.
- Obama instead will address the People directly, …
With the politics of fear and the haughty manner of a despot. Yes, we’ve been seeing that.
- The doctor, lawyer and professor are more than likely aware of the overall benefits of a rational and progressive tax system, and are unlikely to be upset.
Just exactly where do you come up with this crap, Zippy? People go into these professions because they’re lucrative. Well, professors don’t, but they don’t belong in the same class as doctors and lawyers since most of them live off tenure and other people’s money while not being held to any standard of accountability regarding their “product” (i.e., brainwashed, obtuse adolescents like yourself). People who spent ten years in school and subsequent years in internship and other training in order to get a decent job afterward aren’t going to freely give up 70% of their income out of “altruism”, bub. You’d know that if you’d gotten a practical degree that actually led to a job like one of the ones into which you claim to have such insight.
- The Wall Street folks simply have a different sub-culture, …
Right. The Wall Street folks – if you’d ever met any of them – are more inclined to want to build things. Businesses, buildings, ships, products, software, infrastructure, financial institutions… that sort of thing. The few YOU’RE thinking about – the tiny minority who could still live as kings and queens on 30% of their income – are the people BHO and the media have been trying to demonize of late. They are the exception, not the rule.
- As we should expect, given the massive failure of the GOP on the economy, …
Begging the question. Again – get a refund on your tuition, pronto. Unfortunately, you can’t get a refund on the years you wasted doing mushrooms and LSD when you should have been studying Logic 101, but that’s life.
I think the Democrat’s only real fear about Bush shredding the Constitution was that he wouldn’t leave anything for *them* to shred. No one likes to be left out of the fun.
Unfortunately, you can’t get a refund on the years you wasted doing mushrooms and LSD when you should have been studying Logic 101, but that’s life.
Fried brains count for a lot in the philosophical premises of the aging hippy.
Ask Ward Churchill. Ask Bill Ayers…or the not so lovely Bernadine(Dohrn).
109. David S
Hi.
…he is focusing on “we”…
…his job is not about political maneuvering…
–By taking the census to himself, I think he thinks it’s more about him and it’s also about political maneuvering. Republicans focus on themselves too and maneuver too of course. He isn’t changing anything here. He’s just like us that way.
A 70% tax rate is not out of line…
–Yikes! You’re way off base here.
…the massive failure of the GOP on the economy…
–I’m very surprised that you don’t realize how big a part the Democrats – Frank and the others on the oversight committee – played in the fiasco…and what about the 2 hour $500 billion electronic withdrawl? Have you heard about that?
…will be forced to change…
–And that is what we fear.
108 vivo.
Actually, Bush did not do nothing. That he did not succeed (reform of FM/FM) or that he supported a spending spree himself does not change that fact (TARP I).
108 vivo.
“3) Spend wisely.
Isn’t that what the managers are supposed to do? They get paid to spend wisely. The problem is accountability.”
That is exactly the point. Where is the wisdom in this bill? Are not our senators and congressmen the managers in this case? Financial decisions made in haste and under threat are invariably wrong.
#109: “will be forced to change their tune”.
If everything comes up roses, NOBODY will be forced to change their tune. Generality of
folks will say “well done” no matter what their former opinions were. The inevitable number of grumblers will simply be ignored.
If things turn out less than utopian, there is a good chance that there will be attempts
to silence those whose tune does not meet with official approval. Those attempts will fail. Two reasons.
In the second place there is the First Amendment. In the first place there is the Second Amendment.
@116. Squirmn:
That’s a good place to start.
I’m not sure that I agree with this formulation, as some rhetoric is simply opinion, and not vague or necessarily untrue, but may still be destructive. I believe that Bush’s rhetoric is destructive because it is vague, untrue, and simply his opinion. He fails all three tests. It is not true that people are either with us in the fight against terrorism or against us. For instance, I object wholeheartedly to the invasion of Iraq, to the torture of detainees, and to warrantless domestic surveillance. By Bush’s logic, this would make me against “us” – but in reality, I am motivated by the same desire to protest the US from terrorism, and simply have a different opinion about the best way to get there.
I feel that Bush’s rhetoric has been destructive of our moral standing in the world by completely ignoring the potential for honest differences of opinion. The same logic applies to the “axis of evil” verbiage as well. Using “they/them” to categorize entire cultures and peoples as enemies is dangerous – and serves no good purpose. If some terrorist attacks us, they are not a representative of their culture – they are a bad actor, and can be dealt with on that basis. Otherwise, terrorism becomes a thought crime.
I beg to differ. At the most basic level, yes it was a statement of fact to the opposing party – a polite reminder if you will. At the same time, it reminded the people that he did win – that their votes counted, and that the result means something. I think he is clearly speaking to the people.
I don’t want to tax you through the roof. I do think that there is a reason that the 70% top marginal rate survived for decades – it worked well. Allowing too much money to go to personal income is a drag on the economy. A high marginal rate gives people an incentive to keep that money working – because so long as it is working, it is effectively sheltered from taxes. This is part of the reason that higher tax rates (up to a point) lead to economic prosperity. I think a 50% marginal rate is probably high enough to have the same effect, and more palatable for both parties. As you say, it should start at the top – but not in terms of politics, in terms of income. A lot of our high income earners are using obscure and creative schemes to shelter their income from taxes – if we can remove some of these options, and collect the actual taxes due from the folks “at the top”, our economy will only get better. Many doctors and lawyers don’t make enough to be in the top tax bracket anyway, so it would be a moot point.
Care to share which “reports are in”? From all the reports I have been able to find, job growth was far too low, GDP growth was way below average, and the only above-average measure was corporate profits (probably tax related).
Just because Obama has not made large changes at this early stage does not mean that he will fail to reverse many of the unconstitutional practices of the Bush administration. As you may have noticed, his first priority has been getting a stimulus package ready for his signature. The Constitution was not only threatened by Bush’s reign, it is still in danger because of the two appointments he made to the Supreme Court, which will haunt the USA for decades or longer. There may be far better alternatives to the stimulus, but you don’t suggest any, and nearly all economists seem to think the one we are getting looks pretty good.
Glad to hear it.
Indeed the start has been a little rocky – but that is the nature of change. He could have made a bunch of safe cabinet appointments, but instead he has been quite bold – I feel that in the longer run this will pay large dividends, both for Obama, and for the nation. It is true that America has enjoyed prosperity for much of the post war period; Europe, Japan, China and Russia have all made enormous strides as well during this time. Our unique position at the end of WW2 provided the impetus for much of the prosperity we have enjoyed. One should note that the innovation and prosperity has mostly been non-partisan as well.
Thanks again for your civility and interest,
Peace.
DS
Great article as usual! I think we’re at a tipping point with our total taxes, that have recently been between 35% and 40% of GDP. Govt entities have grown WAY too large, esp state and cities led by Dems, and now federal led by O/P/R. We can’t afford it, especially with the Dems’ restrictions on energy production in our country…….they’ve been against aggressive oil and nuclear power production for 30 years. Therefore, we can’t “save” our economy from ruinous socialist policies the way Norway has. God won’t save us now either. He’ll just watch to see if our voters will regain sanity by Nov ’10 or Nov ’12. In the meantime, we are in big trouble with these socialists in control.
111. Bilgeman:
“See, that’s one of the problems in our society. We think we know it all, we think we have the definitive answer, and we’re pig-headed about it, even when we’re demonstrably wrong.”
That obviously includes you, right?
I’m extrapolating from your thoughts. See? It works.
“you’re an odder specimen than I ever suspected.”
I guess I am . . .
Any Republican dumb enough to approve this “stimulus” would be dumb enough to approve international flights for Al Qaeda Airlines.
@118. goy:
My facts are fine, and my arguments stand. Just because Hillary Clinton also said something stupid does not excuse Bush’s idiocy.
I’m not suggesting a flat 70% tax, either, chum. Graduated progressive income taxes, adding a couple of high end brackets a la Clinton, would be enough to get the job done. Nice strawman, though.
I don’t doubt that there are plenty of folks on Wall Street who are investing in tangible assets, but a lot of their efforts lately have been in spinning and reselling mortgage backed securities and other financial instruments that adds no value to the economy, and distort the market.
Denying that GOP policies tanked the economy will only contribute to continued GOP failure.
Peace.
DS
On target, as usual. These are the real changes we can expect. The problem is that once these changes are made, they are incredibly hard to unwind. I am hopeful that Obama’s arrogant over-reaching will result in a one-term presidency, and, if Republicans can convince the public that their spendthrift habits are broken, a reprise of 1994 in 2010.
OK, call me Pollyanna.
Once all the pigs get to the trough it will be very hard to dislodge them, especially if the census is politicized. The administration is not stupid, they are sly. In this case the public was both stupid and naive to believe the rhetoric.
Essential vdh.
Does anyone wonder that now we are spitting into the wind with the typical and petty comments and arguments of specific items that irritate us. It seems not based on the typical comments in blogs.
Are we not aware that for all time we are no longer a democratic Republic based on the core principles defined in the Constitution as described and further augmented and outlined within the Federalist Papers.
The ideas and principles demanded from Americans derived on a belief in the individuals responsibility and value are no longer a guiding light. It is out and has been out for at least 50 year. Idiot power hungry Presidents like LBJ creating the “great society” a testament to his ego and wanting to play and replace God and individual responsibility.
America was a coming together for the first time in mankind’s history the core rocks of western cultural development that brought human civilization to its high water mark, that is America. That is what America used to mean. No longer.
We fought a civil war with over 500,000 American lives paid to preserve the Union and to stop and roll back slavery, the only country still into the present that has elevated all citizens to equal status. And someone is telling America from within we are bad and our system must by changed and taken down.
You are owned nothing from the federal government except the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
You came into the world with nothing and if you have anything when you leave it should have been gotten by the sweat of your own brow. Without taking from your fellow men.
And we are to consider the leader of this American take down from within the POTUS.
We have over the last 50 years by not teaching what had to be taught, by allowing Unions to exceed their value and morph into various extortionist closed corrupt societies, by allowing the lowest common denominator of humanity packaged and in a secular, communist, socialist language presented by power hunger deficient political people as a Utopian ideal that can never exist. Doing this we allowed inside America a class warfare system of competing incompetent vicious victim groups that have no capacity other than act as parasites taking from others their lively hood as taken and distributed by now the all powerful central government. Represented by BHO, Al Franken, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reed, most all are incompetent affirmative action demagogues and Democrats with plenty of help from the same type of people with the other political party.
A government now controlled by idiots and the anti American products of affirmative action ideals born in Utopian language presented as communist and socialist ideals all for just a power grab by literally a few cheaters and power hunger political hacks.
They even stuffed the ballet boxes. What has happened to that crime against America and its foundation other than to forget it. Our country lost from within without a whimper. Promoted and covered up and screened from the truth by literal idiots within the MSM.
Does this sound like anything anyone would recognize as the Democratic Republic of the United States of America.
If anyone has served in the armed forces or any public service area and took the oath to protect and preserve the constitution from foreign or domestic enemies where do you stand now on those oaths?
What does the Pledge of Allegiance mean to you. Those are the questions you will now be forced to ask and answer into the future based on America today and the road we are going down.
Think about it. Stop the BS and figure out what America as an idea born in a world that thought nothing of individual men. What is really owed to America based on what America has been to the world. What is really owed to those that built America with their blood and lives. Are we to give it up without a whimper?
Think about what blacks, and minorities have been taught and brainwashed to think about it. Conclude something but stop just hashing it over with BS comments on web sites and blogs. Get off butts and get into work that will begin to turn it around and get America back on track.
when do pitchers and catchers report?
I loved the poster who suggested Obama is testing the water before walking on it. Very droll!
As for migration resettlement the language is quite clear:
Your local Jewish Agency might think this means not one penny will go to settling Gazans of any political stripe in America but I beg to differ. Why would money go to “payment of administrative expenses of Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the Department of State” otherwise?
What is particularly galling is that Israel’s reaction to constant bombardment was viewed as an attack on the population, the “genocide narrative.” I’m very curious to know what the US spent on resettling Jews trying to escape Europe during the war. I know what my county, Canada, said about Jewish immigration in those days: (I quote) “None is too many.”
David S
“Graduated progressive income taxes, adding a couple of high end brackets a la Clinton, would be enough to get the job done.”
The problem with your tax theory is that Democrats cheat on their taxes; while they do not pay their fair share of taxes they demand everyone else pick up the tab for the wasteful pork parties they love to throw.
When Democrats throw out their corrupt them perhaps you have the right to discuss progressive taxation.
123. HT:
Couldn’t agree with you more.
“Allowing too much money to go to personal income is a drag on the economy. A high marginal rate gives people an incentive to keep that money working – because so long as it is working, it is effectively sheltered from taxes.” David S
Apart from the empirical falsehood, argued well at Mises.org, in the works of Hazlitt, and elsewhere, the more important question that leaps to mind is:
“Allow”? Who says it is the government’s money (or that of anyone else) to allow or disallow.
It belongs to those who earned it through voluntary trade. If a specific person committed fraud to acquire it, he or she should be brought up on charges, tried, and sentenced accordingly. Absent that, he or she should be left free to do with it as they wish.
It’s not your money, nor of the Feds, to dispose of by whatever utilitarian formula you or they devise, it is the rightful property or asset of that individual.
That individual, and that individual alone, has the right to do with it as he or she pleases, no matter what the economic outcome to anyone.
Your calm tone masks the soul of a dictator, just as it does in the case of Obama and his cohorts. You and all Progressives who think like you should be morally opposed at every turn.
For those interested in the actual practical effects of progressive taxation, see:
Does Atlas Shrug? by Joel Slemrod published by Harvard University Press.
Jack Marcotte is absolutely correct. “Dog One Exit Is Right Here” We need to get off our duffs and start doing something instead of just griping and waiting for others to do what needs to be done.
@118. goy: - My facts are fine, …
Nope. What you mis-quoted is not what he said, nor was that his intent. Your question-begging nonsense about Bush’s “idiocy” is based purely on your willful ignorance of the facts.
- I’m not suggesting a flat 70% tax…
Never claimed you were, Zippy. Nice strawman, though, except your backpedaling gave it away.
- I don’t doubt that there are plenty of folks on Wall Street who are investing in tangible assets, …
Smart.
- … but a lot of their efforts lately have been in spinning and reselling mortgage backed securities and other financial instruments that adds no value to the economy, and distort the market.
Not smart. What’s “a lot”? What’s “lately”? Just equivocation.
Transfer of securities is part of what makes the economy function, Zippy. You’re confused if you believe that it distorts the market.
In fact, with respect to what Franklin Raines once idiotically called “riskless” securities (7:45), the “spinning and reselling [of] mortgage backed securities” was demanded by the Clinton administration, and is exactly what your inexperienced, unqualified fearless leader prescribed (see 5:00 and 6:30). More major fail for you.
@125 David S
“I don’t want to tax you through the roof. I do think that there is a reason that the 70% top marginal rate survived for decades – it worked well. Allowing too much money to go to personal income is a drag on the economy. A high marginal rate gives people an incentive to keep that money working – because so long as it is working, it is effectively sheltered from taxes. This is part of the reason that higher tax rates (up to a point) lead to economic prosperity. I think a 50% marginal rate is probably high enough to have the same effect, and more palatable for both parties. As you say, it should start at the top – but not in terms of politics, in terms of income. A lot of our high income earners are using obscure and creative schemes to shelter their income from taxes – if we can remove some of these options, and collect the actual taxes due from the folks “at the top”, our economy will only get better”
I love reading opinions from people like this guy. It’s like a daily reinforcement for me to reach my goals that much sooner. As soon as that happens, I can happily drift back down into that blissful no-tax group. I certainly won’t be underwriting anything this fool suggests.
Remove options and collect actual taxes due from the folks at the top? Ain’t happening David, these people can afford the best tax advice money can buy. The dems talk a lot of sh*t when it comes to this “tax the rich” nonsense, but unless the rich WANT to pay, they aren’t going to actually pay. Under any smoke and mirrors tax changes.
The pro-tax dems are among the worst tax offenders, see Geithner and Daschle. That isn’t really a good example, because they didn’t actually use obscure or creative schemes, they went the direct route and left stuff off their returns.
At any rate, I don’t care one rat’s a** about “pulling together” or, as David says “keeping your money working to avoid it being taxed” bullshit. I’ll keep it working, but for me, not you or your socialist parasites.
By the time they get around to raising the rates, I will be either mainly into capital gains income, or if that rate gets too high, somewhere else.
I don’t give a sh*t about coming together as a country, if it means coming together with the Davids in America. I’d rather see it burn first.
Remember, a dollar sent to the government is a dollar wasted.
@140. phil:
One point to factor into your thinking, which I find unfortunate primarily because you’re right: extracting one’s self from the system will soon be the only way to keep from getting robbed. The leftists are creating a society in which the most productive folks are going to just start opting out, a la John Galt.
Anyway, the point is this: the so-called “rich” are already paying virtually all income taxes paid. Well over 60% of all income taxes are paid by the 5% who are earning the highest incomes. This is what socialists like BHO and David S consider “fair”.
So even with their access to good tax advice – which allows them to *gasp* keep most of what they’ve earned instead of giving it to the government to be pissed away – these folks are still the ones contributing the majority of taxes to the Treasury. The rest comes from corporations, capital gains and the windfall billion$ they collect on fuel, which dwarfs oil company profits on gasoline by roughly 7-to-1, depending upon ethanol content (more ethanol means more gallons required for the same mileage, which means more money paid to the feds, which explains the push for ethanol in gas). Then of course the oil companies’ profits are taxed as well, on top of that. It’s madness.
Virtually all income tax is paid by only about half of those who file a tax return – roughly 95M people. The other half either pay nothing or receive federal welfare in the form of a “tax credit”, which BHO wants to triple (maybe he did in the fake ‘stimulus’ bill – I couldn’t keep track). Of course that other half, and those who file no returns at all, are the ones placing the largest financial burden on society – the burden that the rest of us have carry.
Those who are already paying virtually all income tax (i.e., those ~95M earning $150k or more) are paying their share of the gas taxes and the bulk of all capital gains taxes as well. This means that less than a third of the population is shouldering almost the entire tax burden for a society of over 300M people – a recipe for cultural meltdown if there ever was one.
Oops – big typo above : “those ~95M earning $150k or more” in that last para. should read “those ~95M earning $32k or more”. $150k is the top 5% range, not the top 50% range (in 2006).
psst… **SURE WISH THIS COMMENT THING HAD EDIT AND/OR PREVIEW**
139. goy:
“A lot” is about $62 trillion in credit derivatives worldwide, with about 2% of these being subprime mortgage derivatives. Lately would be since “The credit derivative, in the present form, was formally launched by Merrill Lynch in 1991 (with USD 368 million).” No charge for the info. These products distort the market by their sheer book value – being actually greater than the sum of world GDP.
I’m not talking about all securities – I’m talking about credit derivatives. Is that not clear? Stay on topic.
I’m sorry, but your Fox News segment was not compelling, and the C-Span material was edited so poorly, there is no way to determine the context of any of the sound bites. I know that Obama championed affordable housing, and fought against discriminatory practices. The problem with these loans was not that they were made – it was that the risk was not transparent once they were repackaged into securities.
Raines qualified his comments on risk – your quote is misleading and out of context. If you continue to misrepresent your own sources, the loss is your own. I am just trying to help out here.
Peace.
DS
@140. phil:
Likewise.
Yes. Remove some options for tax shelter, and attempt to collect what is due. Of course there will always be a way to cheat – but if folks like Daschle and Geitner can get away with omissions, so can folks with a lot more taxes due. To be succinct: there is room for improvement at the IRS.
You are welcome to your opinion, but with that kind of attitude, you sound deranged.
Peace.
DS
Re:
“It’s not your money, nor of the Feds, to dispose of by whatever utilitarian formula you or they devise, it is the rightful property or asset of that individual.”
If you have to explain this to people, odds are they won’t understand it anyway.
“Remember, a dollar sent to the government is a dollar wasted.”
More true now than ever before.
The pork package includes: $4.8 million for a polar bear exhibit in Providence, Rhode Island, $1.5 million for a water park ride in Miami, FL, $20 million for a minor league baseball museum in Durham, NC, $20 million for renovations at the Philadelphia Zoo, etc. The list goes on:
$44 million for construction, repair and improvements at US Department of Agriculture facilities
$209 million for work on deferred maintenance at Agricultural Research Service facilities
$245 million for maintaining and modernizing the IT system of the Farm Service Agency
$175 million to buy and restore floodplain easements for flood prevention
$50 million for “Watershed Rehabilitation”
$1.1 billion for rural community facilities direct loans
$2 billion for rural business and industry guaranteed loans
$2.7 billion for rural water and waste disposal direct loans
$22.1 billion for rural housing insurance fund loans
$2.8 billion for loans to spur rural broadband
$150 million for emergency food assistance
$50 million for regional economic development commissions
$1 billion for “Periodic Censuses and Programs”
$350 million for State Broadband Data and Development Grants
$1.8 billion for Rural Broadband Deployment Grants
$1 billion for Rural Wireless Deployment Grants
$650 million for Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program
$100 million for “Scientific and Technical Research and Services” at the National Institute of Standards And Technology
$30 million for necessary expenses of the “Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership”
$300 million for a competitive construction grant program for research science buildings
$400 million for “habitat restoration and mitigation activities” at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
$600 million for “accelerating satellite development and acquisition”
$140 million for “climate data modeling”
$3 billion for state and local law enforcement grants
$1 billion for “Community Oriented Policing Services”
$250 million for “accelerating the development of the tier 1 set of Earth science climate research missions recommended by the National Academies Decadal Survey.”
$50 million for repairs to NASA facilities from storm damage
$300 million for “Major Research Instrumentation program” (science)
$200 million for “academic research facilities modernization”
$100 million for “Education and Human Resources”
$400 million for “Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction”
$4.5 billion to make military facilities more energy efficient
$1.5 billion for Army Operation and Maintenance fund
$624 million for Navy Operation and Maintenance
$128 million for Marine Corps Operation and Maintenance
$1.23 billion for Air Force Operation and Maintenance
$454 million to “Defense Health Program”
$110 million for Army Reserve Operation and Maintenance
$62 million for Navy Reserve Operation and Maintenance
$45 million for Marine Corps Reserve Operation and Maintenance
$14 million for Air Force Reserve Operation and Maintenance
$302 million for National Guard Operation and Maintenance
$29 million for Air National Guard Operation and Maintenance
$350 million for military energy research and development programs
$2 billion for Army Corps of Engineers “Construction”
$250 million for “Mississippi River and Tributaries”
$2.2 billion for Army Corps “Operation and Maintenance”
$25 million for an Army Corps “Regulatory Program”
$126 million for Interior Department “water reclamation and reuse projects”
$80 million for “rural water projects”
$18.5 billion for “Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy” research in the Department of Energy. That money includes:
$2 billion for development of advanced batteries
$800 million of that is for biomass research and $400 million for geothermal technologies
$1 billion in grants to “institutional entities for energy sustainability and efficiency”
$6.2 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program
$3.5 billion for Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants
$3.4 billion for state energy programs
$200 million for expenses to implement energy independence programs
$300 million for expenses to implement Energy efficient appliance rebate programs includin g the Energy Star program
$400 million for expenses to implement Alternative Fuel Vehicle and Infrastructure Grants to States and Local Governments
$1 billion for expenses necessary for advanced battery manufacturing
$4.5 billion to modernize the nation’s electricity grid
$1 billion for the Advanced Battery Loan Guarantee Program
$2.4 billion to demonstrate “carbon capture and sequestration technologies”
$400 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (Science)
$500 million for “Defense Environmental Cleanup”
$1 billion for construction and repair of border facilities and land ports of entry
$6 billion for energy efficiency projects on government buildings
$600 million to buy and lease government plug-in and alternative fuel vehicles
$426 million in small business loans
$100 million for “non-intrusive detection technology to be deployed at sea ports of entry
$150 million for repair and construction at land border ports of entry
$500 million for explosive detection systems for aviation security
$150 million for alteration or removal of obstructive bridges
$200 million for FEMA Emergency Food and Shelter program
$325 million for Interior Department road, bridge and trail repair projects
$300 million for road and bridge work in Wildlife Refuges and Fish Hatcheries
$1.7 billion for “critical deferred maintenance” in the National Park System
$200 million to revitalize the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
$100 million for National Park Service Centennial Challenge programs
$200 million for repair of U.S. Geological Survey facilities
$500 million for repair and replacement of schools, jails, roads, bridges, housing and more for Bureau of Indian Affairs
$800 million for Superfund programs
$200 million for leaking underground storage tank cleanup
$8.4 billion in “State and Tribal Assistance Grants”
$650 million in “Capital Improvement and Maintenance” at the Agriculture Dept.
$850 million for “Wildland Fire Management”
$550 million for Indian Health facilities
$150 million for deferred maintenance at the Smithsonian museums
$50 million in grants to fund “arts projects and activities which preserve jobs in the non-profit arts sector threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn” through the National Endowment for the Arts
$1.2 billion in grants to states for youth summer jobs programs and other activities
$1 billion for states in dislocated worker employment and training activities
$500 million for the dislocated workers assistance national reserve
$80 million for the enforcement of worker protection laws and regulations related to infrastructure and unemployment insurance investments
$300 million for “construction, rehabilitation and acquisition of Job Corps Centers”
$250 million for public health centers
$1 billion for renovation and repair of health centers
$600 million for nurse, physician and dentist training
$462 million for renovation work at the Centers for Disease Control
$1.5 billion for “National Center for Research Resources”
$500 million for “Buildings and Facilities” at the National Institutes of Health in suburban Washington, D.C.
$700 million for “comparative effectiveness research” on prescription drugs
$1 billion for Low-Income Home Energy Assistance
$2 billion in Child Care and Development Block Grants for states
$1 billion for Head Start programs
$1.1 billion for Early Head Start programs
$100 million for Social Security research programs
$200 million for “Aging Services Programs”
$2 billion for “Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology”
$430 million for public health/social services emergency funds
$2.3 billion for the Centers for Disease Control for a variety of programs
$5.5 billion in targeted education grants
$5.5 billion in “education finance incentive grants”
$2 billion in “school improvement grants”
$13.6 billion for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
$250 million for statewide education data systems
$14 billion for school modernization, renovation and repair
$160 million for AmeriCorps grants
$400 million for the construction and costs to establish a new “National Computer Center” for the Social Security Administration
$500 million to improve processing of disability and retirement claims
$920 million for Army housing and child development centers
$350 million for Navy and Marine Corps housing and child development centers
$280 million in Air Force housing and child development centers
$3.75 billion in military hospital and surgery center construction
$140 million in Army National Guard construction projects
$70 million in Air National Guard construction projects
$100 million in Army Reserve construction projects
$30 million in Navy Reserve construction projects
$60 million in Air Force Reserve construction projects
$950 million for VA Medical Facilities
$50 million for repairs for military cemeteries
$120 million for a backup information management facility for the State Department
$98 million for National Cybersecurity Initiative
$3 billion for “Grants-in-Aid for Airports”
$300 million for Indian Reservation roads
$300 million for Amtrak capital needs
$800 million for national railroad assets or infrastructure repairs, upgrades
$5.4 billion in federal transit grants
$2 billion in infrastructure development for subways and commuter railways
$5 billion for public housing capital
$1 billion in competitive housing grants
$2.5 billion for energy efficiency upgrades in public housing
$500 million in Native American Housing Block Grants
$4.1 billion to help communities deal with foreclosed homes
$1.5 billion in homeless prevention activities
$79 billion in education funds for states
All I want to know is:mWill the polar bears get cars, and an igloo with a kitchen?
@143. David S: - I’m not talking about all securities – I’m talking about credit derivatives. Is that not clear? Stay on topic.
Grow up and try following your own advice, Zippy. YOU WROTE: “a lot of their efforts lately have been in spinning and reselling mortgage backed securities” [emph. added for idiot Zippy, who can't remember what he wrote and can't be bothered to scroll up and read it]. I responded to what YOU WROTE, which never mentioned “credit derivatives”. If you’re too stoned to keep track of what YOU WROTE, and stay on YOUR OWN topic, then you’re pretty much done here.
- No charge for the info.
More passive-aggressive, adolescent B.S.
- I’m sorry, but your Fox News segment was not compelling, …
In your biased, morally adolescent (i.e., leftist) opinion: we’ll note for the record that you had no substantive response.
- … the C-Span material was edited so poorly, there is no way to determine the context of any of the sound bites.
Wrong. We’ll note for the record that this was also not a substantive response. The video clearly provides the context. As well, this information is all in the public record. You simply don’t want to accept the self-incriminating actions and statements of the criminals – Carter, Clinton, Frank, Dodd, Obama, Raines, Waters, et al. – who pushed us into this situation. Denial is not just a river in Egypt, Zippy.
- The problem with these loans was not that they were made…
Wrong. That was precisely the problem with these loans, i.e., that they were forced upon banks by CRA regulation quotas and ACORN thuggery, even though they would not be paid back if the interest rates pushed payments above the borrowers’ ability to pay. And the proof is in the part of the video you failed to address: Clinton required FM and FM to increase their purchase of these dangerous loans in the interest of buying Democrat votes from minorities who “benefited” (for a short time) from “affordable loans”.
- … it was that the risk was not transparent once they were repackaged into securities.
No. The risk was IGNORED, as Raines clearly stated when he claimed – with no qualification whatsoever – that mortgage-backed securities were “riskless”. Or do you believe that he and his ilk were oblivious to the qualification criteria and terms banks were using to conform to CRA regulations? You can’t possibly be that stupid. As Dennis Avery has correctly noted,
The reason the risk was ignored was because everyone from Raines to Cuomo to Frank to Clinton simply assumed that the federal government – that is, the U.S. Taxpayer – would obediently bail out the GSEs if any serious problems arose. And that is precisely what happened. Frank made that very prediction outright during the 2004 hearings when he and the rest of the Democrat career politician/criminals attacked OFHEO for applying the oversight Democrats have since accused the Bush Administration of not applying. Pure Orwell. But as with your lies about “record temperatures” it’s no surprise that you don’t have a problem with this sort of intellectual mendacity.
@148. goy:
You repeat your own lies. This does not make them true. You provided the link to the video, which clearly shows Raines qualifying his remarks. What is the point of lying about this?
Again, you provide no counter to my citation on record temperatures but your own obfuscation.
If you want to keep lying, you will be lying to yourself.
Peace.
DS
David S, you’ve been on record saying this quite often: I feel that Bush’s rhetoric has been destructive of our moral standing in the world.
Moral standing in the world. I must ask, have you been to all the powerful countries in the world with a clipboard in hand and been the inquisitor?
I ask because it’s such an utterly ridiculous comment.
Whether you wish to accept or believe it, many people need to be led in some form or another. Quick example, tens of millions do what the yentas on The View tell them how to think, behave. Many believe those hacks on American idol are talented singers/ Barack Obama is actually a leader. Poppycock.
I travel extensively for work. I haven’t any reason to fib or lead you astray regarding the matter.
Through the years, or more specifically for this comment, the Bush years, I’ve come upon few and far between the individuals who hold America in contempt.
Sure, you’ll see a few of these folks who are good for a sound byte or 2 on the news. Though the level minded people you sit down with and actually discuss lucidly foreign policy, understand America’s role; to not fall in line with the rest of the nations who’ve given into the doldrums of PC labor-type arrangements.
Europe has swallowed this guano, hook line and sinker.
Africa, they love America. Who gives them all the welfare, workfare shwag? Unicef, UN soccer jerseys, farming supplies and goods, making the dark continent forever a continent of beggars. Heck, Obama wants to DOUBLE the aid there. Yeah, great idea…
Illegals of Hispanic descent make up ~10% of our country’s population. What was it you said? Oh yeah, ..rhetoric has been destructive of our moral standing in the world.’
Before you speak of morality, David S, do A LOT of traveling to see for yourself the moral decay of other countries, continents before taking the moral high ground. The U.S. surely has its problems, but it’s not a cesspool of the many I’ve seen through the decades.
Our country’s vice is allowing the unskilled, uneducated, unaccomodating, unappreciative, unproductive masses a larger voice/ forum to sway our country to their ‘mindthink’ than you or I can possibly fathom.
@150. paul_unalaska:
Is it really that ridiculous? Most Americans can see clearly that Bush has been a negative for our standing in the world.
“According to a new (mid-2008) Pew Research Center poll, the American public is well aware of the United States’ declining favor in the eyes of the world and is distinctly unhappy about it. The poll found that 71 percent believe the United States is less respected by other countries than in the past, double what that figure was in 1984 when this question was first asked. Moreover, of this 71 percent, 67 percent believe the decline in respect is a problem, and 56 percent believe it is a major problem. The latter figure is up 13 points since 2004.”
“During the 1990s, views of the US were predominantly positive. Comparing 1999 State Department data and recent Pew data, favorable views of the United States have dropped in the UK from 83 percent to 56 percent, in Germany from 78 percent to 37 percent, in Morocco from 77 percent to 49 percent, in Indonesia from 75 to 30 percent, in France from 62 to 39 percent, from Turkey from 62 to 12 percent and in Spain from 50 to 23 percent. Only Russia has held steady.”
“There are a few countries that get lower ratings than the US. In a BBC poll that we just released this morning, Israel, Iran, and by some measures, North Korea, received lower ratings. However the US is rated far lower than France, Japan, Canada, China, India and Russia.”
Your personal experience is obviously not the most reliable guide to public opinion.
According to the citizens of the world, the US is in the same moral category as North Korea, and far lower than China. This does not bode well.
No. Our country’s vice is allowing the unskilled, uneducated, unaccomodating, unappreciative, unproductive GOP to dominate our government policies. People overseas still like the American people, they just don’t like the GOP policies. To whit:
On average:
• 75% disapprove of the how the US is handing the Iraq war,
• 69% disapprove of US treatment of detainees in Guantanamo and other prisons,
• 68% disapprove of how the US handled the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon,
• 61% disapprove of US handling of Iran’s nuclear program,
• 58% disapprove of US handling of global warming or climate change
• 55% disapprove of US handling of North Korea’s nuclear program
This is not about the masses having a larger voice. This is about an administration that has taken the USA down the wrong path for eight solid years. Our policies, and the rhetoric used to justify them, are the problem.
If you can’t yet see that our standing in the world has been eroded by the Bush administration, let me know what would convince you.
Peace.
DS
@149. David S: - You repeat your own lies.
Nope. Raines specifically calls assets from mortgage backed securities “riskless”. It’s on the video. Go watch it again. And again, until it sinks in. Watch his lips move – he clearly says:
In fact he claims that these assets aren’t just “riskless”, but “so riskless” that the normal rules required by other financial institutions don’t even apply. There was no “qualification” in this idiotic statement. In fact he actually smirks when he utters the words, arrogantly not even trying to hide his opinion that Shays is too stupid to understand – like much of the arrogant, adolescent drivel you post here. He and the rest of the Dems running interference for him were simply flat wrong. And it led to disaster. Even Artur Davis has since admitted as much.
- …you provide no counter to my citation…
LOL!!! You conveniently ignored it, Zippy.
- If you want to keep lying, you will be lying to yourself.
Projection in it’s purest and most desperate form.
DAVID S: As if a world comprised largely of left wing/religious thugs,tribal psychopaths,terminally corrupt,state worshipping eurotrash,and their US wannabees like David,has any right to pass judgment on the USA?
Goy: give it up man,you can’t educate libs;they’re brain damaged useful idiots,who think that lying is the same as arguing!
Worst President since the Great Depression. Worst President. Worst Cabinet. Worst Administration.
I don’t know much about FDR’s prosecution of WWII. But I do know this, he said to Germany -”Unconditional Surrender”. And he meant it. He said to Japan -”Unconditional Surrender”. And he meant it. He left command of entire allied forces to one general, Eisenhower. And Ike sped off to England to plan strategy w/out FDR looking over his shoulder.
Everything else about FDR administration was one domestic atrocity after another. People say WWII brought U.S. out of the depression, but it brought FDR out of the worst presidency in history after having been re-elected through his newly federalized political bribery machine paid off his cronies with money looted from what revenue could be fleeced from the remaining “rich” at tax rates up to 79%.
It took 25 years for the stock market to regain its value, in 1956. With no help from the government. President Kennedy lobbied Congress for tax reduction and cited the 79% rate as reason to stimulate the economy out of the 1959-1960 recession.
The economy rebounded only to be subjected to the rinse/repeat bribery/corruption of the New great society Deal of the 60′s using Saul Alinsky tactics in cities that brought a swarm of “social workers” informing black women that the welfare system [first implemented for those widows who could no longer collect (their husbands) social security], could be gamed to the point that this corruption said to the black father, that he was no longer needed, not wanted and indeed an obstacle to the collection of these reparations.
Which brings us to where we are now. Except that 0bamas election victory margin was based, not on young people, but on a margin composed of women voters. Women whose independence owes to two factors. 1) their improved status from social change in the workplace, and 2) their economic productivity in the years of economic vitality.
But Americans are more impatient now, and once women see that 0bhamas has too much ego and absolutely no compassion for them and the key to their independence, [the profile of the sociopath, I might add, not to mention your garden variety taqquiyah swilling takfiri] well…
well, just let me say this, HELL HATH NO FURY, SUCH AS A WOMAN SCORNED, thats all
The problem with citing the libs goal of turning the USA into a socialist Europe is, ever since I can remember the highest aspiration the mind numbing trainers indoctrinated we youth with was the great desire to be a world traveller, and one of the highest attained goals would be to travel to France, and hopefully see the Eiffel Tower.
In slightly laters year, the world traveller plans morphed into a sort of jaunt to Africa, to really get that National Geographic perspective and see the world as it once was before America destroyed nature utterly, and of course to “protect the last virginal place” and “peoples” from the encroaching horror of modernism.
So, what you get as a reaction from the vaguely aware of their indoctrination all across the USA, when you mention the libs want us turned into a European social paradise, is thousands of morons rooting for the libs instantly.
Oh, if they could only travel to France, or have a ride on one of those romantic boats between and below the city walls that the high society art murals depicted…
Better yet, bring the dream home to the USA.
You are unwittingly creating hundreds of thousands of enemies of your cause, claiming the morph will be “European socialism”. Oh, there’s nothing more cultural or desired by the blundering moronic wannabes – by golly a great European vacation right in the states…on the cheap.
Yes, the useless morons will only clamor all the more toward the libs plans – their indoctrination is already so subtle since my birth, and so complete nevertheless, the Euro social state will be welcomed, and they will even get excited about the idea – their dream vacation coming to their own backyard, courtesy of the savior party plans.