Pajamas Media

158 Comments

1. Must Conservatives Rally Round the Messiah?:

[...] Must Conservatives Rally Round the Messiah? No — because the left’s vision of “unity” means surrender in the war of ideas. [...]

Nov 22, 2008 - 1:19 am 2. bill force:

Unity schmunity.

The most important question isn’t “should we fall for the unity offer.

The question to ask is how do we not fall again.

Which leads us to a crucial three words: How to win.

The reason Barack won and John lost had a lot to do with the Republican Party’s inability to take the sting out of a thorny problem; the biased mainstream media.

What would I have done? Glad you asked.

On every billboard in America during the entire campaign, I’d have had messages. I’d have messaged them to death, starting with something like:

Main stream media 6. American values 0.
Or Washington Post 14. Unborn rights 0.
The Surge: a winner. The NY Times: Losers.

The LA Times video: explosive.
The American people’s right: Seeing the explosion.

Newsday expose on Bill Ayers: Never
NY Times attacks on John McCain: Never stop.

Anyway, you get the point.

Among other things, what I’d have done (along with a lot of guerilla marketing) would have been to make a major campaign issue of bias in the media so everybody was aware of it, making it a lot less effective.

Kind of like removing the venom from a poisonous snake so it can’t really hurt you. I’d have zinged SNL till they’d swear they were tazered.

All of which would have made the playing field a lot more even. Of course, it’s not all I’d have busied myself with. But it’s some of the things.

When you spend 28 years as an ad agency Creative Director selling everything from the other white meat, to corona beer to, not just oil, pennzoil, you learn a thing or two.

Sometimes, even when a candidate as strong as Barack Obama is running against you, you can run him ragged till he drops from message madness. “What are they going to hit us with today” I’d have them one day say.

I’d have the brown eyed handsome man not knowing what state in was in, or how many states there are, or why his campaign was in such a sorry state.

To accomplish this, you don’t have to out spend them.

But you better be able to out think them.

Nov 22, 2008 - 1:22 am 3. Pajamas Media » Must Conservatives Rally Round the Messiah?:

[...] Pajamas Media » Must Conservatives Rally Round the Messiah? Soon Barack Obama will be inaugurated as our president. His victory was a major happening and had coattails. Indeed, the Republican Party was handed a massive. [...]

Nov 22, 2008 - 1:56 am 4. Spinoneone:

Well, of course, one should expect the Messiah/Muhammad to demand that the hoi poloi never, ever, even think of criticizing “The One” because that would be blaspheme. We should all hunker down like a bunch of dhimmis and take what ever is dished out. Yeah, right, I sure plan to do that!! Freedom of speech, especially political speech, is our most important right. And an armed citizenry is always superior to an unarmed nation of subjects.

Nov 22, 2008 - 2:15 am 5. Chuck Pelto:

TO: Bernard Chapin, et al.
RE: Typical….Typical….

The left’s approach to their opposition lacks consistency, honor, and responsibility as they see those traits as being anachronistic…. —

….of people who believe that “the ends justify the means”.

Everything is either a lie or the truth, i.e., they DO believe in a ‘black and white world’. The big difference is that yesterday’s ‘black’ could be tomorrow’s ‘white’, depending on how it serves their purposes for political power.

But Christians, the REAL ones, don’t see Life that way. And never will. Their world-view is based on a ‘Rock’. And therefore, they will always be the Left’s ‘enemy’. And therefore must be silenced or destroyed.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Whereas Good can tolerate the existence of Evil. Evil cannot tolerate the existence of Good, as Good will continually be pointing out Evil's problems. Therefore Evil must always try to destroy Good.]

Nov 22, 2008 - 3:54 am 6. RE:

My loyalty is to uphold the Constitution. But should the Democrats be successful in their longstanding attempts to corrupt it or subordinate it to some unelected world body, we are looking at a changed landscape.

I’ve heard the term ‘loyal opposition’ bandied about quite a bit lately. I’m wondering how the term originated – Englishmen trying to keep themselves out of the Tower of London, perhaps? At any rate, it strikes me as wimpy to the point of being un-American. The ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ flag seems much more appropriate for the times.

Nov 22, 2008 - 4:05 am 7. Roy M:

Being an Obama supporter (maybe I find him a bit too moderate), I am pretty sure that the lefts version of unity is much the same as the rights: rememberng that there is considerably more that unites us than divides us, and agreeing on the things that we do agree on.

Having said that, unity for the sake of it seems like a bad idea. Dissent is still a duty as well as a right, for many reasons. One is that the ‘war of ideas’ is, or can be if it is done right, the very thing that makes us, left and right, stonger sperately and more united together. The right in America needs to get on with fighting the war of ideas as sson as it is back on its feet.

It will loose but fight on if only to remind the people why they don’t want to vote for the right. This is the minimum good that political honesty acheives but it is still worthwhile.

Nov 22, 2008 - 4:15 am 8. Ken Mueller:

Well maybe we shouldn’t stand behind him on most domestic matters, though I think if they wanted to rebuild the railroads I would probably get on board. But I’m willing to bet that we won’t be seditious or treasonable if we go to war. Oops, delete the last five words.

Nov 22, 2008 - 5:08 am 9. Boris:

Aw, somebody’s got a bitter wittle attitude, doesn’t he?

Did somebody wose an ewection! Yes he dids. Yes, he dids, didn’t he?

Nov 22, 2008 - 5:13 am 10. dougf:

Just keep on thinking like this.

It will do wonders for both you personally and the ‘conservative’ movement.
This is every bit as offensive as the Move-On type of permanent war. Not once in your rant, did you say that ‘we’ should oppose when Obama is wrong, but support when he appears to be doing what is ‘right’ for the country. It’s all politics all the time.

And it reeks every bit as much as the last 6 years of progressive lunacy. Obama did not win because of the madness of his moonbat base. He won because Bush was seen as tanking the economy with his hands-off approach, and his failure to address some serious structural problems. It was not the ‘permanent war’ which won for Obama. It was sheer fatigue with the alternative.

There is no reason to prove that ‘conservatives’ not only can be, but in fact are, every bit as mean spirited and clueless as ‘progressives’ have been.
But that is evidently the path you all want to travel. I wish you luck. You’re going to need it.

ps— I’m sure that there will be the usual ‘get out of here, you ‘liberal’, rebuttals from the usual suspects. I always sign my posts exactly the same. I am NOT a ‘liberal’ and none of my past posts display any such tendencies. I’m just fed up with the insane bitterness and knee-jerk oppositionism which is the hallmark of current political life. No review of ideas; no solutions; no comparative evaluations; no anything other than I Hate Those Guys . I was hoping that the ‘conservative’ critiques of ‘progressive’ behavior were based upon a considered philosophical response. But they were not. It was just a case of whose ox was being gored at the time.

A pox on both your houses. One coin —- two sides.

BORING !!

Nov 22, 2008 - 5:55 am 11. Dr. Lumplevin:

As comrade Boris fully understands, Obama has risen above the Left-Right, Dem-Rep divide. He invites us all as Americans to rise above the petty counter-productive bickering over policies, ideas, and political philosophies, and to enter into a new realm of transcendental politics, where fealty to him and the Party becomes the vehicle for world peace, prosperity and planetary harmonic synergy. The Press is on board. Academia is on board. The youth are on board. Intelligensia is on board. The unions are on board.

All that is lacking are a few of you sub-human religious and libertarian troglodytes, who will end up hiding in the caves where you belong if you do not get on board.

Nov 22, 2008 - 6:13 am 12. RedHeadedTexan:

dougf,

We can agree that Bush screwed up. He fooled us Texans, as he was an effective governor, and we considered he could be an effective President. But he was way out of his element up there. In addition he tried to play nice, which you can’t do with hard core liberals.
The point of this article, if you bothered to read past the first paragraph, is that we will not submit our firmly held beliefs to yours. He might have been elected, but Obama will never be MY president. I’m ready to be convinced that I’m wrong. But it ain’t gonna happen.
And like the rest of the sincere Conservatives, I will be a member of the loyal (to my country) opposition.
We don’t HATE you, but we vehemently disagree with yours (and since you defend him so intently) Obama’s.
The proof will be in the pudding. I’m willing to be convinced, but I’m dubious.

Nov 22, 2008 - 6:35 am 13. R a Z o R:

We centrist that voted for MITT ROMNEY are now

hoping that when 2011 gets here things are not

as bad as many fear .
________________________________________________
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqOfXumI18A
Is it too early for a song of the season ?

Nov 22, 2008 - 6:43 am 14. Jeff Weimer:

Dougf,

It’s not that we won’t back him when we think he’s right, it’s that so many on the left assume that “bipartisanship” and “unity” are a one way street – in their direction. If they disagree, the “dissent is the highest form of patriotism”, but we on the right should not dissent and rally behind Obama in all things just because he won. Sorry, it doesn’t work like that, and it never has. However, I can reasonably assure you we on the right will not take politics past the shoreline, as many on the left have shamefully done during republican administrations, and especially the last one. We will have our fights, but they will stay in the house, behind closed doors. Outside the borders, we will publicly uphold the office of the President, no matter who is in charge. Obama may not be the President I wanted, but he is THE President. It’s our job to make sure he considers our point of view.

Nov 22, 2008 - 7:05 am 15. Ursa Major:

Never,Never,Never!

Nov 22, 2008 - 7:07 am 16. redfrizzyhair:

Hey Lumpy,
We do not have to get on board, just as we WILL NOT hide in caves.
We are NOT sheeple.
Follow your Messiah, he will take you to the edge, keep going

Nov 22, 2008 - 7:09 am 17. Another View:

BC
And all the rest of you idiots. We knew all along as your complaints and and gripes were a facade. As you continue to blow in the wind, realize you have a center president-elect. Go ahead and continue to divide.

What the f#ck do you want? WE HAVE HAD 2 DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATIONS IN THE PAST 35 YEARS. DEMOCRATS HAVE HAD CONGRESS 2 YEARS. Stop your bull and blame the people whose bathwater you idiots drink. The GOP screwed this country. I have never seen such a group of gluts as the names I see here who refuse the obvious truth.

The bottom line is a Ni$$er wouldn’t be president if the Conservatives Didn’t screw up. With that said There is more dirt on all other politicians than Obama. You just hoped it would sway voters away and it didn’t. So quit with the Associations we know and we don’t give a sh!t.

The smarter better prepared well temperamented man got more votes and won. Obama being adjusted used the internet. That should help you realize he is modern and ready for this new world.The GOP is like you a dinosaur.

And now you have no party. At least the Dems are on the same side. My conservative friends don’t want to even talk to you ignorants. So you guys are finished. And everyday JR. Journalist I mean JR. commentator spreads his bull he alienates true conservatives more. You trailer park in the military for benefits wanna be repubs. Go Palin 2012 Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Nov 22, 2008 - 7:27 am 18. Glynn:

Boris…grow up…oh, never mind. I’m asking the impossible.

Nov 22, 2008 - 7:34 am 19. don L:

Must they rally around the man that they believe will destroy America -er- at least a few million more babies with infanticide etc.

I would think the answer to that absurd question can be found in the bible – did Christ support Satan on the Sermon on the Mount? What – no equal time? Morally, no one has any obligation to cooperate with evil, never mind join it!

Nov 22, 2008 - 7:38 am 20. njcommuter:

Hey Another View, please take your racism elsewhere. We care about a man’s character and his ideas, not his ancestry. That’s what this country is about. Racism is unAmerican. That simple.

Speaking of which:

RE:
RE:

My loyalty is to uphold the Constitution. …

I’ve heard the term ‘loyal opposition’ bandied about quite a bit lately. I’m wondering how the term originated – Englishmen trying to keep themselves out of the Tower of London, perhaps? At any rate, it strikes me as wimpy to the point of being un-American. The ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ flag seems much more appropriate for the times.

Actually, Loyal Opposition is perfect. Yes, it’s English: Loyal to the Crown but opposed to the party in power. As Churchill and others have pointed out, the USA replaced the Crown with the written constitution. The loyalty of the American Loyal Opposition is to the Constitution, which is why we are opposed to those who would shred it.

Finally, should the GOP left in Congress look to place Trojan horses in leftist legislation? If so, they will have to at least appear to cooperate. Trojan horses have been the special talent of the left. Is that because there is something inherently leftist (dishonest) about them, or have we just not learned to be as sneaky in fighting evil (yes, I will use that word for socialism and nanny-state-ism) as evil is in grabbing power?

Nov 22, 2008 - 7:53 am 21. southdakotaboy:

We on the right need to stop acting like charlie Brown with Lucy and the football. Libs lie about us and they lie to us. We need to cut with the whole loyal opposition crap and start doing everything in our power to make sure Old Big Ear’s term is a complete failure.
That means stop doing business with people that you know are dems. Seriously just find someone who agrees with your politics and do business with them. DO NOT spend any stimulus check you get. Cash it and keep the money in your home not in the bank. Switch to a cash only system and do as much business as you can under the table and off the books. Stop donating money to charities that help people overseas and then when the dems start sending our tax dollars over there start complaining loudly about how the evil dems send money overseas but won’t help people at home. Everytime you have a conversation with someone try and blame as much as you can on the dems and Old Big Ears. Don’t be in your face confontational about it, but always work it in a casual and somewhat funny way. If you are in regular contact with the person slowly ramp this up until you can start being very negative. This is an example of the old saying of boiling a frog slowly. The person will be so use to not really fighting with you that they will come to accept your critizim as truth.
Never refer to Barrak as “President” always have a snide little name for him.
Send letters to companies that advertise on MSNBC that you will no longer be using their product. Convince others to do so also. For your lib friends tell them that those companies use child labour or polute the environment or something just get them to stop buying that product.
These are all non violent ways that we can use to hinder and disrupt Old Big Ear’s plans.

Nov 22, 2008 - 7:56 am 22. Alisa:

I promise to give the new president the same exact respect that the left gave George W. Bush. Normally I wouldn’t stoop to these levels. But knowing how they are and how they behave any respect will be seen and advertised by them and their allies as agreemement.
The comments by Boris illustrate the types of people that they are. Petty, vindictive bullies incapable of discussing things like adults. This is especially annoying since they are the cause of the problems that we are having now and are unwilling to admit it or are too stupid to see it. (Lord knows congress would have any GOP member of congress in jail right now if there was any responsible for the economic meltdown. Their lack of investigation proves it was 99% democrat.)
Certainly we shouldn’t stoop to their levels of dissent, such as trying to lose a war and get our soldiers killed as they have, but we certainly should tack back our instincts for decency and kick the hell out him when he stumbles. We know this administration is going to be an obamsyl failure and we should be ready to point and laugh.

Nov 22, 2008 - 7:58 am 23. AnninCA:

Obama will be judged by his decisions, just as every other president is judged.

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:07 am 24. SP_Immortal:

“And now you have no party. At least the Dems are on the same side. My conservative friends don’t want to even talk to you ignorants. So you guys are finished. And everyday JR. Journalist I mean JR. commentator spreads his bull he alienates true conservatives more. You trailer park in the military for benefits wanna be repubs. Go Palin 2012 Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.”

u mad?

If we were finished then you wouldn’t bother coming here to seethe and whine over this article.

Liberals, fascist monkeys that they are, always expect an end to resistance. Surely, they think, this election will be the one where the ignorant plebs will finally see the light and cease contesting their right to absolute rule.

Not gonna happen. Resistance will grow. Barack will stumble badly. The media won’t be able to hide the truth forever. Dissolutionment will set in. The liberal policies that led to this economic disaster will lead to more disasters down the road. There will be no one left to blame. How long do you think people will be able to take “Bush did it” before they start rolling their eyes and shaking their heads at the ravings of the town idiots?

We have an ace in the hole. Liberal policies fail. People are leaving the high regulation/high tax/low freedom liberal states in droves. And even immigration is having trouble making up the difference. Technological progress has masked increasing social decay, but as even that begins to grind to a halt people will take a look around them and see exploding crime, failing schools, less prosperity, ordinary people living with a bunker mentality, and so on.

Expect resistance. Expect to hear the truth.

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:07 am 25. Liberty Girl » Blog Archive » I Never Have ANY Fun:

[...]  Why do fun things like this never happen to me?? Several associates of mine, aware of my red-state predilections, approached me [...]

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:10 am 26. Eric Dondero:

This is precisely why we libertarians are so distrustful of our conservative partners. You conservs are just too damned polite. You’re afraid to call Obama what he really is; a Fascist. Look at his AG pick Holder; Anti-Gun, Anti-Free Speech, and the guy who sent little Elian Gonzalez back to Communist Cuba. Holder is an Authoritarian with a capitol ‘A’. But some Conservatives are too scared to call the guy a “Fascist.”

We libertarians are not afraid to call a spade a spade. Barack Hussein Obama is an outright Communist/Fascist. We hope you Conservatives get some cajones and join us in our denunciations of him.

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:11 am 27. Lily:

Roy M said: “I am pretty sure that the lefts version of unity is much the same as the rights: remembering that there is considerably more that unites us than divides us, and agreeing on the things that we do agree on.”

I used to believe that there was more that united and divided us. I don’t think that is true anymore.

I think the people on the left have fully given into the idea of ‘collectivism’ – for the good of the group over the rights of the individual. (some of the right appear to have had more than a few sips of that kool-aid too). You just elected a president who has described the Constitution as a ‘fatally flawed’ document. He thinks its ‘neighborly’ for the government to highly tax its some of its citizens to ’spread the wealth around” – NOT to keep people from starving, but to make things more ‘even-steven’.

And here is the real joke: you turn over your money and power to the fools in government who don’t care a wit about you – they will subvert your interests if it serves their purpose, and there won’t be a thing you can do about it.

This collectivism will destroy the rights of the individual, and it will kill the US’s ‘Golden Economic Goose’. We will all be poorer, and have less control over our own lives.

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:16 am 28. What?:

don
This is not mythology class. It’s civics.

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:17 am 29. Self-hating boomer:

Never in history has there been an American ruler so beholden to the European ruling elite. It’s as if there was no point to the American revolution. I refuse to accept an European apperatchik as my legitimate ruler. The 48% of us who know which end of a rifle points away from you aren’t going to submit to the 52% who don’t.

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:28 am 30. Boris:

“The comments by Boris illustrate the types of people that they are. Petty, vindictive bullies..”

Please. You hard right morons are the ones who have been saying the left isn’t “real America” for years. But it’s clear you don’t know what America is about at all. Stop listening to Rush Limbaugh and think about things on your own for crissakes.

If Bernard doesn’t like being made fun of, he should probably tone down the bitterness a tad. IF he isn’t a brain dead ideologue this might be possible. Then again, if he didn’t write dumb, overwritten columns full of snarky remarks about “serfs” and “saviors” then he wouldn’t be writing for the jammies.

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:29 am 31. venividivici:

The Democrats might be able to force me to comply with the laws they put in place, provided they are not unconstitutional, but there is no way they can force me to agree with the collectivist and redistributive premises built into those laws, because those premises don’t withstand empirical scrutiny as being most conducive to the greater good. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will see a lot of cases challenging whatever the Dems put in place and build up precedents to stop legislators from pushing us further in the direction of a European social democracy, which is pretty clearly not the type of government implied by our Constitition. In fact, I’d love to see a law enacted whereby a citizen has to choose at a certain age whether they want to abide by the Constition as it is written or they want to move to another country. The government would then provide them with the funds to get out of the country and they would be persona non grata on US soil from then on. We would have arrangements with other countries so that these individuals would be put on the fast track to citizenship in those other lands. If leftists are as valuable to the human race as they seem to believe they are, other countries will jump at the chance to get this precious human capital. Of course, leftists are completely useless wastes of carbon and every country where they come to power starts to swirl in the toilet bowl of history, so this probably won’t happen.

For leftists who are complaining about the bad economy, you need to take the long view. A free market economy does have a “boom and bust” cycle built in, although the Federal Reserve’s interference has distorted the cycle as well, but a command economy is all bust all the time, with chronic underemployment as the normal condition, as we seen in Western Europe and Scandinavia, extending all the way to active liquidation of individuals for the purposes of claiming their wealth for the state, as we saw in Russia and China. These are the only two possible endgames for a command economy, judging by the empirical history to-date. I’ve yet to see anyone explain why the Democrats’ version will end up differently, although it would be fascinating to hear an attempt at such a justification, since they are keen to implement the same structures as in other command economies. Of course, the number of people who understand the history and reasons behind the history are very small, so as long as leftists are willing to lie about the most likely outcomes of their plans, they can win elections.

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:30 am 32. Chris in Toronto:

To Bill Force:
Got any openings for a good Canadian creative? Sounds like I’d love to work with you!

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:34 am 33. Another View:

southdakotaboy:
Yeah that’s the way country first.

Alisa:
People judged G.W.Bush on his actions in office. And after stealing 2 elections. If you want the truth you can find it.

nj.
Please. The words may sting but they are addressing a certain group of people whose ideals are eschewed by race.I am not attacking Blacks. What I said does not hinder or oppress people. Racism is what you read between the lines of most of these post. I put RACE in your FACE.

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:39 am 34. FLMom:

I have a question for Pajamas Media

You have posted countless articles about defeat.

Why were we defeated?

Who should we blame for defeat?

How should we behave in defeat?

Is it worth getting out of bed in defeat?

Will coffee be as invigorating in defeat?

Ok, slight exaggeration, but when do we get past the talk of defeat?

This election changed the makeup of the power structure in Washington. But has it changed who we are as individuals? Is our ability to think for ourselves in any way dependent upon who is president, or who that president names to his cabinet?

Let us get past this talk of defeat and get about the business of defining conservatism for those who will never get a clear definition from their public school education.

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:40 am 35. Ken Hahn:

I have learned from the Democrats. They spent the last eight years in a national temper tantrum and as a result have won the last two elections. I plan to start mine January 20th.

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:41 am 36. sam:

Lily:
You are so funny. Let me tell to ask a Black man if the constitution is fatally flawed. During reconstruction Black populations rivaled White. Blacks had no representation. Why wouldn’t any Black person not want socialist change. Blacks have never been part of Capitalist America. They were not allowed or the wealth had been already horded and divided. Now they are just Consumers. 95% of all blacks have in this country before 80% of the Whites. So don’t think you speak for non immigrant Americans. Both Native and Black. But that’s the point you don’t seriously consider there arguments.That’s why the GOP is Done.

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:55 am 37. Jeff Weimer:

Sasm,

The reports of the GOP’s demise are greatly exaggerated. After all, it was 48% who voted GOP for President. I find it amusing to see all this when the election was so close. Bush won in 2004 51-49 and the country was declared “deeply divided”. How does 1% in the other direction make it any less so? Sure, the GOP has performed badly the last 8 years – GWB only found a veto pen since 2006, and they cynically tried to buy votes with earmarks and flat-out corruption. I don’t expect the Democrats to do any better – they’ve proven over and over again they really don’t believe “the most ethical Congress in history” line – witness the attempts to hide earmarks even deeper in the legislation than they already are. The GOP didn’t live up to it’s ideals, and paid for it the last two cycles. But it’s not dead any more than the Democrats were dead in 1980, 1994, 2000, 2002, 2004, or any other time any party has lost power.

Nov 22, 2008 - 9:19 am 38. Lily:

Dear Sam:

You need to educate yourself. Your sentences don’t make sense, and your logic is flawed.

Blacks can’t participate in the capitalistic society? Tell that to Oprah. Or Obama. Or Robert Johnson. Or Juan Williams. Or any number of educated, successful Black professionals.

Our historical treatment of Blacks was deplorable. But we have come a long way, and paid a price to get where we are. Enslaving all Americans to government is not the way to address historical wrongs. And policies that try to transfer the wealth of some to the minorities in this country will only hurt those they purport to help. As Winston Churchill stated, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.”

Nov 22, 2008 - 9:40 am 39. William Shipley:

There is currently a window of opportunity. If anyone asks if you are going to stand behind Obama because “He’s our president”, ask them if they currently stand behind George Bush because, he REALLY is our president. Obama is still president elect.

Nov 22, 2008 - 9:47 am 40. sam:

Lily;
The purpose of language is to provide a way to communicate and share ideas.

My education level has enabled me to live the life of the top 2%.

Don’t give me Oprah anomalies. There were also Black slave holders. The point is as a whole the Black community in America is living well below the poverty line. That community is living that way today due to those historical treatments. Show me where in history Blacks had a fair shot? So what incentives do Blacks have to believe in Capitalism? A handful of rich Blacks who don’t own anything(only Oprah). As a whole Blacks in this country would be better off if we had real socialism. That’s what you don’t understand. It is fact not opinion. And Dem policies address those issues more than land and resource hording Repubs. Just because your ancestors were struggling in the old country and are happy to be American doesn’t mean that experience is shared by all.

Churchill Quote? Why would any man of color respect a man who colonized most of Africa and India for western White wealth. You need a open minded education. Instead of that Christopher Columbus bull crap.

“Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it.”
Dr. John Henrik Clarke

Nov 22, 2008 - 10:22 am 41. sam:

Juan Williams is not American. He is Panamanian. After we destroyed their country he is happy to be working in the U.S. And any man of color on FOX is a “Sambo” anyway. Just like Ken Blackwell.

I did make some typos off the cuff, but that in no way reflects my intelligence or philosophy. Do you remember Diane Chambers from “Cheers”?

Nov 22, 2008 - 10:32 am 42. venividivici:

Sam,

You can’t possibly believe your point about socialism being better for blacks unless you are talking short-term. Over the long run, as you may or may not know, socialism destroys more wealth than it creates, unsurprisingly, since it locates the creation of wealth in the wrong place (”labor” in general, as opposed to “entrepreneurship”, which is a very specific type of labor). In the short run, the government can take all the wealth generated by entrepreneurs in the past and redistribute it to blacks, thereby improving their short-run situation, but that same government will then be impotent to create new wealth. This is the reasoning behind the maxim “The power to tax is the power to destroy”.

Here’s a black man who understands this, and gets no end of vituperation for his troubles, I’m sure:

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081102/OPINION03/811020312&imw=Y

Nov 22, 2008 - 10:39 am 43. Mike Wilson » Blog Archive » Rallying around That One:

[...] Rallying around That One Must Conservatives Rally Around The Messiah? [...]

Nov 22, 2008 - 10:41 am 44. cfbleachers:

Sam, I was with you until the stuff about how certain people are “prevented” from participation. Where, in the entirety of the world…is black participation on a wide scale basis of the ownership of which you speak?

The “white oppressor” is so powerful in history that he managed only to keep one race out of the game, is that it? Worldwide? Because clearly, folks from the Middle East, Far East, descendants of the conquistadors of Spain, all seem to have the ability to “get in the game”.

They come here, buy businesses, build companies, and participate “in the game”. How is that possible? Many of them with language barriers to overcome and clearly no advantage in terms of population identity. What allows that to happen?

And not “educating the people that they oppress”…you mean like getting into Columbia and Harvard Law School…like that?

Socialism is a disease that substitutes alibis and excuses to retain plantation politics on the left side of the spectrum. Black people excel when given a chance to compete in every endeavor they have tried and are left far behind when treated like children who need mollycoddling. Once we figure out how to get them to BELIEVE in the opportunities of getting in the game, we can stop trying to foist this claptrap socialism that has saddled them into staying on the sidelines for the last 40 years.

Socialism is the disease that has paralyzed them. It’s time to get up out of the wheelchair that the leftists have strapped them in…and get in the game. Here and now is the perfect opportunity to say “no more” to your pats on the head and crusts of bread…and making them genuflect at your benevolence.

Nov 22, 2008 - 10:42 am 45. Sherry:

Domestic Unity My Butt – DUMB!

Nov 22, 2008 - 10:55 am 46. SP_Immortal:

“Don’t give me Oprah anomalies. There were also Black slave holders. The point is as a whole the Black community in America is living well below the poverty line. That community is living that way today due to those historical treatments”

sam,

Your conclusions are obviously false since every country with a significant black population has a large percentage of them living below the poverty line. Anywhere in Europe, Latin America, etc. You name it.

Slavery has little or nothing to do with black poverty.

Nov 22, 2008 - 11:02 am 47. Tex Taylor:

I see that Obama and the MSM are already trying to set the bar of expectations incredibly low. Obviously, that way they can claim any shred of good news as a raving success. We continue to here the meme of ‘Depression’, two wars, division, [ad nauseam]. It’s the game the MSM has played since 1988.

I expect Pres. Obama and his cabinet to provide the same measure of security that the Bush Adm. has provided since 9/11. I expect health care to dramatically cover more folks without detrimentally impacting the 250MM already covered. I expect the tax breaks for 95% of the American public he guaranteed. I expect the unity that his ilk has promised {snicker}.

And Sam, when black children continue to be born out of wedlock at a rate of 70%, please find somebody else to blame besides the whites for the continuing problems – mostly inner city. You’re time for excuse is now over with.

Nov 22, 2008 - 11:02 am 48. cfbleachers:

I prefer Jonah Goldberg’s take on unity.

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/196/18484/?ck=1

However, I have absolutely no interest in mirroring the leftists puerile “he’s not my President” of the last 8 years. And the constant harangue based on anticipatory and imagined slights rather than real ones.

Don Quixote on angel dust behavior is not something I’m looking to emulate.

Nov 22, 2008 - 11:07 am 49. Federale:

I wonder where those “conservatives” will be when the Obama FCC starts censoring talk radio, when the Obama EEOC starts requiring bilingualism in government, when the Obama ATFE starts buring down churches, when the Obama USMS starts shooting dogs and children or “racists”, when the Obama FBI starts arresting anyone they disagree with for “hate” crimes; I won’t be “rallying” around an marxist and citizen of the world. I will be opposing everything he does and especially pointing out his hypocracy which has started at Sidwell Friends.

Nov 22, 2008 - 11:16 am 50. Lily:

Sam said, “There were also Black slave holders.”

Sam, the Black slave holders are all long dead. We cannot dig them up and make them pay for what they have done. You seek to punish the innocent for the sins of others. What about all those who gave their lives and fortunes to end slavery? Does America get no credit for the hard work it has done to make opportunity for all people? No country is perfect.

And Juan Williams proves that a black immigrant to American can make it, just as a native black has opportunity here. And what is this ‘Sambo’ business? Juan Williams is a respected member of the Fox journalistic community. I have always seen him treated with respect.

Poor people, regardless of their color, can make some level of success of their lives in American if they will work for it. The problem is, many don’t care to work for it. They seem to want to make others work for it; and they use their grievances to ‘guilt’ people into supporting their position. (I exempt from this judgment any who are truly unable to work due to severe physical and mental limitations)

Also, it wasn’t a few typos, which I would tend to overlook as I am guilty of this myself. Your sentences just didn’t make sense. Go back and read them.

Nov 22, 2008 - 11:20 am 51. Lily:

“Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it.”

But Sam, we are not educating our people. We are indoctrinating them to “think correctly”.

Nov 22, 2008 - 11:27 am 52. EyeDoc:

“This is precisely why we libertarians are so distrustful of our conservative partners. You conservs are just too damned polite. You’re afraid to call Obama what he really is; a Fascist. Look at his AG pick Holder; Anti-Gun, Anti-Free Speech, and the guy who sent little Elian Gonzalez back to Communist Cuba. Holder is an Authoritarian with a capitol ‘A’. But some Conservatives are too scared to call the guy a “Fascist.”

We libertarians are not afraid to call a spade a spade. Barack Hussein Obama is an outright Communist/Fascist. We hope you Conservatives get some cajones and join us in our denunciations of him.”

I hope so too, I’m just afraid it’s not going to happen. I already hear conservatives talking about how Obama should be able to appoint who he wishes to cabinet level positions, the courts etc. Well, in a perfect world I would agree with that. Except that the Democrats have been so maximally obstructionist for the past 25 years or so, fighting to block Republican nomination after Republican nomination that it would be absurd for us to roll over and let Obama appoint garbage like Eric Holder.

Nov 22, 2008 - 11:28 am 53. sam:

VVV
My point is with the given history of our nation, Socialism is not scary or unreasonable to the disenfranchised. Just look through those eyes.

Cfb
I am not condemning “White People”. Spain is European. The Far east is recovering. China is Flourishing. Now when the U.S. and all the European colonizers fully get out of Africa and leave all resources to the continent Then they too will Flourish.

Nov 22, 2008 - 11:28 am 54. "gunner":

we are now told, by the left that we need to “unite” behind their “messiah”. i respectfully direct their attention to the sprig of mistletoe pinned to my shirttail. i still remember my oath of enlistment in the armed forces many years ago, i did not swear allegiance to any person, but to the constitution, to protect and defend from all enemies, domestic and foreign. that oath still holds, though now it is a war of ideal against an ideology of leftist fascism and its soi disant “elite”. though kipling may be out of fashion these days i suggest reading “gods of the copybook headings”, “the old issue” and “mcdonough’s song” as instructive texts.

Nov 22, 2008 - 11:29 am 55. Q:

“Soon Barack Obama will be inaugurated as our president.”

This assumes that his actual birth certificate shows that he is a natural born citizen, which is something that those in Kenya have claimed is not the case with their being proud of his birth place there in Africa.

Nov 22, 2008 - 11:31 am 56. southdakotaboy:

Another View;

Yes i am putting country first with a little bit of tough love.
The reason we are seeing all the calls for “healing and bipartisanship” is because the left in this country knows exactly what will happen to them if they can’t get conservatives to cooperate. They just spent the last eight years doing it to the Republicans and Conservatives. The Democratic party and the left in this country have,for the last eight years, put Party and Ideology ahead of the welfare and security of this country. They did this knowingly and with premeditation because they were secure in the knowledge that conservatives could always be counted at the end of the day to work hard to make the country a success. It allowed them to get away with their bad behavior with no downside. That has come to an end. Oh many of the Republican big wigs will talk about getting along but the real heart of the conservative movement, the of millions of average guys like me aren’t going to play ball. We have come to the conclusion that this time the best way to teach you not to play with matches is to let the house burn down and leave you standing in the ashes.

Nov 22, 2008 - 11:41 am 57. fred:

#23 Alisa expresses exactly what I feel in the current situation. I hope that we conservatives can scathingly criticize when the situation and policy demand it, and politely refuse to behave like the boorish morons on the Left. We can be very critical of the new administration without being harmful to our nation. Honestly, I don’t want to behave like these people have for the past eight years. I have experienced, firsthand, how completely unfair these people can be – they don’t have open minds and they mock any attempt at a rational dialogue. And in the weblog world I have seen the shocking hauteur of the collectivists. They taunt, they’re flip, and often contribute nothing insightful or constructive. And I can completely understand why our servicemen hate their guts, plus the Big Media, whose coverage of the conflict has only brought aid and comfort to our enemies. No, imitation of treason is not the kind of flattery they deserve.

Nov 22, 2008 - 11:50 am 58. Pelosi, Reid & Trust (Your Liberty in the Regressive’s hands) « Zipline Conservative:

[...] http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/must-conservatives-rally-round-the-messiah/ Again, for what reason should conservatives rally round Obama? Will his policies benefit us or the “citizens of the world”? Furthermore, the man has accomplished nothing over the course of his entire career, but some fanatics now propose creating a national holiday in his honor. This is ludicrous and the hysteria that surrounds this unaccomplished man is baffling. [...]

Nov 22, 2008 - 12:20 pm 59. Jason S:

The ignorance of people like Sam, in this day and age, astounds me. There is now no excuse to be so willfully oblivious to the objective facts of history.

The question of whether or not capitalism has been a success is not conjecture, it is the empirical truth. No other force in human history has done more to raise general living standards. As an illustration, consider that in the centuries before the Industrial Revolution, average life expectancies barely rose at all. For thousands of years, the average human lived until the age of 25 or 30. In two hundred years after the Industrial Revolution, the average life expectancy of people in free capitalist countries more than doubled. This is without a shadow of a doubt the single greatest achievement of mankind so far.

We can make similar illustrations by looking at things like infant/child mortality rates. Capitalism slashed them to a tiny fraction of their former selves. In Britain before the Industrial Revolution, children were very lucky to live past ten years of age. Those who lived that long were extremely unlikely to experience a full stomach, even once. Children roamed the streets – they were filthy and diseased, they were thieves, vagabonds, child prostitutes. This was the “norm.”

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, these children had for the first time the opportunity to work in order that they may eat and survive. The fact of child labor in those days is not the stinging indictment of the “inhumanity” of capitalism the left claims it is. History is not a series of snapshots to be judged by today’s standards – it is a movie with a direction. When kids worked in factories, it was an *improvement* to their lives, not an atrocity.

In the early days of industry, technology was crude such that the productivity of one individual was very small. Since wage levels are and can only be determined by individual productivity, this meant that the kind of wages which could be earned in those days were very small. This is why parents had their kids work in factories. Their own wages were not enough to support the entire family. With their kids working too, they had for the first time in their lives a decent chance of survival. It is not a matter of chance that the birth of the Industrial Revolution coincided with the most significant population explosion in human history. People were having families that (shock, horror) *lived*. To denounce this process is to denounce human life.

Wage levels were able to increase not as a result of unions, or campaigners, but as a result of innovation in the means of production. Since wages come from revenue, the only way to increase them is to increase revenue. The only ways to increase revenue are to increase productivity, or increase consumer prices. The latter neutralizes the value of wages, so it can be seen that advances in productivity are the only possible way to increase wages. The left has always wrongly believed that wage increases are the result of socialists forcing greedy capitalists to give up more of their profits – this idea betrays the most fundamental ignorance of economics imaginable.

That capitalism has done more to improve our living standards than anything else in history is indisputable. That the left would have made it their business to do everything they could to attack and sabotage the process is disgraceful, but not surprising. They don’t see human life as the standard of value. Their ideological fantasies come first to them – and if human life improves by means of a different ideology, then human life be damned. For proof, observe the rivers of blood which flowed in the name of Marxism – and the left’s stubborn insistence that such a philosophy is more “human” than capitalism.

I would now like to take this opportunity to address the issue of capitalism and African Americans. The ignorant simpleton “Sam” asks, what has capitalism every done for black people – and why should they not support socialism?

The short answer is: capitalism freed black people from their chains – and socialism is nothing more than state slavery.

In case you weren’t aware, slavery was not a British or an American institution – it was a *human* institution which was the norm for thousands of years. Before the white man ever set foot upon Africa, the African slave trade flourished for at least two thousand years. Tribes like the Ashanti and many others roamed the continent, attacked villages and enslaved men and boys, mainly for sale to the Middle East. The African trade in humans was not a trivial matter of “indentured servitude” as many Afrocentric “scholars” will claim – it ran the full spectrum of slavery from indentured servitude to enforced labor all the way up to child sacrifice. Men and boys were frequently castrated before their passage to the Middle East – most died in the process. Unlike American slaves, they weren’t permitted to raise families.

So then the white man bought slaves from the African traders, too. This was a shameful part of our history and should never, ever be justified or trivialized. But neither should the truth be suppressed: Britain and America practiced slavery for the shortest period of anyone else who practiced it – and they quickly realized that it was a practice that should be ended. The British and American governments mobilized their entire navies, at tremendous cost to themselves, in order that the world slave trade be stopped. In this, they were incredibly successful. Nobody has done more in history to eradicate slavery. They set up colonies for freed slaves in Africa – Liberia, for instance – and their greatest opposition came from Africans who made their living from slavery and who frequently attacked the colonies and re-enslaved innocent Africans.

But where does capitalism come into all of this? Well, the rise of the Industrial Revolution quickly meant that slave labor, as a means of production, was made obsolete. Slavery was never an efficient means of production. Unpaid slaves will only ever do the minimum necessary to prevent being whipped. There is only so much you can physically beat a human being before you make them unable to work anyway. Not only that, in terms of a cost of production, slaves are very expensive and you have to feed and clothe them. The advent of factories and machines meant a more efficient means of production and to hire free individuals on a wage was cheaper than buying slaves, who had high maintenance costs and were not inspired to work to any high standard.

The progress of African Americans in a country in which they started as slaves was never going to be an overnight affair. Nobody is denying that blacks in America haven’t had a rough time – of course they have. But capitalism has done more to improve their standards of living than anything else. Certainly, even poor blacks in America have access to higher living standards than do their counterparts anywhere else in the world.

Up until the 60’s, even with the reality of racism and segregation, African Americans were on the right track. At that time, blacks had extremely strong family values, a huge willingness to become educated (after being denied the privilege for so long), a very strong work ethic and relatively low crime rates. So what happened? I’ll tell you: socialist radicalism happened. Cue the late 60’s, cue the 70’s. The scourges of Marx-inspired black separatism ravaged the African American landscape and took few prisoners. Aided and abetted by demented white leftist radicals, the likes of Huey Newton and Elaine Brown sowed the seeds of a cult of destruction and failure which continues in the ghettos to this day. Rational human goals like learning marketable skills and pursuing a career were shunned as “acting white” – the only “authentic” way for blacks to behave, according to this ideology, was to reject all “white” values and to limit education to things like Afrocentric history and the politics of racial identity. Do I even need to point out that the introduction of this left wing culture into the psyche of black America, along with the proliferation of leftist liberal social policy, perfectly coincides with the rise in illegitimate births, the breakup of the family unit, drug abuse, violent crime, murder, academic failure, mass unemployment, alienation and despondency? The connection is there to see for anyone with two ears, two ears and a brain capable of integrating perceptions into a rational hierarchy of concepts.

Socialism is a crude form of tribalism in which the individual is enslaved to the collective. It is the antithesis of individual freedom and as such, support of it among black Americans is both ironic and tragic.

Capitalism has done more for blacks in America than anything else. More than a thousand Al Sharptons, Jesse Jacksons or Louis Farrakhans. Reagan perhaps did more than any other President in history to improve the financial situation of African Americans. During his Presidency, blacks enjoyed higher entry to the middle classes, higher gains in wages and higher rises in the revenues of black businesses than under any other administration. More blacks were taken out of poverty during the Reagan years than any others. Black poverty rose under Carter and fell under Reagan. That’s all you need to know.

The reason why the left’s call for “unity” and blind agreement from the right will never work is because right and left operate on such a fundamentally different set of premises that agreement for the sake of unity necessitates a betrayal of fundamental principles and thus requires that the right winger discard his or her own integrity. The trouble is that the left sees anyone who disagrees with them as “mean” or “evil.” After all, what kind of “monster” could possibly disagree with socialized health care? The answer lies in the fact that there is more to the issue, there is ALWAYS more to the issue than simply “caring.” There is the belief that a greater standard of well being will be achieved not by state dependence but by individual responsibility. It’s not that the right “cares less” about the well being of humans, it’s just that they have fundamental agreements on the best way to achieve those goals.

The trouble with the left is that they are notoriously reluctant to expose themselves to the arguments behind the ideology of “the other side.” As an example, of all the pro-capitalist right wing/libertarian types that I know and am acquainted with, most have at some time or another sat down and tackled the literature of the left – they’ve read Das Kapital, the Communist Manifesto, they’ve been exposed to pro-socialist and pro-Marxist arguments from their college professors, they’ve endured a lifetime of immersion in a popular culture and a media which promotes this ideology endlessly. But few and far between are the leftists who have sat down and studied the finer points of Mises, Hayek, Hazlitt or Rand. What opinions they do hold have come to them not from reading “The Road to Serfdom” or “Capitalism – the Unknown Ideal” but instead have come to them third or fourth-hand via academics (many of whom themselves have come to pick up opinions in this way without reading the books) and articles and blogs. Much of their objection comes in the form of emotive pleas: “Oh *come on*! You don’t really *believe* that nonsense do you?”

I’ve watched Democrats talk about the Auto bailout on TV recently. They refuse to consider the most basic of unavoidable facts – like the issue of unionized labor costs, which cripple the industry. Their answer is invariable “Let’s not blame the workers. The workers just want what’s best for their families, let’s not make them a scapegoat here, when the real issue is…blah blah greed, blah blah health care…blah blah…”

It’s this devotion to blind, emotive ideology in full defiance of and evasion from basic facts, which means that I can never succumb to the leftist mode of thinking just for the sake of “unity.” Other posters here are right: unity be damned. If I went along with the socialistic claptrap of the left, I would lose my self esteem and integrity. NEVER compromise your principles to those who have made no attempt to understand them. NEVER.

Nov 22, 2008 - 12:22 pm 60. steeple:

Sam,I’m highly confident that the European colonizers are long gone from Zimbabwe. How is that turning out?

The Left is going to find out that there aren’t going to be excuses to hide behind any more. A lot of people need to get ready to find out what the term Personal Responsibility means.

Nov 22, 2008 - 12:24 pm 61. Ennis:

southdakotaboy,

“The Democratic party and the left in this country have,for the last eight years, put Party and Ideology ahead of the welfare and security of this country. They did this knowingly and with premeditation because they were secure in the knowledge that conservatives could always be counted at the end of the day to work hard to make the country a success. It allowed them to get away with their bad behavior with no downside. That has come to an end.”

BINGO! We have a winner!

I am just turning my back on them and walking away, so are alot of people I know. In the end they need us much, much more then we need them.

Nov 22, 2008 - 12:30 pm 62. venividivici:

Sam,

I agree that down and out people will believe in socialist lies and prefer it to their current reality. But, even someone down and out needs to take a moment to reflect on the long-term consequences of the short-term decisions they make. Even if the educational system gets nothing across to people other than the fact that short-term gain can equal long-term pain (whether it be unprotected sex that leads to an unplanned pregnancy or socialism that puts capital that should be used for investment into service as current consumption), then they’ve succeeded in producing an “educated” person. That they can’t even get this right doesn’t speak to highly of the education establishment.

In Russia, the process of going from socialist promises to bankruptcy took a mere 70 years and that was in a day and age when capital was much less mobile. The US will become a backwater under Obamanomics in less than a quarter-century, I suppose, given capital’s increased mobility. What do you think the stock market is saying since the election? It is saying that the future under Obama is bleak, that’s what it’s saying. Once capital has fled, blacks, whites and all the other assorted true believers in the socialist fairy tale can turn on each other until you go bankrupt just like Russia did, because all of the people who had capital or desirable skills will have high-tailed it to the Far East or Africa, both of which are now embracing capitalism at a phenomenal rate, having already had their dalliance with socialism.

Nov 22, 2008 - 1:13 pm 63. bill force:

Chris in Toronto,

Track me down. I’m in Illinois. We’ll talk.

Nov 22, 2008 - 1:19 pm 64. dragonfly:

UNITY is a socialist catchword. “Workers of the world – UNITE”. When a doctrinaire socialist like Obama talks about unity he means, “Agree with me and we’ll all get along …or else”, unlike LBJ’s. “Come, let us reason together”. Being united in serfdom does not appeal to well over 50% of our electorate, including quite a few who voted out of Bush-hatred.

Those who believe that America is ready to placidly accept Euro-style Socialism are due for a lesson. fillibuster-free or not.

Nov 22, 2008 - 1:38 pm 65. Bill Wolf:

Great sniveling. Yep, smears, lies and whimpering hyperbole are bound to win the American electorate back. Keep up the good work!

Nov 22, 2008 - 1:54 pm 66. Arthur:

i thought one of our problems with politics, the economy, and the environment right now is that almost everyone is more or less required by law or the dynamics of business or life to only think of the short term gains.

people can be stubborn and dig in their heels, but if the public sees anyone NOT working for their benefit during this economy more wrath will come in the voting both. left and right idology means nothing right now, people of this country need help, and are demanding action.

Nov 22, 2008 - 1:58 pm 67. Chuck Pelto:

TO: All
RE: Bill Wolf

Great sniveling. Yep, smears, lies and whimpering hyperbole are bound to win the American electorate back. Keep up the good work! — Bill Wolf

Obviously, Mr. Wolf is appropriately named, being a shill for the Left which used EXACTLY the tools he describes to win the last General Election.

So, equally obvious is his hope that others wouldn’t adopt and imitate their successful techniques.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Imitation is the highest form of flattery.]

Nov 22, 2008 - 2:02 pm 68. Rocky5usa:

Let’s give Obama a chance…….a chance to let everyone see what he’s really good for. The fact that a negro has been elected to the highest position in our land has now eliminated the term “racist” that has always been directed toward Caucasians by colored people. They can’t blame “The Man” anymore because “The Man” is a negro. Now, satire, jabs and jokes (and maybe even the Truth)can now be directed to those who like to call themselves African, and let’s see if they can take it, for a change. This monumental happening of a non-Caucasian being elected by the majority of all who voted (maybe more than once or twice) is a tribute to their knowledge and mentality of the issues and the candidates. I commend all of you and wish you luck with your increased free monthly checks and tax free income. What a country!

Nov 22, 2008 - 2:03 pm 69. John:

I am a slightly-left-of-center Independent. I am also a soldier in the United States Army. And I voted for Barack Obama. Jason S. talked about how horrible Socialism is and how wonderfully fabulous Capitalism is. My opinion is that either of them alone would be devastating to this country. Pure Socialism leads to a lack of personal freedom to choose how money is attained and spent/saved. Pure Capitalism (Social Darwinism) leads to the poverty and likely death of a large portion of the population. The only way this country can maintain the individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is by maintaining a state of relative equilibrium between Capitalism and Socialism. We need to preserve the right to amass personal wealth, the right to use your money how you wish. We also need to ensure that programs are in place to give financial assistance to those in need. So, my advice to all of you is to never stop complaining about your opposition, pushing your political and social agendas, or writing to your representatives. Because by doing so you are ensuring that a relative equilibrium is sustained.

One more thing. Please don’t confuse Capitalism vs. Socialism for Freedom vs. Oppression. Socialism and Capitalism are types of financial systems, so they do not necessarily lead to the governmental types you may think. Open up your minds. All points of view deserve respect.

Nov 22, 2008 - 2:10 pm 70. Anette Engel:

My, my. What excessive vitriol. Is it my imagination or are you an extremely poor sport and bad loser? Obama has done nothing more in these less than 3 weeks since the election than start assembling his staff. He is way ahead of his last two predecessors. He’s been open, friendly and sensitive to his public. Don’t see anything wrong here so what IS your problem. You had your 8 years and what a mess they have turned into. Control your sour grapes and allow this gifted, thoughtful man to work before you attack him. As far as “the ONE” garbage, that is so right wing. No Obama fan confuses him with the Savior, although they might hope and believe that he has the smarts and ethics to be a profoundly successful emissary of change in a country that is begging for it. Hold on to your britches, enjoy the ride and you might be like me someday, a true RINO!!!!! And I just might head down to the courthouse and change my party affiliation. The one I still have, in name only, really doesn’t fit anymore. I will add that you are a clever writer, but your content sucks.

Nov 22, 2008 - 2:26 pm 71. Portland Liberal:

you folks sound like a huge bunch of whiners! Please be obstructionist- get in the way of a moderate democrat trying to do WHAT HE WAS ELECTED TO DO, namely fix what y’all broke: the economy, the Bill of Rights, our global standing as a leader. Fight to keep Gitmo open, fight the reworking of treasury regulations- appeal only to your base- please. It will insure that you look like a bunch of obstructionists that you really are and insure democratic majorities for the next 20 years.

When you get the economy back in 2028, please dont break it like you did last time ok?

Thanks

Nov 22, 2008 - 2:29 pm 72. Proud Again:

You Republicans just don’t get. Instead of blaming the “media” ( do you include Fox News and other shrill shills of Neo-con talk radio?) you need to look at what has happened to this country under 10 years of largely Republican governance. We have seen trillions of $s destroyed by reduced prudential regulation, billions and 4000+ lives wasted on an unnecessary and unjustified war in Iraq, deteriorating results in Afghanistan where we should be successfully fighting our real enemy. A 100% increase in the deficit ( this from a party which espouses financial discipline??), reduced human rights both here and abroad, a collapsing healthcare system ( over 25% of our people don’t have it, we rank 29th worldwide in infant mortality, Europe and other developed nations provide the same or better adult life expectancies at 25% of the cost in the US), declining education quality ( our kids rank only in the mid-high 20’s maths and science scores. Our international reputation has soured significantly, we espouse creating democracies while most of our Allies in the middle east are either dictatorships or Monarchies (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt etc.) that we come across as hypocrites. We have seen the destruction of many corporate household names, Worldcom, Enron, Merril Lynch, and Lehman to name a few; Citi, AIG, and the 3 domestic automakers are almost there . The flight of capital markets fom Wall Street to London and others is accelerating. London is already a larger bond market than NYC. THe USD will lose its influence to the Euro and Yen. The USA has been living on foreign credit for too long and now we are paying the price. The USA will never get back to the dominant position we had before. All of this has happened while the Republican Party has been in power. What you miss is that everytime you evade the REAL issues and blame the media you insult the intelligence of the American people. People are just not that stupid and that is why the Democrats won the election. The Republican Party has shrunk to one where its main supporters are Neo-con,God and Guns, uneducated, Southern whites (analyse the polling results). The Democrats correctly identified the issues and provided acceptable solutions. That’s why they won. Until the Republicans can attract the center they’ll feel like they live in Siberia. While they all speak with a Southern accent and espouse their failed conservative philosophies it simply will not happen.
How about some honesty for a change instead of the neo-con spin which failed so dismally in this recent election.

Nov 22, 2008 - 2:44 pm 73. Kimme:

Wow ,you people are nuts! Why do you feel that only the dems who voted for Obama are going to be the ones who suffer if the country fails? I’m not saying that you blindly have to follow Obama or his policies, but to purposely try to undermine the country because you’re upset that he won??(southdakotaboy) No one is gonna get a free pass from the failures of the country simply because they can say “I’m a registered republican”. Please don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. If you don’t want to support the man then by all means, don’t. But what do you think will be served by tryin to make sure that his presidency is a failure?

Nov 22, 2008 - 2:50 pm 74. zeppenwolf:

Obama won, (I hesitate to add “fair and square, since we’ll never know how effective ACORN and other voter fraud efforts were).

And this IS my country, ergo, he IS my president.

So, no– I won’t descend to the level of the bed-wetting liberals who told us for eight years that, since their guy lost, they had every right to simply reject the entire “democracy” thing, because obviously it wasn’t working, etc…

At the same time, I will NEVER join the Charlie Brown Republicans in thinking that there is some future benefit to being generous with liberals, (remember the Gang of 14? Or do you really need examples anyhow?!?) I hope against all hope that Obama pushes an effective, centrist policy for the next four– this is my country.

But I won’t hesitate to call a sp… er… a duck a duck. So when he tries to shut down talk radio, or when he decides to sign the LOTS treaty, or when he wants to grant amnesty to every warm body that ever crossed the border…

You see? It’s really very simple to be a conservative. There IS a line– just determine where it’s drawn.

Nov 22, 2008 - 2:52 pm 75. venividivici:

Hey portland loser,

How does it feel to be part of the segment of the population that’s a bunch of losers who need the government to subsidize their consumption? Wouldn’t you rather be a real man and earn your way in life, rather than sucking at the teat of your betters?

I plan on supporting the obstruction of everything Obama wants to do that doesn’t advance the cause of individual freedom and free markets and I make no apologies for doing so. Any supposed “solution” to the problems the country faces that doesn’t advance those two agenda items is a pseudo-solution.

Nov 22, 2008 - 3:08 pm 76. CD:

Which of President-Elect Obama’s policies do you conservatives disagree with and why? What would you suggest instead?

Nov 22, 2008 - 3:09 pm 77. Geoyce Chatman:

I am a liberal and an African-American who feels totally left out because I didn’t drink the Kool-Aid and fall in behind Obama’s followers. I’ve been told by conervative friends that I am more of a conservative than I think (I was reared by my conservative grandmother, so maybe I do have conservatism in my blood). It must be true because I want to kiss you for writing this! I hope you know you’re goinjg to be on the new President’s “hit list” along with his other detractors. I expect to be there, too, due to my column “Chit-Chat” in which I’ve opposed him since he was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey. (I’m pasting that one at the end of this comment.)Thanks for your clarity and sanity. I plan to keep reading you for the next year or so – I believe our new President is psychologically imbalanced and will have a meltdown by then: I think this man is a narcissitic megalomaniac who is more dangerous than anyone can imagine. Just my opinion, but I do have a background as a behaviorist. Thanks again.

CHIT-CHAT by Geoyce Chatman
© 9/13/2007, gjc
The OOPS Factor: Oprah-Obama, Political Suicide
Barak Obama’s endorsement by billionaire TV star Oprah Winfrey may make it difficult for him to continue in the role of “man of the people.” Sure Oprah is perceived as the warm, shoulder everybody wants to cry on, but she’s no more the middle class soccer mom than George Bush is the good ol’ boy buying drinks for his buddies at the neighborhood bar. Perhaps that explains the President’s appearance on Oprah’s show just before the 2004 election: two posers making nice for a TV audience full of voters and viewers, their “raisons d’etre,” respectively. But back to Obama. Say Oprah pulls it off and gets her man in the White House (remember, first he has to get the nomination as the Democrats’ candidate). What will she get out of it? Probably nothing more than the satisfaction of being a kingmaker, that rarest of powerbrokers who can select heads of state. Regardless of whether true or not, people would probably think that the Big O owned a President she single-handedly put in office (and there’s a little thing call an election that has always been a factor in choosing U.S. Presidents – well, until the last two, anyway, if you ask certain disgruntled parties, including yours truly). One more politician at the beck and call of Big Business. Make no mistake about it, with HARPO Productions, her magazine and other interests, Oprah is BIG Business with three capital B’s, and that last one stands for the billions she’s worth. Just as veepee Cheney has been viewed as the political pawn of Halliburton, Obama could very well be viewed as Oprah’s “Man in the Big House” should he get elected President. Although, close association with a corporate giant hasn’t hurt Mr. Cheney, despite all of the negative press. So Obama might survive the cheap shots about being bought and paid for by a TV star. But what about the feminists and other assorted women’s factions? Will Obama lose the support of women if he takes away our only hope of having a woman for President? Don’t get me wrong. As an African-American female, I am thrilled to have both an African-American and a woman vying for the top job in our government. Actually, as a proponent of laying claim to our unique heritage of having roots in Africa and descending from African slaves, their white owners and Native tribes, I think Obama is representative of this unique mixture of races that I call AfrAm (a blending of the words African and American in the tradition of the language created by African slaves). Although his connections with slavery aren’t as extensive as most of those born here, since he is only one generation removed from Africa (I understand some of his mother’s ancestors owned slaves), he is, like us, a blend of cultures, ethnicities and races; which makes him very American. But we could have a woman for President! I would have bet that Oprah would have put her influence and money behind the first viable woman candidate for the office, since she has been a champion for women’s issues all these years. Perhaps she can prevail on Obama to choose a female running mate if he gets the nomination. I guess she could take that spot, but I’m not sure she can stand up to the pressure of running for office in this country. One weepfest and she’s history! No, he’d be better off choosing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (the first woman speaker!) or his worth opponent, Senator Hillary Clinton – that is if either of these formidable women would assent to being his second in command. Perhaps, he should cross party lines and choose a woman who seems to be content standing in the shadow of a powerful man, Condoleeza Rice. At any rate, Oprah’s endorsement of Obama does present a variety of possible problems, any of which could cost him the nomination, or, should he wrangle that, the election. Think about it. The majority of American voters are women. It’s rather doubtful that even Ms. “I’m Every Woman” can convince her network of sisters, survivors, big losers and book lovers to vote for any man, even one as charismatic as Obama, when they could put a woman in the White House – finally! OOPS! Nice try, Oprah. Maybe you should have backed Hillary.

Nov 22, 2008 - 3:11 pm 78. Liberalscum:

Sour Grapes much? Enjoy your next few years of shrill whining, I’ll be tuning it out, much like the rest of America already has. How about you spend some time trying to understand the failure of your ideas rather than BAWING all over my internets!

Nov 22, 2008 - 3:13 pm 79. xeke:

You Republicans have been pouting ever since Clinton came along and derailed the “Reagan Revolution,” which like the Third Reich, was supposed to last a thousand years (or so, if the USA lasts that long). George Bush came along after a term and a half as governor of Texas, a position that has about as much actual power as the Queen of England, thinking himself fit to be in a position of real power and decision making and fooling enough other Americans to think so to and vote for him. Despite his promises he did nothing to engage and involve his opponents in government decisions, despite what all you Republican whiners have said about Democrats trying to subvert his plans. He did not reach out to Democrats and others, get it? You controlled both houses, remember? And cut off filibusters whenever you wanted to, which was always. The press gave Bush a free ride in 2000, just as you accuse the press of doing with Obama this. And don’t deny it, because it’s true — go back and read the news and watch the video of the day. I don’t care if Lush Rumbaugh says otherwise; Lush is a hillbilly heroin addict who trades wives like his silk underwear. And while we’re at it, Karl Rove is an admitted agnostic who thinks Christians are chumps to be exploited for their votes. And for all his talk, Reagan never went to church and let his wife plan his schedule by conferring with her astrologer about important event days.

For your information, America is already an economic backwater, thanks to Reaganomics and Bushonomics. And for the last eight years, the Republicans have put Party and Ideology ahead of the welfare and security of this country.

As far as socialism and redistribution of wealth goes, WTH do you call Reagan’s earned income credit?

And as far as the supposed beauties of capitalism, why do we have regulatory agencies like the FDA? Because capitalists were killing Americans with their defective products. The railroad magnates fought for decades against air brakes and all-steel railcars because their profits were more important than passenger or employee lives.

You folks need to read some unvarnished history, not the crap that Lush might tell you to read.

Quit whining and pitch in. We put up with 8 years of your party’s brilliant leadership without any threats of revolution or lynching.

Nov 22, 2008 - 3:13 pm 80. David Scott-Donelan:

No, I can never ‘rally around’ a man who does not represent a single thing I believe in. People follow leaders they have faith in and can trust. How can I have faith in somebody who has had sealed every document having bearing on his entire life? (Shame on you Republican Governor Lingle of Hawaii for sealing his Birth Certificate. Are you now a fellow traveler now?) He spouts the empty words “Change we can believe in.” What a joke when he himself has never given anything of himself that is believable? God Help America now we have become part of the Third World!

Nov 22, 2008 - 3:15 pm 81. fred:

The thing I like about weblogs like PJM is that they allow people like Sam, Kimme, Proud Again, Portland Liberal, and Anette Engel to post their opinions and without a concern that those missives will be deleted, as are conservative posts over in the Leftist weblogs. In fact, often conservatives are then banned over in the Left blogs. So much for tolerance of other opinions.

We’re too nice to these people and their candidates. They know it too. They count on our good graces and the fact that we are faithful to our ideals. Make no mistake about it: they are here in order to wage a kind of weblog war with us, trying to dispirit and discourage us. When I read their opinions I find that they are not really trying to put their best foot forward and try to convert us to their beliefs in Euro-socialism or whatever. They are just here to mock us. That is all. The best thing for our cause is to just allow them to continue to do this, so that everyone can see what their mettle is.

Nov 22, 2008 - 3:23 pm 82. Roy M:

Geoyce,

Geneva Chapman is credited as the article’s author here http://www.thetruthtoledo.com/story/2007/Sept19-07/OOPS.htm

Why is that?

Nov 22, 2008 - 3:36 pm 83. Jack:

I quite understand why an opponent of Obama like the author of this article would say no to a request for unity from the other side. But to say no at such length…well, it seems strange. Maybe this is just another opportunity to call Obama a socialist. But why not just attack Obama, without the pretense that some imaginary friends set him off by asking him to do some kumbaya. One shouldn’t get too excited when the winning nominee calls for unity. They all do it, even the Presidents he likes.

Nov 22, 2008 - 3:43 pm 84. venividivici:

xeke,

It’s funny you mention regulation and capitalism and “unvarnished history” because I was just reading this book review on that very topic.

http://reason.com/news/show/129994.html

Please provide factual refutations of the reviewer’s points, since you seem to think the facts are on your side.

As for the US being a “backwater” (my word, obviously picked up by you in your post), hardly. You do realize that one of the main reasons stock markets around the world are crashing is because US consumers can no longer afford the imported goods that are the main livelihood of many a country’s manufacturing base, right? That makes us the opposite of a backwater, as of right now. We will become a backwater if we pursue inane policies that discourage capital formation and innovation.

And I am not going to “pitch in” where I don’t see value being created and trying to browbeat me into doing so will fail. If you want me to “pitch in” pursue the correct policies. Otherwise, you’re on your own (of course, the tax dollars I pay will fund your stupid policies anyway, but expecting me to like it is like expecting me to enjoy a sh*t sandwich).

Finally, please tell me that your crack about Bush not being qualified because he was governor of Texas was a joke because that same point applies about 100-fold for Obama, who never ran anything larger than a non-profit organization trying to “reform” Chicago’s schools (where, by the way, about 1 student a week is shot, so, great job, Obama! You really outdid yourself.)

Nov 22, 2008 - 3:44 pm 85. Jack:

One other thing: the biased media thingy. I’ve been hearing about the biased media for decades now. Even the left complains. Let’s assume the media is biased. The right’s mere bitching about it hasn’t done much good, judging by the continuous complaints by the media bashers. So, maybe it’s time the right figures out a plan. Otherwise, you’ll continue to lose and blame the media for it, but continue to lose. Ya’ want that?

Nov 22, 2008 - 3:48 pm 86. Chuck Pelto:

TO: Anette Engel
RE: Are You…

My, my. What excessive vitriol. Is it my imagination or are you an extremely poor sport and bad loser? — Anette Engel

….trolling from Kos Kidz? Because you sound like you’re another version of one of their ilk who’ve been behaving JUST the way you’re accusing a number of posters here behaving, these previous eight years.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
P.S. At least the people complaining here aren’t dropping the F-bomb as frequently as those children over at Kos did.

Nov 22, 2008 - 3:49 pm 87. Joe:

Hard to win an election you cannot rig, isn’t it? When the people on the progressive side of life win, you knuckleheads rant on about leftists, Marxists and socialists. Talk about your isms! Remember when you called Gore a sore loser? Well as Ronnie Reagan once said, “There you go again”. Your words are coming back around. Calling names and we haven’t even gotten the smell out of the White House yet! Did you ever think that maybe your ideas after a 30 year trial have now proven to be worthless and have led us to the brink of the possible disasters we face nationally and internationally? Nah, that would require an open, dare I say, progressive mind. You lost this time. Get over it and get over yourselves.

Nov 22, 2008 - 4:07 pm 88. Harry:

What a crock . . . . since the right decided to make White House BJs their national agenda in the 90’s, the level of morality descended to a near loss of our nation’s proud heritage and position on this earth . . . the lies, the fog, the distractions, the corruption of language and values, the cynicism is and was so corrosive that it has brought us to this . . . . a failing, crashing economy, derision and loss of power in the world, and rejection of and by the populous . . . you guys are great . . . keep up the good work and continue to ignore the reality of a bankrupt, backward, self-destructive set of core beliefs . . . how can you aspire to less intrusive government and want to dictate personal and private medical decisions . . . . how can you be pro-life as a well as pro capital punishment . . . what would Jesus do . . . bomb, bomb, bomb . . . while you scream about the left, you are and will be left . . . diminished, and marginalized on your own petard . . . . stick with Rush and Newt while the world and your proud nation moves forward, sweeping away the damage, deceit, division and death you have wrought all in the name of the Right.
God Bless buddies, my fellow fallen Americans, you’ve no one to blame but yourselves and the inherent contradictions at the very core of a bankrupt credo.

Nov 22, 2008 - 4:19 pm 89. Obamaniac:

Dear conservatives,

Our new messiah will restore America to greatness with or without your help. Here in the most prosperous country in the world and we have enough that we could decide to feed everybody and let none go hungry. We have to agree on certain standards of society and embrace the philosophy of humanism that the first messiah mandated in the new testament. The 53 percent of us have been motivated by Him and when all of His surfs work together, pushing in the same direction for the same goals we can move mountains. Get on board and help push or stand on that mountain and be moved. Affordable health care and compassionate government for all!

Nov 22, 2008 - 4:35 pm 90. southdakotaboy:

Kimme;

Here is the deal, yes Libs will suffer more than Conservatives when this whole thing goes south. The thing you don’t seem to get is that don’t count on the Government taking care of them so if the Government fails it will not hurt us as much. Second much of the conservative base is rural while most of the lib base is urban. Urban areas are very fragil things, they are artifical constructs. Not to call you a rat but do you know what happens when scientist put to many rats in a cage and then cut back on the food and water? Not pretty! That is what is going to happen under Old Big Ear’s administration.
I’ve got land, most people who are conservatives do we can plant gardens (in my case lets call them fields) and do all sorts of things to help cut costs and get by. We also tend to have savings built up so that we can survive hard times better than you can.
Several years ago right around Thanksgiving a massive ice storm swept through South Dakota it dropped over 3/4 of an inch of ice on us. It completely knocked out power for over a week in most of the towns and close to a month out in the country side. You know what we were just fine, out of roughly 700,000 people we had a handful of elderly deaths mostly do to heart attacks (old men who tried to dig themselves out). We carried on and laughed about the inconvinience(sp?). The point of this is that we easliy dealt with a massive infrastructure failure in winter time by ourselves the question is would you be able to?
I think it is safe to say that yes both Republicans and Democrats would be effected by a massive economic collapse but were we would find it a hardship you libs would find it life altering.

Nov 22, 2008 - 4:43 pm 91. venividivici:

Joe,

How have “conservative ideas” been given a 30-year trial when the government is bigger now than it was 30 years ago and is about the same percentage of GDP as it was 30 years ago?

A 30 year trial of conservative ideas would have meant that the government was shrinking, at least on a percentage basis, if not on an absolute basis.

Once again, a leftist who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. What a shock!

Nov 22, 2008 - 5:02 pm 92. Ventrue:

You’ll pardon my further allusion to the Charlie Brown analogy when I say here “Good grief….”

Can you Sore Losermen at least hold your bile until Obama is actually inaugurated ,let alone have the chance to royally screw something up? I mean, it’s not like he had his father’s operatives on the USSC intervene on his behalf in a state election recount or, ahem, “misrepresented” this nation into a war based upon, shall we say, dubious intelligence.

There are legitimate reasons why the left behaved as it did the past eight years, and the more honest souls among you are proving that you are, at best, no better than they were. What you saw in 2006 and 2008 would have happened in 2002 and 2004 respectively had it not been for the events of 9/11….after which, you will recall, the president enjoyed an approval rating of better than 90%. Some of that number necessarily had to include some of the very same liberals you now revile. Conversely, once it became clear that the stated objective of Gulf War II was found to be a pipe dream, better than sixty percent of the populace turned against it.

Hmmmm, let’s see now….estimates of the number of Americans who consider themselves liberal tops out at about one in four. Near as I can reckon, that means there are a lot of independents and gasp, dare I say it, even conservatives who also have come to question the motives of Fearless Leader.

Total control means total accountability. It did for Republicans. It will for Democrats. You will have at least until 2013 for the opportunity to legitimately criticize the incoming administration…..that is, IF that opportunity arises. Until then, you simply look and sound like sniveling children who have come to discover that leadership is a privilege….not an entitlement. As I hear tell, you guys really hate those things anyway, eh what?

Of course now, speaking from a position of pure political selfishness, if you wish to keep reminding the better half of the American electorate of what it is about you they find so nauseating, please, by all means…..knock yourselves out.

Nov 22, 2008 - 5:40 pm 93. fred:

Ventrue,

Do you know what BDS (Bush Derangement Synrdrome) is?

Nov 22, 2008 - 5:56 pm 94. cfbleachers:

There are legitimate reasons why the left behaved as it did the past eight years, and the more honest souls among you are proving that you are, at best, no better than they were

Not quite sure I understand this sentence fragment. But, guys…if ever there was a reason to not emulate an ayershole, this pretty much sums it up.

There are NO “legitimate reasons” for the behavior alluded to here, then or now.

And I don’t know who is “honest” and who isn’t, but I know a jerk when I see one. Do you really want to emulate them?

Nov 22, 2008 - 5:57 pm 95. fred:

cfbleachers,

The respondent you’ve referred to (”Ventrue”)in #93 composed a missive of awkward English constructions. He is either (a)a younger American who was educated during the last three decades, or (b) a foreigner for whom English is not his primary language.

No matter. Much of it is a taunt devoid of substance. I scanned it and came to the conclusion that he does not have a clue as to how badly the Left has behaved during the last eight years.

Lastly, polls intended to pry out of Americans where they are on the political spectrum are suspect. Some people do not tell the truth. Some are in denial about their true views, culled from their underlying feelings (and FEELING, not thought seems to be where people respond most deeply to the political war going on inside the country). And some people do not really know what a Leftist is, what a moderate is, or even what a conservative is. Some people call themselves conservatives when they are not. I think the actual number of people who are more towards the collectivist side of the spectrum is a lot higher than people think it is.

Nov 22, 2008 - 6:33 pm 96. Militant-Infidel:

As a died-in-the-wool Libertarian (yes with a big L), I don’t plan on being reserved with the “I told you so”’s in the future. I do plan on being proactive and individualistically self centered with regard to my own finances. If it means I can avoid paying income tax on my earnings by working less as a W-2 or 1099 employee, and doing the jobs I would normally hire another to do, I will gladly take the reduction in income. Fortunately, my job is flexible, and the government takes the hit, not only from less taxes from me but also those whom I would otherwise employ. Every financial decision I make from now on will be geared to “stop feeding the beast”. All possible transactions will be for barter. Instead of going to the local feed store, I will barter with the local farmers off the books. I know that from a purely economic perspective, this is a misallocation of resources since “productivity” would be higher by working at my job, than doing the “chores”. Nonetheless, rule #1 of economics states that an individual acts in his own best interest, even if that “interest” isn’t immediately apparent. It is in the best interests of all in the productive classes to stop enabling our own oppressors. Streamline each and every one of your operations so as to minimize your taxable productivity, even at the expense of income. Take a page from the “limousine liberals” book, stop being “productive” and spend a few years living off your capital investments. Starve the Beast.

MI

Nov 22, 2008 - 6:34 pm 97. venividivici:

Anyone who has an inkling of the history of ideas and how those ideas played out has no reason to support Obama. His “ideas” have already played themselves out in Europe and the results are in. Europe is dying and what will replace it is an extension of the Middle East, which is anything but an advertisement for Obama’s “ideas”. Social democracy, as the Democrats now seem committed to, brings stagnation and demographic suicide. I’d sooner split the country in two and let each political faction go its own way. I know where I’d want to live.

Nov 22, 2008 - 6:36 pm 98. southdakotaboy:

Venture;
You say there were legitamate reasons for the left to act the way they did. I disagree. I don’t blindly listen to Rush or any of the other talk radio people. I always go to the other guys and get their point of view on things and one of the things I noticed when I did this is that the left will constantly make things up to discredit people on the right. I am not going to go into all the examples you would just deny it anyway. The point is people on the left intentionally worked to harm our nation when it was being run by the Republican party. They did this knowing that Conservatives were not the evil, power mad racists that the left was calling them. The left was willing to cause harm to our nation and the people who live here for political gain.
Now that they have gained power they and they are faced with the problems that in many cases they help to either cause, make worse, or kept the Republicans from solving they want conservatives to go “Oh thats alright lets all just pitchin and work together” even though we think most of what you on the left want to do is wrong both morally, constitutionally, and just plain common sense wise.
I tell you what when you guys have all the major Black leaders get up on national TV in Prime Time and publically apologize for screaming racism every time a white person disagrees with them about public policy and promise to stop doing it. When you get the Democratic party to pass legislation stating that the Government will issue all legal citizens over the age of 18 voter id cards that must be used for all future elections and get them to pass a law stating that no laws banning, taxing, or putting extreme regulations on guns or ammunition will be passed. Or that there will be no attempt to regulate or make “fair” speach on the radio or internet then maybe just maybe I will be more willing to listen to all your talk about working together. Until then set the tone and now your going to have to face the music.

Nov 22, 2008 - 6:52 pm 99. Hot Air » Blog Archive » Quotes of the day:

[...] their part, the media have no reservations. Like a schnauzer toggling behind its hobo master, the press will weld itself to Obama and lick his [...]

Nov 22, 2008 - 7:00 pm 100. myth buster:

Which of Obama’s policies do I disagree with? It’s easier to list the policies I agree with. I agree with keeping Secretary Gates on as Defense Secretary. Other than that, Obama is the exact opposite of everything I stand for. He stands for unabated abortion, class warfare, carbon taxes, continuing the income tax and even hiking it, and he doesn’t even think we deserve to know who he is. He is a liar and has no integrity; indeed, he didn’t even think integrity was an issue on the campaign trail.

Nov 22, 2008 - 7:02 pm 101. Noelie:

Quote: Dear conservatives,

Our new messiah will restore America to greatness with or without your help. Here in the most prosperous country in the world and we have enough that we could decide to feed everybody and let none go hungry. End Quote.

so… who exactly will be out earning the money, when those of us that are working are tired of being “rich”..(and we know that “rich” has been named as low as 75,000 by the Obamessiah’s team) quit working?

Socialism is a failure. You aren’t going to be able to feed anyone, when those you are taxing up the wahzoo give it up.

Nov 22, 2008 - 7:28 pm 102. misanthropicus:

RE: #47/SP_Immortal: “[...] Slavery has little or nothing to do with black poverty. [...]”

Immortal, I’d rectify this as follows: current poverty in US among blacks has little or nothing to do with the slavery system of 1850-s -it’s the culture, stupid.
And since here, a common observation revived: a few days ago, walking through a university library (a good California school), I couldn’t help notice that black students were unruly and inadequately acting (cells, etc,) while Asians and other types were quite absorbed in study.

Also, for Chapin (simplified, yet true) – all human conflicts can be reduced to “culture wars”, in which either foreign wars or inside strife are manifestations of cultural (i.e. economical) grinding where one group takes off and another lags (the advancing group’s progress owing this to its cultural superiority), and violence is the only manner to re-adjust the situation.

To Boris, preemptive strike: Remark, comrade, that this take on this issue completely precludes the idea of biological/racial/ ethnical differences between groups. Still, you can also check with reverend Wright about his views about the different learning abilities of races.

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:37 pm 103. misanthropicus:

RE #54/sam RE VVV: “[...] Now when the U.S. and all the European colonizers fully get out of Africa and leave all resources to the continent Then they too will Flourish. {…]”

The latest report/anticipation for the state of the world in 2025 projects Africa as the complete geopolitical loser on this planet. Can you explain your views?
Appreciate -

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:46 pm 104. Must Conservatives Rally Round the Messiah? - Political Wrinkles:

[...] the Messiah? A couple of excepts from one of the best Op-Eds I’ve read in quite awhile… Must Conservatives Rally Round the Messiah? [...]

Nov 22, 2008 - 8:58 pm 105. misanthropicus:

Chapin vs. the Soeterotrolls infesting this thread:

Much to say about Soetero’s “landslide” (since here, why Soetero’s win is a “landslide” while the Prop 8 in Calif. (48 vs. 52%) is a slim, accidental majority?).
And in this, still nebulous situation, we sure can mention media’s nefarious role (you liberal trolls, you can again dismiss this) – the following is from Politico:

“Halperin at Politico/USC conf.: ‘extreme pro-Obama’ press bias/ By ALEXANDER BURNS.

Media bias was more intense in the 2008 election than in any other national campaign in recent history, Time magazine’s Mark Halperin said Friday at the Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election.
“It’s the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war,” Halperin said at a panel of media analysts. “It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage.”

Two hours after Sarah Palin’s being chosen as republican VP, courtesy of media I already knew that her hubby had a DUI in 1984 – on the other hand I still wait to learn whether Hussein Soetero is a US citizen, about his Columbia U years & thesis, about the passport he used when traveling to Pakistan, about… about… about…

Frankly, if there is something good about this mess, that is the fact that I can proudly say: No, I am not a Democrat – they are a “different” type of, well (working term) people.

Nov 22, 2008 - 9:10 pm 106. Jason S:

70. John:

If you’re going to comment on pure capitalism then don’t you think it would be best to actually make sure you know what it is in the first place?

If I had a dollar for everyone I’ve discussed capitalism with who turned out to be arguing not against capitalism, but against anarchy, I’d be a rich man.

Pure capitalism is not “social Darwinism.” This is ridiculous. Capitalism is a system based on property rights, therefore a capitalist system requires a state which protects individual property rights. For the record: whenever you hear someone argue in favor of free capitalism from now on, can you just take it as decided that they’re not talking about a state of lawless anarchy? It will save you a lot of hot air in the long run.

Capitalism does not “lead to poverty.” Can we PLEASE stop throwing lies around like confetti in these discussions? Capitalism cannot “lead to” poverty and never has. The natural state of humans is poverty – and capitalism inherited this state from the Earth. It didn’t cause it and nothing has done more to eradicate it in human history. Even in its very early days, when kids worked in factories, capitalism was IMPROVING human conditions. The poverty which existed before capitalism was atrocious. People on the whole lived wretched, miserable, short lives of subsistence. Life was cruel and harsh. Capitalism changed all of this.

If you’d like to outline your theory of how pure capitalism will lead to the “death of a large portion of the population” then let’s hear it. I could do with a laugh. Partaking in online discussions over the last few years has really opened my eyes to the level of unmitigated nonsense that many people believe. The thoughtlessness with which many people form opinions terrifies me.

You seem to recognize the importance of maintaining the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – which is good – but then you go and blow it all by suggesting that such a right requires an element of socialism – which is bad. Please stop this nonsense. Socialism is the antithesis of liberty and freedom – whether it’s restricting the way in which two people can trade, or stealing their money at the point of a gun for purposes of “redistribution,” or enslaving people to a common goal they are unlikely to share, socialism always acts to take away individual freedom and liberty. This is an important point to remember, because man needs to act and think of his own free will in order to produce the values he needs to survive.

There is no such thing as an “equilibrium between socialism and capitalism” any more than there is an equilibrium between architecture and fishing. They are two wholly incompatible ideologies – and an attempt to create such a balance always will – and always has – lead to economic stagnation, economic failure and tribal warfare. There is nothing good about socialism whatsover. To suggest that there should be a compromise between the two is like suggesting that there should be a compromise between health and illness. Why throw a spanner in the works willingly? To the extent that people are free to trade with each other on their own terms and act of their own volition, the process of capitalism – with its emphasis on individual rights, liberty and the division of labor – will always act to create wealth and hence raise prosperity and improve living conditions. Every single serious economic problem we have ever had has been caused by government interference in the economy – from the crash which led to the Great Depression, to the prolonging of the Depression itself, to the current financial meltdown – none of them were caused by “laissez-faire capitalism.” It’s time the record was set straight.

If you want to maintain freedom and the right to the pursuit of happiness then stop your support for socialism. It’s as simple as that. It’s obvious to me that you are very ideolgically and ethically confused – for instance, you say that we need to preserve the right to use our money as we wish, but then that “we need to ensure that there are programs in place to give assistance to those in need.” Which is it to be? The right to use our money as we wish, or the loss of that right in the form of the government stealing it from us by force in order to create these programs? Where do you think the money comes from? Does the government have it’s own “secret stash”?

Capitalism IS freedom. It is the only system which embodies freedom. Socialism is NOT freedom. It is a system which takes as its premise that man is not free to think and act of his own volition. There is no need to “open up my mind” to the idea of state slavery. I’ve experienced it my whole life and I have no desire to lay down and “accept” it.

There is nothing worse than the sap who believes politics is all about “maintaining an equilibrium” between two opposing ideologies. It’s not. It’s about fighting for your own beliefs. It’s about trying to change popular opinion to the point where democracy favors your beliefs and not those you are opposed to. It’s not about “taking turns,” it’s about winning or losing. If someone from the future told me that a pro-free market, pro-individual rights, anti-socialist government was going to win the next 20 elections, I would be exceedingly pleased. I would not whine about a lack of “equilibrium.” I would not worry that socialism was not being given a chance. I would rejoice.

You say that “all points of view deserve respect.” This is another symptom of your philosophical and ethical confusion. No, not all points of view deserve respect. What they deserve, is the right to be heard – i.e., freedom of speech. We have that. But I don’t have to respect views which go against everything I believe it. An extreme case should suffice to illustrate. Should the view that “all children should be drowned in buckets at birth” be given our “respect”? Should I “open my mind” to this idea? Right is right, wrong is wrong.

Nov 22, 2008 - 9:43 pm 107. Jason S:

It seems that whenever an article about Obama gets posted on Pajamas Media, the dutiful Obamabots are informed by whatever mechanism they have in place to inform each other of these things – and they all descend to the comments section like flies on a picnic to tell us that we’re “sore losers,” and that “conservatism is dead.” Without fail. The Obama campaign machinery, which consisted of loyal robots obeying his command to “get in everyone’s faces” and extinguish all dissent, remains.

But what do these kids have to offer? The same liberal bromides that have filled liberal blogs and the letters pages of liberal newspapers for the last 8 years. The same outright lies. Bush is a liar. Bush is a war criminal. Bush screwed the economy. Democrats had nothing to do with it.

Liberals now see debate as an excuse to practice their creative writing “skills” – it’s as if there’s an ongoing national competition to see who can express their deranged hatred of Bush and The Right the most poetically and eloquently. It’s taken them 8 years to hone their word flow, which basically consists of a patchwork quilt of melodramatic indictment – brilliantly illustrated by Harry in comment #89 above. It’s comments like:

“…the level of morality descended to a near loss of our nation’s proud heritage and position on this earth…”

Could we please stop this shrill ridiculousness please? The “level of morality” under Clinton was that half a million Iraqi children died because of the sanctions – apparently “worth it” according to Madeline Albright. More Iraqis died under the Clinton administration than under Bush – and Bush managed to install democracies in two countries in the Middle East, for all the good Clinton did. Bush also did more to help the people of Africa than any other President in American history, in fact more than any world leader in history. Can we have a little credit for that, please? He also protected us from terrorism brilliantly since 9/11 – despite Muslim terrorism reaching epidemic proportions (now over 12,000 deadly Islamic terrorist attacks since 9/11) and despite America being the most hated country among Muslim extremists and therefore the most desired target, we have not been hit ONCE. Countless attacks have been stopped, mainly due to the steps Bush took to increase surveillance on extremists. And no, none of your rights have been abrogated in the meantime. I don’t care about the abrogation of terrorists’ rights, by the way. Perhaps you do.

By the way, what is this obsession that you liberals have with the opinion of other countries? Most countries in this world have oppressive regimes which terrorize and brutalize their own citizens and afford them no rights whatsoever. Most countries can’t even sustain the conditions of freedom which humans need to feed their families adequately. If such countries respected the way America was run, I would be very upset. Oh but then there’s Europe, isn’t there? The continent on which most liberals would apparently live if they weren’t forbidden to leave America. Oh wait, they aren’t.

Europe, for all of its hooting and braying about the Iraq War, will remain loyal to America – don’t you liberals worry your pretty little basket-weaving heads about that. We have ensured the stability of Europe since WWII and will continue to do so. Most of Eastern Europe remains fiercely pro-American – not surprising, since they know more than anyone the importance of economic freedom and liberty. We saved them from the ravages of communism. I wonder why the opinion of Eastern Europe doesn’t seem to count to liberals whenever they’re calculating how much “good will” we have in the world. I wonder why the only opinions which matter to them are those of socialist and/or totalitarian dictatorships, whose love and support they lie awake at night wishing for.

There is so, so much to be said about the lies, fallacies, absurdity and outright atrociousness expressed by liberals on this thread today and I just don’t have time to address it all. Most of it has been addressed a million times already and these morons seem to think that simply repeating the same refuted arguments is a substitute for adult debate. But I will take the time to respond to one particular example of Harry’s stupidity above:

“how can you be pro-life as a well as pro capital punishment?”

I’ll tell you Harry. It’s because cold blooded murderers deserve to die (and are not worthy of the cost it takes to keep them alive in captivity), whereas unborn babies are totally innocent and have a right to live. Does that answer your question? Our point of view on this matter serves to highlight the superiority of our ethics over yours. I will now throw the question back at you, to illustrate.

“How can you be pro-choice, yet oppose the death penalty?”

In other words, in certain situations, liberals pretend that they think human life is sacred. One solider dead is one too many….even murderers have a right to live…who are we to decide who lives and who dies…all killing is wrong..etc.

Yet when it comes to the “right” of a woman to kill a baby who is inconvenient to her, all of a sudden the sanctity of life act gets thrown under the bus. Funny, isn’t it?

Nov 22, 2008 - 10:15 pm 108. Blogs For Victory » Hail to the Chief?:

[...] Chapin sets the marker: What is most perturbing about the election carnage is that, while their victory assures that the [...]

Nov 22, 2008 - 11:21 pm 109. Obamaniac:

Noelie,
You call feeding the hungry socialism? In many places if you are hungry you can go to a soup kitchen, usually run by people who were inspired by the first messiah. I don’t think everyone will stop working and stop contributing to society because they don’t have to worry about starvation. Everyone who is sound of mind aspires to and dreams for more.

“Spreading it around” is about the government providing a compassionate hand to pick up those who try and then fail.

Our new messiah pledges to create an America of equal opportunity for those who weren’t blessed with or born into it. Yes we all work hard for what we have, but there are always those who did not have blessings.

Once a new humanist order is in place, think of it as giving your 10% at church. (Then you can scale back on that, and worship at the weekly youtube podcast of our new messiah.)

Nov 23, 2008 - 12:31 am 110. Jason S:

110. Obamaniac:

A soup kitchen is not “socialism,” it is charity – if and only if it is funded by voluntary donations and staffed either by volunteers or paid workers.

When the state uses its muscle in order to force people to give up their money in order to pay for the welfare of people they don’t know and didn’t volunteer to help, that’s a degree of socialism. I really wish people would identify and concede to the difference.

You say that it’s about the government helping those “who try and then fail.” What if I have other priorities for my money, which involve exclusively my own family? Why should my rights be abrogated in this respect? And what of people who don’t even *try*? Why should I help them? Yet the state forces me to do so.

Wealth does not belong to the government to “spread around.” It’s taken from citizens by force, ultimately at gunpoint (think what happens if you don’t pay your taxes and continue to resist every penalty and punishment they throw at you).

Obama is not a “messiah.” Please stop being insane and become sane. It’s as simple as that. You know as well as I do that it’s not “equal opportunity” that the left wants to create, it’s “equality of outcome.” The two are different things. All that is required for equal opportunity is to protect everyone’s rights equally. The rest is up to us.

If you want to help those who “aren’t blessed” then there is nothing stopping you. If you think it is right to extort money from me with the threat of jail, then I think you are scum. I’m sick to death of both leftists and the religious who believe not only that it is my duty to pay for the welfare of others, but who also believe that I should be thrown in jail and lose my liberty if I do not do so.

Having said that, if you’re a parody of a nutcase then my apologies. It’s almost 4am and I can’t tell.

Nov 23, 2008 - 12:53 am 111. Obamaniac:

The other thing is about the MYTH that our messiah is going to increase taxes… because WE’RE ALREADY PAYING!! Instead of squandering it on unjustified wars and goodies for well-connected government contracts, we’re going to prioritize helping out the little guy.

The current administration’s policy is of adding $4,000,000,000 (billion) to the deficit EVERY DAY, and committing to pay interest to wealthy foreign investors for generations to come. We dispels want to pay for government out of tax revenue, thereby freeing up the one quarter of the budget from the current burden of paying interest. This would do more to help the average American than a temporary and politically expedient “tax break” to voters in categories we want to curry favor from.

Thank Bush for the great feeling you get paying taxes to pay to service the interest rates for the deficit money we borrow from wealthy foreign investors. Irony is that you are financing China’s Space Research Program through out of control republican spending.

Our new messiah wants to balance the budget as his predecessor did, while giving something back to the people. Here’s looking forward to another election debate on whether to put the surplus in a “lockbox”.

If you can’t get on board the bus now, just walk around for a bit and be at the stop when it comes back around. You’ll all see in time.

Nov 23, 2008 - 1:02 am 112. ALD:

Just to remind the author, Mr. Chapin, that a substantial percentage of Independents voted for McCain in the election, and that we were not turned off by McCain, quite the opposite: we were turned off by the leftist policies Obama embraced, by his ranting and hate-mongering supporters, and by the un-journalistic coverage from the liberal media. And, we continue to be disappointed and the mindless writing that continues to be evident, post-election. The net of it is, Obama’s supporters make a great case study for the Sociology and Psychiatry crowd: a study of mass hysteria, for example, as one can observe their behavior on this forum.

Nov 23, 2008 - 1:26 am 113. Mike:

Good article and right on the money! Mr. Chapin, you are exactly right about the left’s utter hypocrisy in asking for “unity” now and isn’t it strange that it is coming from all over. I think they know what they have sown and don’t want to reap it. I, like many others, will support Obama exactly the same way that MoveOn and the DailyKos supported George Bush.
———————————————
By the way, I hope all you rich liberals out there are going to pay a bunch of taxes because Joe Biden said it’s your patriotic duty to do so and I am waiting for my share of the free stuff Obama promised me.

Nov 23, 2008 - 1:47 am 114. Mike:

Sorry Obamamaniac but your quote: “Thank Bush for the great feeling you get paying taxes to pay to service the interest rates for the deficit money we borrow from wealthy foreign investors. Irony is that you are financing China’s Space Research Program through out of control republican spending.” is sheer ignorance. Yes we have terrible federal deficits and they can be laid right at the feet of the current administration. But, our current deficits are a pittance of the amount we spend every year on foreign made goods, services and energy commodities. Have you bought anything made in China this month?? Can you even find goods made in the US? If you have you are just as guilty as the rest of us. And don’t forget, lots of Democrats voted for those out of control budgets in the last 2 years they have controlled Congress.

By the way, I hope you pay lots of taxes next year because I am waiting for all my free stuff Obama promised to “spread around” to me. Remember, Joe Biden said it is your patriotic duty!

Nov 23, 2008 - 2:01 am 115. ajacksonian:

What do I want from government? Less of it. Far less. I have had it with government intrusiveness, ineffectiveness and inefficiency on all levels. Wherever government steps in to do ‘good’ it causes far worse problems by assuming the positive role of charity reserved for the people. If Obama wanted to impress me, he would remove the departments of Education, Agriculture and Energy by having their heads draw up plans to disestablish them and remove them from the federal government, and then hand Congress *that*. He would get rid of social security and promise those who are in the system they will get their payouts as they are *now* but that the system, itself would take on no new people nor new contributions and all contributions will come directly from taxes on the tax form, not handed over by employers. He would say that for each and every bailout, each American gets *one share* in that institution to exercise as they please as creditors, and hand them out to all citizens in their majority. He would ask to abolish the subsidy given for medical insurance and let all americans find the true value of good health for themselves and work to ensure that they looked after themselves and did not depend upon government. He would make all charitable donation 100% deductible on taxation, so that those supporting their localities vigorously would have reduced taxation.

Basically he would get government out of the lives of people, out of our bedrooms and shut down the vacuum cleaner taking up wealth from the population as a whole, and make sure everyone paid taxes, no matter how small, so that all Americans have a stake in our good government.

He would defend the constitution and the borders and require all Nations to recognize our borders and that we have the right to stop those entering against all treaties we currently have with Nations. Treaties are not ‘optional’ and he would enforce them all, and vigorously.

Likewise he would ensure that each and every law of the land were enforced and then hand the bill for it to Congress and say: “You wanted these things, here is the price tag.”

That would be a definite change from the last century and it would demonstrate hope in the American people to lead good lives without interference from government.

No new government programs.
End the ones that are not directly tied to the Constitution.
Remove onerous taxation from the people, yet make sure that all pay into our common government so we know its cost to us.
No more regulations.
No more departments.
No more ‘help’ from the necessary evil of government as it is not made to help, but enforce the laws equally and fairly.
End discriminatory laws, including those for proactive discrimination.
He could ask for a 10 year ’sunset law’ on all government laws, regulations and taxes so that if they are not talked about in Congress they will disappear.
He would ask for the House of Representatives to increase its size by multi-fold and tie it in direct correlation to the population, and not be fixed in size so that we have one representative for fewere people and bring democracy closer to home so we can hold these scoundrels accountable.

I expect to be disappointed in President-elect Obama.
Just as I have been with President Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon and Johnson in my living memory and quite some few all the way back to 1900.

The last President to proactively cut off a huge government institution was a Democrat, and they will not pick up his standard and his views on common governance and restraint of government. They have wandered far into the desert from the wellspring of democracy. So have the Republicans, although they often get a bit of dew on the desert sands in the morning near the oasis, the sun blinds them from finding it.

Nov 23, 2008 - 4:51 am 116. John:

Jason S., open your mind a little. Try meditation . . . medication . . . something. Beliefs contrary to your own are not neccessarily wrong or evil.

Why the heck are we calling Obama a “messiah”? Politicians, along with every person on this planet, are human, flawed. One thing that annoys me about news coverage and general perception of popular figures is the way that every minutae is scrutinized. When they do something wrong, say an incorrect number, it makes the news. I understand the merit of correction, but remember that these people are not super-human. They sleep, eat, create waste. We can’t expect them to do anything great, but we can hope they don’t make situations worse.

Nov 23, 2008 - 6:10 am 117. Aj:

I too have had co workers demand I “rally around the Messiah.” I say I support the USA but will question Obama when he errs, as we should. It’s better than the utter hatred for Bush, death threats and lack of support for Bush’s very liberal spending policies. Further, this hypocrisy has no end, considering we should rally around a far left leader with no experience. I just hope Obama, without a single piece of leadership in his resume, can resist the stong anti military/anti american forces in his party from the black congressional caucus, Pelosi, Soros, Reid, et al who run this party that used to be Truman’s party — but no more.

Nov 23, 2008 - 7:35 am 118. drjohn:

I agree wholeheartedly with this article.

Bush was Obama’s President for the last two years. These same morons who want to play nice now forget that small detail.

I sure hope that Republicans make Obama as comfortable as Democrats made Bush.

Nov 23, 2008 - 7:42 am 119. BC:

How about you numskulls just rally around *your President* instead of engaging yet again in your bizarre fantasy role-playing where conservatives are the noble defenders of truth and country instead of the nasty, smearing, incompetent, fact-challenged and easily suckered fools screwing up country and world that they’ve really been the past 8 years or so?

Nov 23, 2008 - 8:17 am 120. Chuck Pelto:

TO: John
RE: Really????!?!??

Beliefs contrary to your own are not neccessarily wrong or evil. — John

Then I guess you support human sacrifice.

I know of people who believe in that. And I believe that is patently ‘wrong’.

What say you?

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Those who would treat politics and morality as separate will never understand one nor the other.]

Nov 23, 2008 - 9:07 am 121. Chuck Pelto:

TO: All
RE: BC & the ‘Game’

…in your bizarre fantasy role-playing…. —

I have to wonder what sort of game-system BC has at home and how much time he/she/it spends at it.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
P.S. Does he/she/it prefer Warcraft over Civilization?

Nov 23, 2008 - 9:10 am 122. Rashputin:

ddrjohn – “I sure hope that Republicans make Obama as comfortable as Democrats made Bush.”

I hope democrats make Obama feel as comfortable as Republicans made Bush feel, too. I well remember Bush saying that the housing mess was headed our way and he said it years ago. I also remember that very few Republicans even tried to make an issue of the matter. They were all too busy standing in line for their own set of earmarks and getting their friends cozy loans. If anyone wonders why Bush ended up so badly, I’d say a lot of it had to do with the old adage, “with friends like these, who needs enemies”.

Regards

Nov 23, 2008 - 9:16 am 123. Steynian 288 « Free Canuckistan!:

[...] MUST CONSERVATIVES Rally Round the Messiah? by Bernard Chapin. No — because the left’s vision of [...]

Nov 23, 2008 - 9:23 am 124. Jason S:

117. John:

No, not all ideas contrary to my own are wrong are evil. However, the ones that ARE wrong or evil, are.

As such, I do not have to “open my mind” to them any more than you have to open your mind to necrophilia.

Nov 23, 2008 - 9:40 am 125. southdakotaboy:

As we can all see from the lefty trolls here like BC and the like. They are going out of their minds with the fear that were aren’t going to be “good little boys and girls” and fall into line behind their guy like we have always done before. They know what is going to happen to all their happy little plans if we aren’t there helpping and doing all the extra work to make their plans work.
I personally look forward to the upcoming economic melt down and being gleefully able to sit there and laugh at them as their dreams of “Hope and Change” crumble at their feet.
When the next big terrorist attacks happens we must be ready to instently put the blame on Old Big Ears and the rest of the Democrats. We must do so loudly and without compromise. We need to have a plan in place because you can bet the Democrats have on in place to shift the blame from themselves. We nned to start setting the narative now.

Nov 23, 2008 - 9:52 am 126. Ventrue:

Fred:

Is BDS anything like CDS(Clinton Derangement Sydrome) or ODS(doesn’t really need to be spelled out)? If it is, I’m quite familiar with it.

I readily admit that many on the left failed to learn the lessons taught by the right’s constant carpet bombing of Bill Clinton. They were doomed to repeat the mistakes of conservatives with predictably similar results. And FYI, I do have a clue as to how “badly” the left has behaved these past eight years…..and I stand by my assertion that most, if not all, of it was justifiable.

The difference here, my dear sir, is that at least liberals wait until their target actually presents them with an issue to take issue with. Your side, by contrast, makes a spectacle of itself by regurgitating allegations that our next president was born in Kenya or is really named, what was it again, Soetoro, or that he’s a still-closeted homosexual, or that the reason he sealed his medical records is because he’s hiding a drug problem(didnt’ we hear this dreck about Bill Clinton?) Please, guys….get ahold of Bill Force and hire him to draw you up some new smears. But, as I said before, if you insist on re-affirming to most voters that they did the right thing by removing your political representatives from the reins of power, far be it from me to stand in your way.

Oh, and by the way….as for me being a “younger” American educated in the past three decades? I really appreciate the compliment. I just celebrated my 45th birthday a few weeks ago, and reflecting upon how fast the world has changed in the last quarter century or so had me feeling rather old. I also speak French, and a smattering of Spanish and German, but English is my primary language. The reason you may find it, as you say, “awkward” is because my roots are planted firmly in the deep South, and I’m sure my humble educational background is nowhere near comparable to that of one so learned and erudite as yourself. But I take comfort in the knowledge that someone possessed of such obvious superiority would not look down upon a person because of his place of origin.

Lastly, while I understand and respect your feeling of being under siege, as much of the country appears to have rejected your personal world view, my comments thus far can hardly be considered taunting. The difference can be demonstrated, if you like.

Although, if I had my druthers, I druther spend what little time I have to devote to these blogs learning about those whose thought processes and attitudes are so very alien to my own.

Regards,

A September 10th American

Nov 23, 2008 - 10:12 am 127. Robert:

I don’t support the consitution, as it was distorted/changed during FDR’s reign, and further trashed after 1964, and the changes made in immigration policy’s. What we are dealing with is the destruction of our country through politicaly correct retoric designed to destroy what made our nation strong, and replace it with the total dictoral rule of communism/the mob.

It was inevitable, after we had taken in all those socialist communists after their first, and failed attempt to destroy Russia. And supported them under the guise of religious/racial persicution.

The same reactionary’s who had murdered all those people over there, now control our own country. They did that through all the thing’s they had implemented for the last seventy years, under various idealogical group’s, and useing religion’s for cover, and of course, through the various atheist organizations, and yet again, racial persicution.

These people are working from a longterm agenda that has been implemented for several decades bits at a time, through various distortments/illusions to change the thinking of our young through each succesive generation.

Bash the consevatives all you want leftists, and your attempte to make The obama seem a centrist, really are pathetic. I am niether religious or atheist, but i do share the values morals, and concepts of family the conservatives have{Honor/Respect/Loyalty to one’s own}, and see them{the religious ones} as lesser enemy’s then i do the threat of obama, and his rabid welfare recipient supporters, as well as the socialist communist elites who have almost total control of the media, and other political areas, and have made it possable for him to become president elect, and that’s all he is right now you know, not the president yet.

If somehow, he gets a forged longform birth cirtificate with seal, to say that he is a citizen of the nation{dec 1st/2nd}, and he does somehow sit in the oval office, then know he is’nt going to be acknowledged by half the nation, who will in fact be working activly to despose him, and his party.

Take your descriptions of partisionship/bi partisionship, and go stuff them were they belong, they don’t matter anymore. The treason committed by obama, and his party, will come to light.

Nov 23, 2008 - 10:38 am 128. cedarford:

Republicans do need to remember that – yes – on their watch, America developed trillion dollar trade deficits, gutted some of our best jobs, got us in two seemingly perpetual wars, took on 5 trillion in debt under Bush (more than all past US Presidents combined), did it while expanding tax cuts for the wealthy, and allowed “their” corrupt Wall Street crowd to hand the middle class their heads.

What that means is Republicans do need change.

They do need to understand the country’s patience with them will be very short in an ugly recession, perhaps even long-term depression if the Republicans continue to champion the rich and pursue forcing the rest of the country to take on Southern religious and cultural values.

Republicans miscalculated at the start of the Great Depression and rode loser issues that cost them 30 years as the FDR coalition was allowed to solidify. So as they become dwarfed in power after only 4 years of Bush/Corruptican Congress fiascos – Republicans need to change, and to be careful to take on only winner issues, shed the loser ones:

Winner issues:

1. Admit 1/6th of the US population, our taxpaying working poor, being uninsured for health issues is a moral disgrace. Work with Dems for a sensible solution, vs. blind opposition.
2. The days of claiming supply side and “trickledown” from tax cuts for the wealthy are over. Favor a sensible tax policy where each pays a fair share and the wealthy do not pay less on each dollar they make in total taxes than a middle-class person making 70K.
3. The Democrats will be going down a bad path on environmentalism and reliance on asinine “green energy solutions” that will add to job losses and deepen the recession-depression. Oppose that with responsible energy policy.
4. Crime is on the upswing. Continue to advocate, with Red State democrats, for tough criminal penalties and responsible gun ownership.

Loser issues:

1. The time for cultural war on silly topics Republicans could indulge when America was not hurting like it is now – like an Amendment to end flag burning or inform 3/4ths of Americans that don’t believe it that through Jesus you know a zygote is what should be the equivalent of a 3-year old….is over.
2. The time for Terri Schiavo fiascos is over.
3. The time for the Religious Right worship of Israel and what it wants as the only foreign policy we should care about…is over. Jews and Israel generally detest Republicans 70-30% each election -or at best see them as useful tools. Everytime Republicans are tempted to say nothing concerns them as much as Israel and all the wars we may have to fight for them, they would do better to substitute “hispanics” and how Republicans will fight to avoid wars and work to better immigrant’s lives and not ignore Latin Ameerica and the Caribbean.
4. Continuing to insist that all the stuff Goldwater wanted 50 years ago and all the stuff Reagan wanted 30 years ago are inerrantly correct dogma and times and circumstances and significant failures have not happened since..
5. Continuing to insist that any Republican outside the small band of Bible Belt states and the wealthy Corporatist class – is a RINO, a Mormon heretic, a minority of dubious religious pedigree, a log cabin gay pervert, or “soft-headed” women who don’t want Iran invaded or abortion outlawed.
6. Telling Reagan Democrats that their jobs, their health, their kid’s education is not all that important as we lose it to Asia’s advantage…that those aspects of their lives are secondary to God, guns, and gays..Many of such homes have pictures of JFK AND Reagan side-by-side simply because both offered hope for the future, not “clinging” to what they had at the time.

Nov 23, 2008 - 11:08 am 129. EW:

The liberal illuminati certainly is being hypocritical for suggesting republicans stand behind a president. The question now, is “what can be done?” A lot of times, there is no action coming from people just complaining about a leader.

Nov 23, 2008 - 11:58 am 130. Robert:

Well, i can’t really argue with your reasoning as far as the salient issue’s go with the people themselves, but here’s two issue’s i do have a problem with.

1} In the beginning of the clintonian reign, house, and senate democrats, {under the objection’s of the republican party} and their bi-partision fellows amoung the republicans{secret card carrying democrats}, passed de-regulation policy’s which indeed started the beginning of the subprime fiasco, and was worsened by the criminal action’s, intent’s, of the radicals amoung the democratic cuacus, thinking to screen themselves with “the republicans had a part to”.

Just a few months ago, the republican’s attempted to get people to remember they themselves had pushed for tighter regulation’s both then/now, and that on both the house, and senate floors. And it does make a big difference with what is about to happen to the democratic party with it all, and their pick that is currently the president elect.

When the bankers who helped them to set up the economic crises to begin with, because they could not have without their knowledge/help, and those who profited the most, obama being the one who recieved the most cash, are finally criminalized for their participation in the treason to the country. We won’t be having to even think about obama, or the rest of his cabinet/picks about being leaders of anything anymore. And lets not forget the houseing bubble created by clintons administration/special interests, which created the artificialy high profits with which characterized his presidency. And what the communists who control the congress/senate have touted to the rest of us.

2) The health care issue is overblown, and misrepresented precisely because the dems had wanted to make it an issue, and further socialise us for their own communist agenda’s.

Takeing money from the succesful to pay for someone else’s medical bills is criminal. The tax paying poor/middle class should be attacking the people responsable for the high costs of healthcare/medicines/wages that doctors earn, to bring them down. Not stealing from the rich/succesful to pay their bill’s. I won’t go into that further because all sides of those issue’s had been covered in great depth by the house/senate. Except to say, when you invite all those illegal immigrants/immigrants into your nation, the larger part of all our money for medical goes to them free for it, and why the rest of us pay so darned much for it all.

To end this post, i would just like to add that all the honest people who just want everything to work with peace/goodwill, even if it means their own economic slavery to the upcoming regime, and it will be a regime, considering how they have come to command the strategic/economic resources reguired to have pulled it all off, however illegaly done with some of it’s operational aspects, if he should actually become the president.

The only people under them who will have the oppertunity to become rich, will be those who support them only.

At least under the republicans which are mostly conservatives, who actually followed the constitution as it was meant to be, everbody else did to, even the democrats, and look what controls them, communist idealogys/religion. And their ambitions to destroy what had helped them come to power, the constitution itself.

I won’t mind working with what can actually work, without takeing that basic freedom from us all, and the right not to have others use laws to steal our works reward for their empire building of their idealogy’s/religions/welfare programs to support other like them who are socialist communists, and that is the base called the workers party, the idiots who allow them to control them through those idealogys/religions of power/control. Those others who the socialist communists who are the democrats of today, whether they be left/center/right within the party itself, support it. it is what they are, and why they are trying to take power under cover of the distortments/illusions they have caused.

The democrats of the constitutional republic are gone. What is there,what they are, is insane.

Nov 23, 2008 - 1:07 pm 131. Jason S:

129. cedarford:

*Sigh* – more nonsense. Let’s look at your “winner issues” and “loser issues” in turn.

Winner issues:

1) First of all, it is entirely disingenuous to say that “one sixth of Americans are not insured,” and I wish liberals would have the common decency to stop regurgitating that myth. Admit, for once, that ten million of those classed as “uninsured” are not U.S. citizens, many of them illegals. A further 17 million earn more than $50,000 a year and are not “poor” – they can afford their own insurance. Remember, it is not against the law to forgo insurance coverage in order to prioritize other things. It may be irrational, but it’s not illegal. Also, 45% of those classed as “uninsured” are only temporarily uninsured and will have insurance again within 4 months, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

You say Republicans should “work with Dems for a sensible solution” – but how is that possible, when the Democrats reject the only sensible and moral solution – letting the free market make health care affordable in the same way as it’s made virtually every other aspect of technology affordable through innovation and competition. U.S. health care is the best in the world bar none – the only problem is its cost. No wonder, since the number of mandates and regulations imposed on the health care system basically make any meaningful competition impossible. People are forced to buy packages which insure them against many ailments that they just aren’t likely to get, for example. The young are forced into packages which insure conditions only old people suffer from and vice-versa. A crucial element is severely lacking from the health care market – consumer choice. It is not necessary to socialize health care or put it into the incapable, inefficient hands of the government. As soon as Democrats realize this, then we can work toward a sensible solution.

2) Please stop using the phrase “trickle down” as if it referred to am actual theory. Liberals invented the phrase as a straw-man argument to express their resentment toward the inescapable reality that wealth tends to concentrate in the hands of those who are most able to create it. There is no such thing as “trickle down theory,” there is just the fact that jobs and economic growth are the result of capital investment, not enforced “redistribution.” Since business owners and other creators of wealth can’t do their thing without capital, to complain that wealth is “concentrated” in their hands is akin to complaining that the farmer has vast quantities of corn seed at his disposal. Would you rather the farmer simply “redistributed” the corn seed as food, instead of letting him grow it?

Furthermore, the rich already pay far more than their fair share of taxes. The top 20% of earners pay 80% of our tax revenues. Goddammit, how much more do you want them to pay?

3) Reasonable energy policy entails embracing nuclear power and drilling for the vast reserves of fuel that make the rest of the world wonder why in the hell we have an energy problem. Can you see the Democrats admitting this any time soon?

4) I can’t disagree with you there.

Loser issues:

1) I think I agree with you, although your sentence didn’t make much logical sense.

2) I disagree. The time is *never* over to discuss ethical issues.

3) Oh please. Get out of here! Can we just STOP with this left wing myth that the only reason we support Israel is to “please Jews”? Support of Israel does not require that you be Jewish or from the “Republican right.” Israel has every right to exist and it is in our best interests to ensure that this relative beacon of human rights and democracy is not destroyed by the savages of the Middle East.

4) Reagan and Goldwater have nothing to do with today. But that doesn’t mean that a lot of their ideas aren’t relevant today. Protecting our economic freedom, for example, will never be “irrelevant.” Neither will opposing totalitarian ideologies which threaten us.

5) This is another straw-man argument which doesn’t really bear any resemblance to reality. Some Republicans may think like that, others don’t.

6) Again, this is another straw-man argument directed at a mythical person who doesn’t exist. Can you point me toward one Republican who claims that jobs, health care and education aren’t important? Since this is part of a list of “loser issues,” can you give me one example of what you said being promoted as an “issue”?

Other points:

By what historical standard is a five year war considered “seemingly perpetual”?

What is wrong with tax cuts for the wealthy, when they already pay far more than their fair share and are vital to the health of our economy?

What do you mean by “their” corrupt Wall Street crowd? I was not aware that Wall St was controlled by Republicans. Furthermore, where is your admission of the huge role that Democrats played in the financial meltdown?

Nov 23, 2008 - 3:01 pm 132. tom:

when Obambi said in his acceptance speech “I will be your president” I nearly gagged

When Obambi does things that are for the better good of this country and uphold our constitution, I will support him. When he does things for his own motives and to bring socialistic and morally indefensible acts forward, I will not support him.

Thankfully the lack of support from the right will be even more so drowned out by the contempt from the left and welfare state as Obambi is not able to deliver them utopian easy street.

Wonder why they are already trying to lower expectations?

In 10 years GWB will be looked at with more understanding eyes, and BHO with much more contempt.

Dwight Eisenhower said it best

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”

Nov 23, 2008 - 3:48 pm 133. Chicks, Travel, and Bailout This! | Bernard Chapin’s Siege Engine:

[...] Here’s two new INFERNOS. The first is on Chicks and Travel and the second concerns the bailouts and is entitled “Bailout This!” And here’s an article on Must We Rally Around the Messiah? [...]

Nov 23, 2008 - 3:58 pm 134. bobby b:

Move On?

Dream On.

Nov 23, 2008 - 4:53 pm 135. sam:

Jason S:
The ignorance is shown clearly by you J. I can also give a long dissertation to say nothing.

I am well aware of the Arabs and history. Yes capitalism has made America the most powerful nation. My point was The Dems address the social ills of this country. The GOP instead pretends they are nonexistent. With that said posters like yourself and Lily don’t understand in our 400 year history. Of the 40 years of so called social and economic freedom there is no doubt socialism is debatable in a positive light.

Now I can give give you a time line of Black American history and in that time line you would not find any time AFTER slavery that Black Americans had a fair hand. We can start with the Black Codes of the north and south and finish with the Jena 6. You can throw in the Reagan drug scandal. That’s where they made money selling drugs in Black communities to finance the Contras. But if you really wanted to know you would.

It Amazes me how people can actually try to polish up slavery. At the same time ignore why Britain outlawed slavery. And why Slavery ended in the U.S. Britain outlawed slavery to weaken the U.S. and it was becoming expensive when slaves began revolting. The U.S. outlawed slavery to fuel the industrial revolution as well as to quash uprising and fear. Bless all the abolitionist, but they were just the thorn in the side.

VVV
I fully understand your point. But look at the reality of that community. All they saw was hard work and heartache. Then hard work and corporate socialism. People are tired. Why should they believe? It hasn’t happened. Nobody is giving up. But I would give some of my bread to the disenfranchised.

Nov 23, 2008 - 5:58 pm 136. curious?:

Why does Israel have the right to Palestine?

Nov 23, 2008 - 6:01 pm 137. Robert:

It figures someone would play the race card in their disertions here. The most productive part of America currently pays almost 400 billion dollars a year already, to support the minority’s which flood our nation.

With the illegal efforts of affirmitive action for many decades, along with preferencal treatment for minority’s, through the fly by night laws, and pockets of the most productive part of America, your “the dems address the social ills of this country” does’nt wash anymore.

Just because the conservatives called republicans don’t do it through the robbing of anothers wealth, to support the one’s who are after all, the cause of those social ill’s, does’nt mean they don’t address them. They just won’t give handouts that will begger the most productive part of the nation further. They themselves are the one’s who create all those jobs through their investments with their own money.

And lets not forget it is the democratic party that is responsable for all those minoritys coming here in the first place, through religious programs that they run. Socialism has no positive lights, as it destroys what does make a nation great, those who amass wealth, and invest it in projects called business’s.

As far as your insult to President Reagan, it is as unfounded as the informational script you seem to be writing from, however good your spelling. And just were does slavery come into any of this? it was abolished after all. And it was’nt to fuel the industrial revolution, it was stopped because it was wrong, just what are the Ayer’s in our universities teaching our students these days anyway as well? I can answer that one, hate, conspiracy, revolution, the betrayal of all those who have made this a nation, you know, the one you grew up in. The one’s who also freed the self same slaves your discussing as if they are still slaves. Not one who is white today is responsable for them any longer, white guilt won’t work with them, or the other one’s anymore.

Abolitionist, is just another word for terrorist. But we all know how obama feels about them, don’t we? He’ll be exposed, along with the dems conspiracy, and illegal action’s of treason/suppression of the real obama history/family, and his actions/association’s, along with his partys, he is’nt president yet, and he won’t be.

Your leftist fantasy’s of some sort of utopia where the left walks all over everbody else, are going to shatter, none of you are going to win.

Isreal does’nt have the right to palastine. But thats another part of the story i’m not going to get into myself either. It has to deal with the same organization which has funded obama from overseas, and here, and persicutes the palastinians.

Your the one sounds ignorent sam, not jason.

Nov 23, 2008 - 7:48 pm 138. Jason S:

Sam:

More incredibly ignorant words! When will this end?

Capitalism hasn’t just “made America the most powerful nation.” It’s also made it the most prosperous and afforded its citizens the most freedom. Like I said, capitalism is largely responsible for doubling our average life expectancies in 200 years.

What is this nonsense about the Democrats “addressing the social ills of our country”? The leftist element of the Democrats, along with left wing radicals, have been the CAUSE of most of our social ills, from violent crime to poverty to welfare dependence. Virtually all of the social problems we associate with modern society – gang warfare, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, broken families, welfare culture etc – exploded exponentially from the late 60’s onwards, coinciding exactly with the point at which the left started to dominate our public institutions and began to exert their influence on culture and morality. Let’s say “from the hippies onwards.”

This fact becomes even more apparent when you consider the effect of leftist liberalism on black America. An interesting book to read in this context is David Horowitz’s memoir, “Radical Son.” Horowitz was a radical Marxist during the early 70’s and was instrumental, along with other white leftists, in helping to radicalize the black ghettos. It was the left who supplied the money to the Black Panthers with which they bought drugs and guns. It was the left who did everything they could to sow the seeds of radicalism in the ghetto. Tell me: just how did that all work out for black America? Did it “empower” blacks? Did it improve their living conditions, their financial health, their futures? Or did ghetto black America decline from that time onwards into an orgy of drugs and violence and a shocking situation in which blacks became SIX times as likely to be murdered than whites? (They still are).

I’m amazed that people like you can still spread the myth about the CIA selling drugs to blacks while totally ignoring the pivotal role that black organizations like the Panthers had in sowing the seeds of drug warfare in black communities more than a decade earlier. Of course, the Panthers are heroes in the black community while Reagan, who did more to improve the black economic situation than any other President in history, is demonized. The CIA did not “pump drugs into black communities” – the San Jose Mercury’s charges on this score proved false. Yes, some CIA agents aiding the Nicaraguan contras decided to look the other way and allow them to profit from some drug sales to California, but that’s hardly a plot to addict blacks in all of America’s inner cities.

Likewise, the Jena 6 is set to become another golden nugget of black myth. The lies and distortions which were told throughout the media during that time were nothing short of disgraceful – a local Jena newspaper printed a considerable rebuttal to all of the lies and myths surrounding the case, if you care to find it. Virtually everything that was said about the Jena 6 was untrue. For instance, the initial beating was nothing to do with the noose, which in turn was nothing to do with race. Those were all outright lies perpetuated by the liberal media in order to create yet another media circus, a platform on which self-righteous liberal journalists could wax lyrical about their favorite subject – racial injustice. The truth is, those kids deserved to be charged with attempted murder, because that’s what it was. Far from the “minor scuffle” the newspapers represented the crime as, those thugs sucker punched the kid to the ground, out cold, then proceeded to stomp repeatedly on his head. Whichever way you look at it, this is “attempted murder.” They would have killed him had they not been pulled off their victim. The people of Jena were demonized as racist hicks and the thugs themselves were hailed as victims, even heroes. Such is the warped nature of the leftist mindset which dominates our media.

Nobody here is claiming that blacks have had a “fair hand” since the end of slavery. They haven’t. But all this means is, blacks have had longer to wait for equality than others in America. The history of every single race of people on this planet is a story of cruel injustice and oppression. Sure, blacks may have only been “free” for 40 years, but relative to the amount of time that everyone else has been “free,” it’s not that much of a difference. The people of Europe fought for their freedom over centuries. My ancestors from England were oppressed brutally, were never free, were peasants and serfs who were often forced into marching hundreds of miles in their bare feet sometimes waist deep in snow for days without food, water or sleep – to be sent into mindless battles with swords they could barely lift. Those who weren’t killed mostly died on the way back of their injuries. And if they did get back, it was back to lives of miserable poverty working as serfs. The people of Europe have been invaded and had their culture replaced many times too. I don’t even have to go into the “unfairness” suffered by the Jews, or the history of Asia, the terror unleashed by Genghis Khan…and that’s before we even go into the excruciating pain and suffering of the victims of Marxism – not least of all the tens of millions deliberately starved by Stalin, the tens of millions more who lived the most inhuman and cruel lives in the Gulag…and this was only a few decades ago. Compared to *them*, blacks in America have had an easy time for the last 100 years.

Who’s trying to “polish up slavery”? Please – enough of these clumsy, infantile lies. All I did was simply point out that it was an institution with a 3000 year history, the bulk of which had nothing to do with Britain or America. Who cares why slavery was ended in the West? The fact remains that it did. Perhaps you would like to inform me of any efforts made by Africans or Arabs to end slavery, a trade they had practiced for thousands of years. By the way, the Brits didn’t end slavery “to weaken the U.S.” – slavery was ended largely peacefully in most Western countries except America, where its end was anything but peaceful. There were many factors in the ending of slavery – the abolitionists were *not* just a “thorn in the side.” They helped create the popular and political atmospheres which helped end slavery. The Enlightenment, with its emphasis on natural rights and the individual, was instrumental in ending the practice. You say that the U.S. “outlawed slavery to fuel the Industrial Revolution.” This is just poppycock. The Industrial Revolution made slavery largely obsolete. But industry would have taken off with or without the end of slavery. It’s just that with the existence of a means of production far, far superior to forced labor, anyone who still practiced slavery would have been unable to compete.

There is no question that socialism is NOT debatable in a positive light. Socialism has never, in the history of the world, been able to raise or sustain general living standards. There are many philosophical, psychological and economic reasons for this. There IS no “positive light.”

Nov 23, 2008 - 8:22 pm 139. Liz:

“Unity” with the Obammunista marxists and the “third term” corrupt Clinton machine? No way!! As the libtard moonbats have been telling us for the last eight years, “NOT MY PRESIDENT”!!!! Especially if he turns out to be disqualified to hold office and/or an illegal alien!

Nov 23, 2008 - 9:35 pm 140. wormburner:

I’m not sure why I still come here and read all of this stuff. I was reading it prior to the election just for perspective and stopped by to check out the post-election talk.

The election is now over so the crazy talk should stop..unless you are actually crazy, then by all means keep going and no offense intended.

I can understand trying to generate some negative buzz before the election, but obama has yet to serve one day as president. How can anybody say for certain what is going to happen? I am not a hard core Obama supporter. In fact, I am skeptical that he has promised too much, is too arrogant, and may be in over his head, but then again he may be able to tread these troubled waters. He may thrive in it. He may fail miserably. Who knows? I don’t. You don’t.

Basically, I think because 60 plus percent of the American people decided to go this way, he deserves a shot. I think he should get 6 months or a year before we can really say, “this is where this is headed”.

-peace all

Nov 24, 2008 - 1:05 am 141. tom:

wormburner – obama won 52% of the vote, not 60%
big difference

bush wins 51% and we are a strongly divided country
obama wins 52% and has a clear mandate for change

if it hadn’t been done before, I’d give the guy a break
but when Jimmy Carter II shows up with Clinton III cronies, it’s time to take note

thank God Gore or Kerry were not elected or we would already be 4 years early sliding down that slippery slope

Nov 24, 2008 - 4:55 am 142. sam:

Jason s
Robert

I respectfully disagree. After your clear direct attacks. I will not attempt to discredit a race as you guys did.

I will never deny the ills in the urban communities. At the same time I never allow anyone to tell half truths.

I know people like yourselves are not able to accept challenge to the entire power structure. As always you can cite the disease of a community but fail miserably when seeing the cause. Nobody wants your guilt. People want their 40 acres.

This is not a winnable argument for you or me. What I know is in 40 years of so called equality(police brutality)there is no way a people can catch up after a 360 years of disenfranchisement and wealth hording.

As far as welfare afirm act. and what ever other programs are concerned. Lets look at the cost of running these programs and who they employ also. Now the amount of fake wealth dolled out has caused some inflation. I guarantee you it is less than 1% of the wealth that was generated by some of the families a few generations ago who got nothing.

Did you know Haiti is still paying reparations to France via the U.S. for winning there freedom. This bill is about half of the Haitian GDP annually. People like you guys think they can’t get it together. In reality the west has turned Haiti into A big plantation. I mention this because even though People of color may assimilate. There is a full out assault on there independence.

“Pull the layers off the onion until you begin to cry. Then put it down and walk away.”
Brannon Yancey

Nov 24, 2008 - 5:26 am 143. Bernard Chapin:

Thanks so much for reading my article. I must make three points. First, to the person who says he puts “race in our face.” He does so because he is a racist. Non-racists do not obsess over race which is how you know we aren’t racist. The way he used the N word is his post is most telling. Second, blacks are not poor in America at all. Most blacks are middle class or better. Does it not speak volumes about the corruption of the mainstream media that people don’t know that? Here’s the Census bureau link: “Poverty rate in 2005 for those reporting black as their only race. This rate was down from 31.3 percent in 1985.”
Poverty is perpetuated by government programs and socialism which brings me to…Third point, socialism harms the poor because their benefits would be far worse once the economy contracts. While poverty was perpetuated while on the dole now the dole that they receive will be far less. The same will be true for medicaid and social security as programs because there will be no money to fund them without the profits of capitalism.

Nov 24, 2008 - 5:35 am 144. Anonymous:

143. sam:

Nobody is “trying to discredit a race”. Nobody is telling “half truths.” Please refrain from telling these pointless lies.

Your attacks on capitalism aren’t challenges to the “power structure” – they’re challenges to the peace and prosperity of living human beings. Without the process of capitalism, our lives would be half as long. Without the process of capitalism, premature babies would not stand a hope of survival. There would be no “surplus” with which to enrich our lives with the medical and technological miracles surrounding us. The poor bastards of the Soviet Union were promised these riches for almost a century – they never came. All they got was misery and starvation and brutality.

While hopeless, negative people like you kid yourselves that “nobody can ever catch up,” millions of black people ARE catching up and have ALREADY caught up. They will continue to do so with or without your negativity.

It’s when you resort to bromides like “wealth hoarding” that I know this argument is pointless. You’re someone who can’t accept the most basic premises of reality.

Nov 24, 2008 - 7:01 am 145. Peter:

Obviously, the most efficient solution would be to dissolve the Congress so that the Chosen One could rule as He sees fit. Even a rubber stamp legislature might impede all the major changes that will be required.

Nov 24, 2008 - 8:38 am 146. Militant-Infidel:

I am (not so) patiently waiting for somebody to show me any example of where the policies of the “Great Society” didn’t directly contribute to the ills suffered by the vast majority of the poor in this country. By giving a handout instead of a hand up, we have effectively destroyed several generations of poor in this country. The most beneficial aspect, if you can call it that, is the fact that now this constituency is the base of the liberal party. May their chains lay lightly on them.

We have destroyed the bedrock of society, namely the family unit, in our quest. Males are now a liability except in their role as a sperm donor in the quest to create the next “dependent” (you are free to define dependent in any number of ways you wish). Instead of a government protecting “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, we have lifelong government dependency and the pursuit of working the system for a bigger handout.

Note that nowhere in this post did I mention race. The evil of this ill-conceived effort at social engineering cuts across all races and creeds.

MI

Nov 24, 2008 - 6:09 pm 147. MoniQue:

FOLKS, AMERICA’S CALLING AND COUNTING ON YOU – PLEASE WRITE TODAY! It’s not too late!

Hey folks don’t you think arguing about “obama policies” is a bit presumptuous?

HE’S NOT EVEN PROVED THAT HE’S A NATURAL BORN U.S. CITIZEN! And the truth is HE CAN’T because he was BORN IN KENYA and he doesn’t have a certificate of LIVE BIRTH for the State of Hawaii, only a “certification” for FILE purposes only and of which would not even allow a person to get a drivers license.

Here’s Chief Justice Clarence Thomas’ fax# 202-479-2971 write him TODAY – if you don’t know what to say, use the letter below as a sample.

http://moniquemonicat.wordpress.com/2008/11/09/%E2%80%A2-sign-obama-petition/

Nov 24, 2008 - 8:52 pm 148. Gene Lalor Berlet98:

November 4th was hardly a “massive defeat!”

It was a defeat for wussy “moderate” Republicans, not a defeat for conservatism!
(http://genelalor.com/)

Nov 25, 2008 - 12:58 am 149. Mack:

Real Americans will NEVER follow a communist! EVER!

If anybody will be hiding in caves it’s the weak kneed slack jawed liberal commies!

Liberals don’t know it yet but they just voted for a Military Draft, No Real American is going to send their sons or daughters into battle to fight for a communist coward Commander and Chief, Why should they? So obama can leave them on the battlefield without support like Clinton (Somalia) Carter (Iran), so get ready for the draft pond scum!

It’s about time the liberals do some of the fighting and dieing for their Country, if they love their country like they say they do, PROVE IT! (ò¿ó)

Get ya some boys!

Nov 25, 2008 - 6:24 am 150. Blue Collar Todd:

I do not want any part of Unity that is defined by Liberal notions of truth and ethics.

Nov 25, 2008 - 11:27 am 151. Robert:

#151, What ethics?

Nov 25, 2008 - 1:10 pm 152. SHOULD CONSERVATIVES AND PUMAS UNITE AROUND OBAMA? « fromhillary2mccain:

[...] SHOULD CONSERVATIVES AND PUMAS UNITE AROUND OBAMA? http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/must-conservatives-rally-round-the-messiah/ [...]

Nov 25, 2008 - 1:11 pm 153. Ventrue:

LOL @ 148. MoniQue. When you choose a lost cause, you really commit. Hopefully, you are at least as committed to competent psychiatric care.

150. Mack,

Hate to break the news to you, but Somalia was Bush the Elder’s boondoggle, not Clinton’s. As for the reference to Carter, I presume you are referring to the abortive 1980 rescue attempt made for the hostages held in Tehran. While the operation was royally botched, the failure certainly couldn’t be blamed upon Carter.

That is, unless you are ready to blame the current president for our submarines sinking Japanese fishing boats, or our air force surveillance jets colliding into their Chinese counterparts.

Heck, more blame could be laid at Reagan’s feet for the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut 25 years ago.

Come out of the air raid shelter, Mack….the Red Scare has been over for quite awhile.

Nov 25, 2008 - 5:47 pm 154. Mack:

Ventrue: I meant to say “So obama can leave them on the battlefield without any support or surrender at the first signs of Victory”

“Come out of the air raid shelter, Mack….the Red Scare has been over for quite awhile”

liberals are the REDS, I don’t have a air raid shelter but I do have my Bible and the 2nd Amendment.

Don’t you Canadians have enough of your own problems to worry about?

Nov 26, 2008 - 8:09 am 155. Ventrue:

Mack:

1. Who told you Obama would do that?

2. Ummmm….BLUE is the color of liberals, Mack.

3. I don’t know what makes you think I’m a canuck. I also don’t know about problems north of the border, but last I heard, the loonie was doing better than the greenback. As for your bible and 2nd amendment comment, I seem to recall Obama stirring up a bit of a kerfuffle for observing that in times of turmoil, people cling tighter to their guns and religion.

A wise man, our president-elect…..I’m sure he appreciates your hearty “Amen, brother!”.

Nov 27, 2008 - 9:44 am 156. Horace Wells:

this is the kind of simple minded, cliche and generalization laden trash which is the hallmark of modern anti-intellectual knee jerk cosnervatism. The only people calling Obama the Messiah are the ones who think Bush and Palin are.

Nov 27, 2008 - 5:13 pm 157. Harry:

Curious? #136

Why does the white man have a right to the Western Hemisphere? It is the homeland of native American.

The Israelis [descendants of the ancient Hebrew tribes] were referred to as Palestinians before they were conquered and thrown out [dispersed] way back when . . . it was the Hebrew tribes homeland many, many centuries before the age of Mohammad . . .

Dec 6, 2008 - 12:28 pm 158. Hail to the Chief - Obama,Barack? | Barack Obama - Sharpy News:

[...] Chapin sets the marker: What is most perturbing about the election carnage is that, while their victory assures that the [...]

Dec 29, 2008 - 6:20 am

Write a Comment

Name:	(required, displayed)
Email:	(required, not publicized)
URL:	(optional, displayed)
Comments: