Much Attention, Little Knowledge
Obama himself at various times in his memoirs—never have presidential autobiographies sold so many copies, and yet have been so little read by the press—talked about people seeing in him what they wished. And now on the eve of the election, I confess I have no idea about who he is or what he stands for. If he is elected, I can only hope for the best, and pray a few sober old Clintonites like Paul Volcker or Robert Rubin will step forward.
What is a “Huge Sum”?
Does Obama really, as Joe Biden promised, wish to shut down coal-generated electricity plants?
He denied it, of course. But then on the eve of the election we see a recording just released of what he recently boasted about on the topic: “If somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”
Note again the boastful Obama’s usage of “bankrupt” them—as if the destruction of an entire industry that currently warms the water, cooks the food, and keeps the lights on for 150 million Americans can simply fold, without consequences to the industry’s workers and to us, the consumers of their electricity. Are we to use our stoves for five or six hours a day as the wind and sun allow, in order to prove that we are ‘green” and no longer ‘selfish’?
So, are the selfish rich making $300,000, $250,000, $200,000, $150,000 or $120,000?
Who knows, we’ve heard all of these figures as benchmarks for the next gargantuan tax bite. Is ’socialism’ an unfair indictment of Obama’s policies (perhaps mandated ‘equality of result’ is more polite)? I think not, since he regrets the inability to use the Supreme Court to redistribute capital, or what he later dubbed ‘spread the wealth around’. Is the term ’socialist’ antithetical to, or suggestive of, his agenda that would raise income-based taxation in many states (state, federal, FICA, Medicare) to 65% of the incomes of those who now pay over 60% of the nation’s aggregate taxes, while upping the number of those exempt from federal income tax obligation to nearly half of the nation’s wage earners?
What does one call that? Fairness—when one proceeds to give cash credits to many of those who are not paying any federal income taxes at all? That will be a pretty large political constituency—half the nation’s wage-earners—who will be appreciative that someone exempted them from all concern about where and how much of their government’s revenues derive.
More Therapeutic Studies?
I worry about education, since at various times Obama has called for reparations (in deed, not word), more oppression studies, and praised ethnic magnet schools. Clearly to address the underclass we need instead a more traditional curriculum and back to basics emphasis on reading, literatures, math, and science, and less on the therapeutic “they” who did this to us. I wrote an article in the current issue of City Journal on this, and worry that much of our most critical problems derive from a substandard school system, that needs radical reform and competition, not more money.
Yes, No—or Present?
I don’t know what Obama feels about drilling, nuclear power, FISA, NAFTA, capital punishment, abortion, guns, Iran, the surge, Jerusalem, campaign financing, etc. But I do get the impression that he is more or less cognizant that most of his views around 2006 were at odds with the American people’s, and so he had to change or drop them (and most of his social circle) to get elected, or at least mention them only at small private gatherings in San Francisco.
The mystery? Will he revert back to the constant Obama of the last 30 years who waged dirty 1996 and 2004 campaigns, and shared apparently ideologies with Ayers, Khalidi, Pfleger, and Wright and others in his Chicago extremist cadre? Or will he govern as a center-leftist, corralling a Frank, Pelosi, and Reed and the most fringe beyond them?
Truman or Carter?
Will Obama really, at a time of near recession, create a trillion dollars of new spending programs, when many of the existing ones don’t work and contribute to a half-trillion dollar current deficit? Note in almost every speech, Obama lists a new federal bromide to address our malaise, rarely if ever advice to curb our own extravagant spending and borrowing, honor our debts, live lives that lessen our reliance on a burdened federal government, or seek personal responsibity to curtail illegitimacy, drug use, high school drop-out rates, and illegality that do so much to impoverish the nation. Surely some of the things that got us into the current mess were self-induced and not entirely the fault of the greedy “they” on Wall Street and in Washington?
A Minor Morality Tale
His aunt Zeitunie is a minor road bump and familiar to everyone who has an embarrassing relative. But Auntie Z. is also emblematic nevertheless of many of the concerns one has about the blank Obama slate. Let me state first that no one is completely responsible for one’s immdiate family, but we need at least a statement on that from Obama that his aunt’s illegality is a worry to him, and he will take as much care to see her comply with American law as he did to write of her in the past. Some minor concerns:
1) Charity Begins at Home? She appeared in cameo fashion in his memoirs as proof of his strong family ties (and attended, I think, his swearing in as a US Senator); but then was subsequently languishing as an illegal alien, in violation of a deportation order, in a public housing project a mere hour’s flight from Chicago. I am skeptical of someone like Obama who dubs others “selfish” for worrying that upping federal tax by 20% on those who currently pay the most in taxes (5% income tax hike, 15.3 FICA self-employment tax exposure), all for dubious expenditures, and cannot even take care of someone he cited in his memoir as “family.”
2) An Objective Press? The press story is somehow now about who ‘leaked’ information that his aunt had defied a deportation order and was in the country illegally. This is yet another sign that US immigration law is made laughable, and its enforcement a joke to the rather limited extent the law is even applied. One not only can overstay a visa, ignore a court order, ignore campaign laws, ignore public housing requirements, but do so in such a context that revelation of such serial lawbreaking, not the serial lawbreaking itself, is proof of wrong.
3) Mr. Axlerod of recent Chicago Fame. More of the double standard. David Axlerod, the Chicago master of leaking information to destroy adversaries, is suddenly worried about supposed leaks of government documents? Aside from Joe the Plumber, he should ask why and how the sealed divorce records of both Obama’s Democratic primary rival and his general election Republican opponent were leaked, imploding both campaigns and ensuring the election of Obama in 2004 to the Senate. If the aunt story was improperly leaked by a right-wing immigration official, can’t Axlerod at least say “Damnit, I was Axleroded!”
4) If You Can’t Trust Your Aunt, Who Can You Trust? Obama said that his historical rejection of campaign finance (after a promise to abide by the statutes), and his subsequent creation of $600 million war-chest, should not cause worry because so many of the donors were “small”.
Thus any questions about fake names, addresses, lack of compliance with identifying donors by name, foreign contributors, and prepaid credit cards were essentially McCarthyite—given the historical lift Obama had given the American electoral process.
But if the Obama campaign cannot even guarantee that his own aunt followed the law (it is illegal for foreigners to contribute to US presidential campaigns), what does that say about the millions of others we are supposed to believe, on the assurance of Obama himself, were supposedly legitimate and lawful donors? How ethical is it for someone who is in violation of the law, and receiving some sort of public subsidy to then donate money, illegally again, to a campaign?
5) Do as I Say, not as I Do! The media, rather than enlightening us about Obama’s background, consistency in thought, past behavior, and character, instead turns on anyone and anything that stands in the way of his ascension. So Auntie Zeitunie is a distraction, yes. But also no: perhaps the next President of the United States, who promises to tax to increase the social safety net, and demonizes those as selfish who disagree, can at least help a little in taking care of his own aunt, and ensure that she changes her mind about her defiance of deportation orders, her violation of Boston public housing guidelines, and her rather brazen disregard of campaign financing laws.
6) It’s the Law, Stupid! That is the issue here. The law really does matter. I can’t think of any aunt of any President who violated so many statutes to so little consternation—or someone who so authoritatively lectured the nation on the responsibilities of social welfare and their moral obligations to give to the state purse, who in turn proved so unaware of the impoverished and illegal conditions of his own family.
A minor point, but indicative that Obama remains a blank slate on the eve of the election. We had 2 years of hope and change, and not a day of hope for what? and change this or that?
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83 Comments
1. Attack Barack!:The day after the election, if Obama is elected, let the Barack Attacks begin. If not him, anyone on his transition team or any named cabinet appointee. This is not Derangement Syndrome, but calm and deliberate payback on the MSM/Press for its b.j.ournalism and his toadies.
Nov 2, 2008 - 12:05 pm 2. whiskey:Obama’s aunt and the multiple violations of the law, with impunity, while Joe the Plumber has his private info leaked to the Press, by Black officials who are Barack Obama contributors, is part of what others have dubbed “anarcho-tyranny.”
Which is a feature of life in Europe.
Anarcho-tyranny has as it’s feature, and one much beloved by elites, the punishment of the mostly White working and middle class, by criminals who are beyond the reach of the law due to their politically correct status as non-Whites, or the “correct” ideologues. So the Anti-Fascist groups in Europe beat with impunity middle aged respectable protestors who don’t want more mosques in their historic cities, while the police look on and do nothing. Because laws are not enforced against those with the correct politics. Or those who are minorities that are “correct” which is Blacks and Hispanics in the US, and Muslims in Europe, can commit crimes with impunity, both those of violent, street-crime natures, or electoral, privacy, and other laws, and can play the “racism” card to avoid any enforcement of the law.
MEANWHILE, Obama promises to follow the European model, of total control by the State over every aspect of mundane life for the law-abiding middle and working classes. Fines for the “wrong” trash in the trash bins, inspectors to paw through one’s life to determine the “correct” amount of carbon-tax, rules and regulations over the most minute details of the lives of the middle and working class.
This is because the political coalitions in the West, which Obama is merely the latest example, hate and fear the mostly White middle/working class. For the elites, they represent a set of potential competitors who must be stomped, and also a way of expressing social status through contempt. When Obama mocked and ridiculed Joe the Plumber, his Yuppie crowds, who were mostly White, loved it, because they too are engaged in an endless battle for status and social standing, parodied relentlessly on Seinfeld and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
The minorities, meanwhile, seek to overthrow and supplant the White working/middle classes, through both demographic conquest and political action. In the short term, they seek Affirmative Action type advantages, at every turn, and in the long term have an explicit agenda to make the White middle/working class a despised and legally discriminated against minority.
Economic good times, nearly uninterrupted, from 1965 onwards, has enabled this coalition to rule in the West more or less permanently, until now.
Obama may well win, but to deliver on his promises, the implicit ones, of more suppression of opportunity of the White working/middle class so his Yuppie White backers don’t face threats (they don’t view minorities as real threats, rather as props to demonstrate moral/spiritual superiority), and the demands for ever more transfer payments from the White working/middle class to the minority coalitions, are really unsustainable.
A prolonged battle over patronage in a sustained recession/depression means the inevitable rise of the counter to the White Yuppie / Minority coalition — the White Populist-Nationalist politician. In Italy it is the relatively benign Lega Nord and Berlusconi. In the US, it might be Sarah Palin. Regardless, the politics are likely to be even more brutal. Good times can buffer many conflicts, hard times bring them to the fore.
Nov 2, 2008 - 12:17 pm 3. whiskey:One more thing, it is sad and a very tragic triumph, of the Left, that assimilation and Nationalist/Populism along the lines of Dr. King is basically dead. Identity politics killed it, and it’s not IMHO coming back.
I think we will regret this in the West, in every country, sooner or later.
Nov 2, 2008 - 12:18 pm 4. J.E. Dyer:With the following Obama statements on record, I’m not sure why he is a blank slate to anyone:
- Increase taxes
- “Spread the wealth around”
- We need a “national civilian security force” (to do what? What the FBI, DEA, Border Patrol, and BATF — not to mention the state law enforcement agencies and local police — are not already doing? What’s that?)
- Withdraw from Iraq regardless of the situation in Iraq or the local or regional consequences of such a withdrawal
- Conduct unilateral military operations in Pakistan
- “Talk to” Iran, and presumably other adversaries, without setting any preconditions for the other party (imagine Congress’ delight if Richard Nixon or George W. Bush had proposed such a principle)
- Everybody be calm when Russia invades Georgia
Obama doesn’t strike me as a blank slate, but one written on very clearly and informatively.
Nov 2, 2008 - 1:38 pm 5. Mike:My Dear Dr. Hanson:
Fine essay, as always. But may I offer a bit of certainty?
We can expect Obama to behave exactly as what he is, a man so far to the far left that he is straddling the line between crazed, out of their minds, koolaid IV, end the war liberalism and communism. One doesn’t surround oneself, professionally and casually, with leftist terrorists, bigots, criminals and other lower forms of life unless one is comfortable, indeed, nourished by those alliances. Good grief, his friends and professional partners hate America, hate the Jews, hate all white people, would be delighted to see another, final Holocaust, and have even been photographed dancing with delight on the American flag! Remember that not too long ago Obama himself declared that he would never wear an American flag pin because it was false patriotism, yet there the pin was on his lapel during his informercial. How far we have fallen as a nation that such a man–and I use that term only in the genetic sense–could be elevated to the presidency.
That an American presidential candidate, particularly one who claims to be a constitutional scholar, would not shrink from proclaiming his desire to pack the courts with those who would ignore the Constitution and the law in deciding cases illustrates, perhaps more clearly than anything else, exactly who Obama is and what he will do. If he’s comfortable making public his desire to abandon the Constitution, presumably in the name of “fairness,” how much more can he possibly distance himself from American values, indeed from America itself?
And we do, in fact, know exactly what he feels on one issue: Guns. Despite Obama’s weak pretense to support the Second Amendment, and the media’s pathetic acceptance of same, one need not dig too deeply to discover that even for a Chicago machine politician who has done all that he can to leave no voting tracks, Obama has voted more consistently on this subject than on any other. The result: Obama never found an anti-gun law he did not support, including absolute bans on guns and ammunition. That he has lied repeatedly about this matter–as virtually everything else–is a matter of public record and is easily discovered by anyone willing to invest a few minutes.
Even if Obama feels somewhat constrained in enacting his wish list, he’ll still be only a few degrees to the right of the absolute left of the political spectrum. He’s so far from the center, he may as well be in another universe.
Nov 2, 2008 - 2:12 pm 6. cfbleachers:I don’t know what Obama feels about drilling, nuclear power, FISA, NAFTA, capital punishment, abortion, guns, Iran, the surge, Jerusalem, campaign financing, etc. But I do get the impression that he is more or less cognizant that most of his views around 2006 were at odds with the American people’s, and so he had to change or drop them (and most of his social circle) to get elected, or at least mention them only at small private gatherings in San Francisco.
The mystery? Will he revert back to the constant Obama of the last 30 years who waged dirty 1996 and 2004 campaigns, and shared apparently ideologies with Ayers, Khalidi, Pfleger, and Wright and others in his Chicago extremist cadre? Or will he govern as a center-leftist, corralling a Frank, Pelosi, and Reed and the most fringe beyond them?
And anyone who claims he does know, is either a liar or a fool.
Yet, who was charged with helping us to unveil these awaiting mysteries? The entrenched media, fearing not an ounce of punishment, retribution or an ounce of oversight…has disgraced themselves at a base level heretofore thought impossibly low.
They have reached the bottom notch. It is clear that they are incapable of policing themselves for any, single, solitary meaningful ethical violation. Their reader representatives and ombudsman are bought and paid for stooges, with titles that must operate as the smirk and snicker conveyor belts to the infinite mirthmaking of an inside joke.
And the joke is on us. The joke is about us. The information stream was allowed to pollute itself, and now we will be forced to drink from it.
One last point. There seems to be some consternation about whether “socialism” is this or “socialism” is not that. If you self-identify as the Democratic Socialists of America, I’m going to take your word that you are a socialist. If the New Party splinters off from the Democratic Socialists and takes a new tack to sail into deeper waters, the change in tactics doesn’t change the dymamic of who you are.
Small “c” Communist, CPUSA member, DSA, New Party, Maoist, Marxist, ….really, from my seat in the centerfield bleachers, it’s the same kettle of fish and smells the same.
I’m not buying the same stinking fish, just because they decide to sell it under a pretty name. And the intellectual gymnastics about whether “socialist” applies, doesn’t move me toward purchase one inch.
Nov 2, 2008 - 3:15 pm 7. RJ:Spend some time in a shrink’s office with some of the patients. It won’t take long to see that part of the game is to have the patient see the reality in his life. All the signs will be presented, exposed, examined, and discussed.
Obama has presented us with a reality. You have asked many questions. He is what you think, he came from where you think, he thinks what you fear.
He is what he appears to be. To hope that his senior advisors will contain and shape those areas of his ideas you greatly fear is about as wishful as wondering why all of Micheal Jackson’s people were unable to warn him of his choices and direct his life away from those areas of self destruction.
No, this reality goes far beyond Obama, it reaches into our social fabric more than any thing I have ever seen!
Read Tacitus for clues.
The long,long shot? He is a great leader.
Why don’t I see this reality? ‘Cause so far it ain’t no reality. Time will tell. He hasn’t won yet, but if McCain does any more PTSD moves like SNL comedy, Obama will be the next leader of our country.
If so, bet your ass there will be some nuts who will want his reign to be very very short in duration and ended in a not so nice way…the man generates this kind of polarization and is an easy excuse for those who have lives filled beyond hatreds. And if he is your worst nightmare he will use such attempts as excuses to tighten his grip on our freedoms having such great Americans as Reid and Pelosi to back his games.
I am very worried. The only real person here that I could easily follow would be Sarah Palin: She is much smarter than most give her credit, perhaps a true natural, an honest stateswoman at a time of posers.
Then again, I may be the one with the problem here. Maybe…time will tell won’t it?
Nov 2, 2008 - 3:35 pm 8. vanderleun:“—never have presidential autobiographies sold so many copies, and yet have been so little read by the press—talked about people seeing in him what they wished.”
Of course the press has read this in the books. They know enough not to spread it around.
Nov 2, 2008 - 4:21 pm 9. Victor Davis Hanson On Obama - And My Biden-Crazy Prediction at Bydio:[...] While I’d like to see more from him on McCain, because McCain is also crap, his points and concerns about Obama are right on: A Minor Morality Tale [...]
Nov 2, 2008 - 5:26 pm 10. Ron Kean:Keep a stiff upper lip whatever that means. McCain may still win.
Nov 2, 2008 - 5:30 pm 11. DEK:I teach. My barrio students reflect their parents’ and the neighborhood’s view. As a rule, they don’t like African Americans. But they indicate their families will vote heavily Obama. The main reason: most believe they’ll be getting a sweet check in the mail. They know and care little for the issues beyond immigration, but they’ve heard of the tax cut bonus…although few actually pay taxes. Word of new social services and other wonderful freebies will soon reach them. That’s their Hope and Change.
A slick and calculating huckster, this fly-by-night politician has suckered the American people with promises, a pearly smile, and, yes VDH, a wonderfully vague identity which can be whatever we want it to be.
Conservatives and Republicans had best waste no time with finger pointing; instead, get cohesive and coherent and, yes, popularly appealing, so the upcoming mess can be cleaned up after the next few years.
Nov 2, 2008 - 5:57 pm 12. TLM:Shades of 1968 all over again. The war. Civil strife. The election. And the last messiah-like figure to entrance a generation of disaffected young Americans. Self-styled shaman Jim Morrison, whose voice and lyrics mesmerized the crowd. Mr Mojo rising, with a band named after a famous encomium to LSD, living what he called “the strangest life I’ve ever known”. Remember those days? History is dead. Live for the moment. The future’s uncertain and the end is always near. Beyond the doors of perception. Well, for Morrison, the reality beyond those doors was a bathroom stall in a Paris nightclub where an overdose of heroin ended his life. And after nearly forty years of rumors, the manner of his death was finally confirmed earlier during this election cycle.
The latest messiah in our midst, the ill-defined, unknown and seemingly unknowable Obama, is but a few days away from possibly being elected our next president. After a twenty month campaign, rumors about his past still abound and revelations, like the whereabouts of his Auntie Z, still come to the fore. Auntie here shows once again how much about Obama remains unknown. Hard to believe she meant so much to him back when, that he now ignores her very existence. She is further proof that what is written in his memoir is either contrived or fabricated. Why are important aspects of his life (eg. his time at Columbia) glossed over, while others of little consequence are glorified? Why have so few friends or associates from his college days talked about him to the press. At Columbia no one remembers the guy, except a roommate who says little. Similarly, faculty members at the U of Chicago Law School, where he taught for years, recall no hint of his political persuasion. A quiz in the latest Occidental College quarterly magazine (I get this as an alumnus) has ten quotes about Obama. We are asked to identify who said which quote. But, few come from students or teachers who knew him while he was there. How odd. He seems such a memorable character. Yet he remains an enigma.
This is, of course, intentional, designed to foist on us that famous blank slate whereon we can write all our dreams. In reality, however, this is a deception meant to dissuade us from thinking that, for Obama, the past is relevant. We are to see only the current myth as prologue to a fabulous future. Don’t let concerns about the man’s past spoil your dreams. That’s the true transformative power of Obama and his campaign. And there’s the rub for me. Voting for president a man with a concealed past is a huge risk. What is it that he’s hiding? Possibly a character flaw, but I doubt it. This campaign would have exposed such a deficiency. A history of indiscretions? Neither likely nor worrisome. Exaggerating or falsifying his accomplishments? They are few in number and easily verified. Anyway, all politicians pad their resumes. So what is it? What’s the big secret? Almost certainly it pertains to his core political philosophy, its evolution, and the people who helped him form it. And, two days before the election, we can only guess at what that is.
It is madness to have given up knowing about this man’s past, hoping only to realize a dream. Has not the past forty years, or even just the past ten, taught us the folly of ignoring such risks? 9/11, the Iraq War, the financial meltdown. Do we need further evidence of what our collective ignorance brings? You gotta have a lot of Hope ‘n Change to risk all on a dream. Personally, I still hope America changes her mind and rejects The Unknown One. But, to paraphrase Jim Morrison: This is the strangest election I’ve ever known. Its end is near, and the future of our democracy is uncertain. Unfortunately, what lies beyond the facade of deception Barack Obama has erected around his past is yet to be revealed.
Nov 2, 2008 - 8:09 pm 13. Olivia:Tiniest of corrections, but I believe her name is Zeitunie.
Nov 2, 2008 - 10:53 pm 14. US Election On Best Political Blogs » Blog Archive » A Blank Slate:Regardless, this articles hits all the right points.
[...] A Blank Slate But I do get the impression that he is more or less cognizant that most of his views around 2006 were at odds with the American people’s, and so he had to change or drop them (and most of his social circle) to get elected, … [...]
Nov 3, 2008 - 12:34 am 15. Pajamas Media » A Blank Slate:[...] Read the entire story here. [...]
Nov 3, 2008 - 12:53 am 16. BattleGround:There’s a very simple way to prevent this absurd nightmare. On Tuesday, get up, get dressed and go vote for this McCain guy. Especially if you live in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. If enough people accomplish this simple action, we may well be saved…
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:45 am 17. Monday:I find the most interesting aspect of Obama’s “bankrupt coal” policy as heard here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdi4onAQBWQ
…is that he wants to reduce gasoline consumption and encourage the use of electricity…
…49% of which is generated (see chart in video) from coal!
__________________________________________
Small detail of note: ZERObama also wants to force Americans to use 15% less electricity.
*********************************************
Nov 3, 2008 - 2:07 am 18. jvon:+++++ VOTE McCAIN/PALIN TOMORROW!!! +++++
*********************************************
That does it. I was going to vote for Obama under six different names on Tuesday but instead I’m going to sit on the couch and eat Doritos.
Nov 3, 2008 - 2:13 am 19. Ed Wallis:AHH…”selfishness”…as defined by the man who leaves his close relatives in poverty.
*B*R*I*L*L*I*A*N*T*
http://www.thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=42#ZS
(excerpt)
“Cornerstone of progressive economics and ethics. Collectively, all losses and gains sum to zero. Your loss is our gain, and your gain is our loss.
Whatever you own, it is at our expense. You owe your property to us by the virtue of you owning it. Losers contribute to the society and winners take away from it. Being a winner is immoral and selfish. A society of losers is happy and moral.
In this sense, the Unites States is the worst society in the world. Americans eat because other people starve. On our planet with limited resources, the most ethical thing one can do is stop eating and starve to death. Bourgeois ideologues will lie to you that economy is a non-Zero-Sum game and that capitalism creates wealth without making others poor. Such lies must be silenced and mercilessly eradicated.”
Charity is voluntary. Taxation is mandatory. Imposing upon all Americans what one person deems to be “fair” is also known as “playing God.”
Nov 3, 2008 - 2:24 am 20. Bernard Chapin:He’s really not a blank slate…except to half of the drones voting for him. Thanks go out to S. Kurtz and D. Freddoso for their investigations of him and I wish the average American had the insight of Victor Davis Hanson, alas!
Nov 3, 2008 - 2:32 am 21. Allison Kaplan Sommer:Testing
Nov 3, 2008 - 3:17 am 22. Monday:Regarding Mr. Hanson’s comments on “spreading the wealth”
a *B*R*I*L*L*I*A*N*T* observation from
http://www.thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=42#ZS
(excerpt)
“Cornerstone of progressive economics and ethics. Collectively, all losses and gains sum to zero. Your loss is our gain, and your gain is our loss.
Whatever you own, it is at our expense. You owe your property to us by the virtue of you owning it. Losers contribute to the society and winners take away from it. Being a winner is immoral and selfish. A society of losers is happy and moral.
In this sense, the Unites States is the worst society in the world. Americans eat because other people starve. On our planet with limited resources, the most ethical thing one can do is stop eating and starve to death. Bourgeois ideologues will lie to you that economy is a non-Zero-Sum game and that capitalism creates wealth without making others poor. Such lies must be silenced and mercilessly eradicated.”
Nov 3, 2008 - 3:57 am 23. “Let Freedom Ring” « Mark Epstein:[...] baiting” and race-charged political campaign, Obama’s chant for change — a change devoid of substance, the duplicity of the Fourth Estate and congress with respect to the revelation that Obama’s [...]
Nov 3, 2008 - 4:01 am 24. RE:Thank you, Dr Hanson for your efforts to alert people to he dangers at hand.
A vote for Obama constitutes recklessness. America may be in for a very painful lesson.
Nov 3, 2008 - 4:09 am 25. Scott E:Great points. I’m afraaid you are shouting out into the wilderness though.
Nov 3, 2008 - 4:14 am 26. Tertium Quid:The press this year shows all the emotional maturity of high schoolers at a prom. After primping and admiring themselves and their candidate, they will come to despise him and despise themselves for being suckers.
We suffer badly (that is, my babyboomer generation) from having successfully resisted growing up.
Nov 3, 2008 - 4:44 am 27. steve:Wednesday will tell the tale but today (Monday) I simply can not believe that the American people are capable of making such a colosal error in judgement as to make Senator Obama President elect. It would mean a center right population is knowingly leaping to the far left, leaving behind the rugged individualism our country was built on to attain the failed nanny state “security” of a western Europe. As one who has spent the last decade in England and Spain, the promised land falls far short of its promise.
Nov 3, 2008 - 4:57 am 28. SAF:As we have said repeatedly in our VDH comments, this election will be a referendum on Obama – and despite all the presented evidence by nedia and polls, I do not believe that he has made the sale.
Nice article but wrong. We know exactly what he is going to do, take the country way left, he will try and talk our terrorist enemies into submission and he will muzzle free speech if he doesn’t like what you say.
The latest flap-doodle about putting coal fired electric plants out of business is another example of “new thinking.” unfortunately its what the communists did when they took over russia in the early twentieth century. They didn’t outlaw private business they just taxed them to death.
Obama claims McCain looks into the rear view mirror. But he is a piker compared to Obama who is going to implement private business rules invented by the Bolsheviks to destroy private business.
Nov 3, 2008 - 5:11 am 29. amr:Two years ago Mr. Obama promised to help his grandmother, who he said on International Woman’s Day was an inspiration for him, but she still lives in poverty in Kenya. The British media reported he hasn’t given any help to her or the village, which named its school in honor of him after his visit and promises, just as it took the British media to expose his aunt. His half brother’s situation is another case in point also.
Charity does being at home, but apparently the American media is beyond such traditional ideas as well as reporting and informing the public about this candidate.
Nov 3, 2008 - 5:35 am 30. RJ:Another thought. Remember that “great” President, the one who loved getting bl*wn in the Oval Office, Bill Clinton? He was a master at manipulating the country’s emotions: “I feel your pain!” It worked in a grand manner.
All rationalists were left behind as he and his ministers marched forward.
Then came those bad boys from the Middle East: “Allah Akbar” they shouted while pressing the button of destruction for thousands.
Religion/spirituality…belief driven choices now entered the mainstream of our lives.
How would Americans answer such a threat…finally?
Enter Barak Obama. Think about how he presents himself and his ideas.
It’s a combo sandwich for all of us to take a bite and get the right kind of nourishment we really need…according to him. Kinda like Jesus giving us some fish and manna!
Some answer!
Nov 3, 2008 - 5:46 am 31. Ken Besig:First of all, every plan that has ever been mooted to supposedly tax the rich and give the money to the poor has been torpedoed before it could even be read. Obama won’t be any more successful at it than anybody else has been and his new taxes will largely hit the middle class. Indeed, within the past three weeks, Obama has gone from exempting from his tax plans American wage earners who make less than $250,000 to wage earners making less than $120,000, at that rate in a couple of more days he’ll be hiking the tax rates on anyone making any money at all!
Nov 3, 2008 - 5:47 am 32. Jonesy55:Secondly, most of Obama’s supporters “don’t know ‘nuthin” about him or his programs and couldn’t care less, so long as they get a handout. If that handout fails to materialize Obama will fall out favor very quickly.
Third, Barack Obama and the entire Democratic National Committee have decided that because the Republicans “stole” the last two Presidential elections, that they and their supporters, including their pals in the media, are morally permitted to use any dirty, illegal, immoral, and scurrilous means including smearing law abiding and innocent American citizens like Joe the Plumber to win the election. This scofflaw attitude will infect the American electoral system for decades and will ultimately destroy what little faith American voters still have in the government and the media.
Finally, if as most of us McCain supporters believe, that Barack Obama lacks any serious executive, political, and diplomatic experience and knowledge, is immature and naive regarding the international threats facing America and her allies, and intends to inflict a European style socialist agenda on America, then any Obama administration will crash and burn within six months of assuming office. Certainly if Obama imposes his proposed tax hikes and entitlements, the American taxpayers will face massive job losses, huge losses of investment value, captial flight on a scale heretofore unheard of, and inflation of Biblical proportions. Moreover, the reverbrations of that smashup will be felt internationally and will shake the international markets to their knees. But diplomatically the outcome of Obama’s global naivete will be horrendous, from Hugo Chavez freely fomenting revolution throughout South America, to North Korea openly shipping nuclear weapons to every rogue regime in sight, to Iran publicly completing it’s nuclear ballistic missile program, to Russia once again in it’s imperial mode roaring out to impose it’s military will on Eastern Europe and it’s energy dictates on Western Europe, and of course, Israel and the Middle East will once again be on the verge of exploding into a shooting war.
So where are you guys all going to emigrate to when Obama gets in?
I hear that Somalia has very limited government and virtually no taxation at all, you might like it there.
Nov 3, 2008 - 6:15 am 33. Rick:Obama is a narcissist, it’s always about him. He is the “one” the “hope” the “change” the “healer” we’ve been waiting for. What normal person thinks like that? He uses people to further his goals and later throws them under the bus. I would think a normal person would find the prospect of becoming President at his young age and low experience level daunting. To the contrary Obama believes he is the only one suited to the job and appears totally blind to his inexperience. Bill Clinton said “This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen”. I think the narcissist in Clinton recognized something in Obama.
Nov 3, 2008 - 6:41 am 34. Jerry:Prophecy is a difficult business and very few can make a living from it. However, the depth of exposure of Mr. Obama to left-wing thinking presupposes a disdain for “the truth” as a viable concept. “Truth” is a middle-class and apparently archaic concept to be abused out of existence. Rather, every piece of information is used, not for its truth-value, but for its value in creating and supporting the radical goals that Mr. Obama holds so dear. That Americans do not understand that “truth” is arcane and archaic speaks to their lack of education about left-wing theology. “Truth” is that which is devoid of meaningful opposition. Shatter the opposition in order to create “truth.” That is left-wing understanding of “truth.”
While Mr Obama’s goals and values are not clear to the American public, they are perfectly clear to the candidate. It is a better-than-even chance that Mr. Obama will attempt to make changes in America that will overstep the bounds that Americans can accept. Opposition will not stop him. Rather, as we hear from the corners of his campaign even now, those who disagree with his ghost-like policy statements will be accused of racism.
Guilt is a middle-class phenomenon. Neither those too poor to afford guilt or those too rich to pay heed to moral dictates feel compelled to express personal guilt. (Some with wealth feel guilty about their success. That is a cross-over group.) Only when Obama manages to destroy the middle class will opposition to him become justified in people’s minds. Thus, his destruction as the political director of American life will be written in the success of his actions. He will fall, not of his own weight, but of those who he shall bring down on his own head. If I understand him correctly, he will work in ways that solidifies opposition to him, and it will happen quickly. Let us pray that Mr. Obama permits opposition to his policies.
Nov 3, 2008 - 6:46 am 35. Get Real:Too bad Obama has offered up more than twice the policy changes than John McCain. You conservatives have become losers. Thank you for being so bad at governing you won’t see control of congress or the white house for another 30 years.
Nov 3, 2008 - 7:39 am 36. susan:Jonesy55, moving out after you have left unemployed all your obama supporters.
Wouldn’t be that delicious? I think it’s called poetic justice.
Nov 3, 2008 - 7:45 am 37. Ditto:Susan, I’m with you — what would Jonsey55 and all the rest do if hard-working Conservatives did leave? No more investment pool, no more businesses hiring any workers or producing any products or services. Just a great, big overstuffed government couch to sit on while the leeches sit on the couch eating Doritos (h/t #17 jvon).
It’ll be glorious. The Dems will finally have full control.
Nov 3, 2008 - 9:28 am 38. Duude:Paul Volker was from the Carter administration, not Clinton’s. As for Rubin, he may be damaged goods after he forcefully lobbied the Bush administration for Enron. He also had much to do with the changes to the Community redevelopment rules that is the root behind this perfect storm mortgage debacle. Nevertheless, I agree with most of the rest of Hanson’s article.
Nov 3, 2008 - 9:33 am 39. Sven:Unfortunately, the elephant in the room is overextended spending on credit. Yes, the consumer is plagued with this inability to perceive how deep a hole he is digging for himself, but that’s a baby elephant compared to the much larger problem of out of control entitlement spending. Some point to the so-called balanced budgets of the late 1990’s as some type of victory. The fact is they were never actually balanced. The government used the surplus payroll tax to offset current spending. Where I live that’s called borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. The government was borrowing from future medicare and social security in order to make political hay over a phony balanced budget. Now we’re going to add universal care, cap and trade rules and huge pork barrel spending. How will we get the money? Some combination of raising taxes on those that create jobs and borrowing from other nations. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that raising taxes on job creators usually leads to less economic growth and therefore less revenue for the government. Borrowing from other countries means depending upon countries with actual reserves (China) to loan us the money. If we continue to borrow money from China, how will that affect our bargaining power with China regarding trade and environmental standards? Figure it out. Cap and trade only sends more business overseas as we struggle to compete with other nations. China isn’t so stupid as to stumble down this same road Obama wants to see us go. Obama’s cap and trade is tantamount to throwing the U.S. economy head first down the stairs.
Doesn’t anyone think these things out? Oh yeah, Bush did. It was his reason for not approving the Kyoto treaty. China, India and the rest of the developing nations were not onboard. Without them, we will lose any possibility to compete. Why must we waste the next 4 years pursuing an ideological course which will surely blow up. Suggestion: Short U.S. stocks, short the dollar, buy China & India.
Jonesy55 writes:
“So where are you guys all going to emigrate to when Obama gets in?”
Unlike all you traitors on the left that threaten to move to Canada whenever a Republic wins the white house (Oh, if you would all only follow through on that!), we on the right actually love our country no matter who is in charge, and no matter how misinformed half of the voters may be.
Sorry to break it to you, but the 60+ million McCain voters will still be here on January 21 regardless of who wins.
Whereas the only voting block of Obama supporters that can say the same, should McCain win, would be the deceased.
Nov 3, 2008 - 9:56 am 40. Zeno:Obama is the result of decades of indoctrination.
Today I was walking on campus and I saw a student wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt. I thought: “All this fight during the decades of the Cold War, for this…”
Then I turned around, and saw an older man, probably a professor.
He was wearing a Lenin t-shirt…
Nov 3, 2008 - 10:41 am 41. cfbleachers:I truly believe that virtually 30% of Senator Obama’s supporters would not only faint, begin weeping, suffer back spasms, if Senator McCain somehow pulled off this upset,…but might actually cease to exist entirely.
Then again, from the looks of things related to ACORN in Ohio and elsewhere, perhaps 30% of them…already have.
Nov 3, 2008 - 10:56 am 42. BC:You guys are nuts, seriously. Have you noticed how well organized Obama’s campaign has been, both through the primaries and into the general election, going against heavily favored Hillary and a GOP candidate who would be automatically favored to get the middle America hick vote even if he wasn’t running against a black opponent? In contrast, look at how confused McCain behaved when trying to deal with how to behave during the financial crisis and whether to even have that first debate.
Also, did any of you bothered to look at who McCain brought on board with him? Like, oh say: Randy Scheunemann, one of the shmucks behind the Iraq invasion; Rick Davis, whose company was a lobbyist for Freddie Mack right up until this past September; and Phil Gramm, who, while Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, never saw a finance industry regulatory bill that he couldn’t gavel into oblivion.
These are just some of the reasons why no sane person, and one who actually bothered to make a real effort to find out what’s going on with these guys, is going to vote for McCain. It’s as simple as that.
Nov 3, 2008 - 11:42 am 43. jonathan K:take a chill righties, even as of today ( monday) the cake is not fully baked. everybody dances around Bradley, but it has meaning, remember the primaries with Hillary i. e California, N.H., PA, Ohio.. McCain, not likely, but not out of the realm of possibility.
the next point is even more important. McCain is a COUNTRY CLUB REPUBLICAN, with a strong dose of the left thrown in. despite all of his yak aboutr taxes et al he has never been a movement conservative. He has a history of working with the most liberal elements of the democratic party, i.e. Kennedy, FEingold etc.
I suspect despite all of the carrying on by both parites is that the differences between an Obama and a McCain Admin. would be marginal.
NO matter who wins taxes are going up, and both of the current wars are going to have to end. The american electorate is not willing to pay for or otherwise support the necessary requirements for these endless wars.
The libertarian/limited government view that are a staple of the blogs does not seem to have really resonated with the electorate at any time in the past 70 years, witht the possible exception of 1994, and that was more of a reform election than a genuine change of philosophy.
Dr. Hanson, you take too gloomy a view, dramatic change, regardless of who wins is NOT really comming. .
Nov 3, 2008 - 11:49 am 44. Ron Kean:Get Real
We are the cool ones. We don’t hold rallys with strange people. We don’t have raucous demonstrations like those misguided ones on the left.
I predict if McCain wins, Obama supporters will be like the martians in ‘Mars Attacks’ when the guy plays the music.
It’s a fun thought. How are you going to light your house when Obama puts his foot down on coal?
Nov 3, 2008 - 11:53 am 45. FLMom:34. Get Real:
“Too bad Obama has offered up more than twice the policy changes than John McCain.”
Yes it is too bad. Too bad for our economy and for our individual freedoms.
Just one more reason to vote McCain/Palin.
Nov 3, 2008 - 12:03 pm 46. cfbleachers:“favored to get the middle America hick vote”
Welcome to Senator Obama’s real mindset and those of his followers.
Time to start clinging to faith.
Nov 3, 2008 - 12:08 pm 47. FLMom:31. Jonesy55:
“So where are you guys all going to emigrate to when Obama gets in?”
You Obama people need to understand this loud and clear.
IF Obama wins, we are not going anywhere. We will not be bullied into silence. We will do everything in our power to make certain that the history of our country is not rewritten.
Get this into your heads a clearly as possible.
We love our country, regardless of who temporarily holds the title of Commander And Chief.
We are not going anywhere.
We will not be silenced.
Nov 3, 2008 - 12:12 pm 48. kevin c:JE DYER-”CIVILIAN SECURITY FORCE”- ILL DESCRIBE IT IN TWO WORDS-BROWN SHIRTS.
Nov 3, 2008 - 12:36 pm 49. kevin c:FLORIDA MOM-YOU SOUND LIKE MY KIND OF PERSON-THE PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES HAVE NOT BEEN PUT AWAY AND WE PATRIOTS WILL NOT LET THIS COMMUNIST TAKE AWAY AMERICA. THIS COUNTRY STARTED WITH A REVOLUTION AND IF COMRADE OBAMA COMMIE WANTS TO BE HUGO CHAVEZ OR JOE STALIN,HE WILL FIND OUT WHAT WE AMERICANS PATRIOTS THINK ABOUT IT. AND I GUARANTEEE HE WONT LIKE IT.
Nov 3, 2008 - 12:39 pm 50. kevin c:REAL AMERICANS-WIN OR LOSE,I SUGGEST WE ALL SEND THE COMMIE OBAMA CAMPAIGN A DOZEN LUMPS OF COAL. THINK OF IT AS A VERSION OF THE BOSTON TEA PARTY. HECK,ALL THAT COAL MIGHT GET THE IDIOT BIDEN SICK AFTER ALL. WELL,BIDEN IS PRETTY SICK EVEN BEFORE THE COAL.SO ETS OVWERWHELM THE COMMIE OBAMI CAMPAIGN WITH LOTS OF BLACK,DIRTY COAL. HE CAN RELATE TO BOTH BLACK AND DIRTY.
Nov 3, 2008 - 12:46 pm 51. kevin c:THE FELLOW WHO SAID COMRADE OBAMA WILL USE EXCESS TAXES TO IMPLEMENT COMMUNISM IS RIGHT ON. THATS WHAT THE COMMIES DID IN RUSSIA IN 1920,ITS WHAT CASTRO AND MAO DID, ITS WHAT ISLAM DOES TO SUBJEGATE NON MOSLEMS. RMEMEBER ONE THING ABOUT COMMIES-THEYVE NEVER GIVEN UP POWER WILLINGLY. REMEMBER SOLIDARITY IN POLAND. REMEMBER THE ATTEMPTED ASSASINATION OF POPE JOHN PAUL2ND. REMEMBER POL POT. REMEMBER THAT COMMIES HAVE MURDERED 100 MILLION SINCE 1918. AND REMEBER ALL OF OBAMAS ASSOCIATES. ALL OF THEM ARE HARDCORE STALINIST COMMIES.
Nov 3, 2008 - 12:54 pm 52. DEK:To be embarassingly self-revealing here, I, like so many here, have been following this election for months. Partly from impending defeat, but mostly from the whole process, I am repulsed by: cheap & sleazy rhetoric, manipulative promises, obvious deception, pregnant “hints” or downright smears, bend-over-spread passivity by that once noble now groveling 5th Estate, the public’s unquestioning/noncritical dreamy suspension of disbelief in the face of flowery crap rhetoric…..and so on.
The sordid underside of politics is all to human and simply part of the process, but I’m relieved it only comes every 4 years. Makes me think we the public are in the hands of sometimes articulate but morally vacuous adolescents in expensive suits with unearned money, power and prestige to burn.
Nov 3, 2008 - 12:55 pm 53. nick:Dont you GOpers ever stop lying
obama did not say coal plants would be bankrupted.
but you are too lazy or too much a liar to read the whole thing!
oh yes, there is a transcript besides the tape you GDFLM
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:05 pm 54. The Historian:MODERATE DEMOCRATS OWN THIS ELECTION
Who are all those undecided voters the day before the election and how will they vote? Answer:
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/11/moderate-democrates-own-this-election.html
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:07 pm 55. Someone75:Victor Davis Hanson
You disappoint me. If you’re stupid enough to think that Obama has no actual ideas, you could simply visit his website and read about his policies.
The real crime is that dupes read your articles and don’t bother to think about how your arguments are ludicrous. Aren’t you supposed to be a doctor or something? Do people in your classes actually believe what you sell them?
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:23 pm 56. ehunter:Heres how the Obamabot Internet Squads work.
And these people think they are bring a bright new future?
http://www.rense.com/general83/nrw.htm
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:25 pm 57. ehunter:IF YOU ARE AGAINST OBAMA..YOU STILL HAVE THE LAST SAY…
Keep your wallet closed. Dont let this fraud get one cent of yours.
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:27 pm 58. vick:Hey, victor davis hanson!
i thought you were a thinking, prudent person. Your blog is nothing but a hallucinatory, shrieking rant though. All of it is more than easily refutable, and what you write is even dishonest.
Obama has managed to beat enormous odds to be where he is today. He’s unlikely to be impulsive, rather, i think he will make very sensible decisions. I also hope you give him some credit for not dragging palin’s pregnant teen daughter – and by even saying that his mother had him when she was 18.
Nov 3, 2008 - 1:51 pm 59. Carl Sesar:Obama is an open book.
Nov 3, 2008 - 2:09 pm 60. jerryofva:He knows raising taxes in a time of recession will damage the economy even further.
He knows cuts in defense in a time of war will weaken our defenses.
Obama’s out to do that.
Vick:
No, Obama didn’t drag Palin’s daughter through the mud. He had surrogates do it.
If all VDH said is refutable, by all means have at it and refute it.
Nov 3, 2008 - 2:15 pm 61. nick:did anyone counter me on coal plants?
no
Nov 3, 2008 - 2:58 pm 62. Javelin:because they know Palin is always lying
So much for any pretense intellectuality or integrity, VDH is just another right wing Pro Bush mouthpiece. All I can say is he has 30 pts higher IQ than the average contard!
Nov 3, 2008 - 3:01 pm 63. Javelin:ehunter, thanks for your reasoned, originals insights. BTW, who is supposed to pay for the war you loved so much or do you think taxes are going to go down under McCain?
Nov 3, 2008 - 3:13 pm 64. peterike:Personally, I’m thrilled for the coming Obama Dictatorship of Virtue. Tomorrow night we’re gonna party like it’s 1789! And then come January the real fun begins.
At that point, I begin to make my fortune because you see I’ve cornered the market on “Don’t blame me, I voted for McCain” bumper stickers. I’m gonna sell a hundred million of ‘em! I’ll be rich!
Oh wait. Obama will be President. I guess I’ll have to spread that wealth around.
Oh and anti-Obama statements will be illegal. So I guess I won’t sell too many bumper stickers in the first place.
Ahh screw it, I’m voting for McCain.
Nov 3, 2008 - 3:15 pm 65. Javelin:jerryofva,
Nov 3, 2008 - 3:26 pm 66. jerryofva:if you take stuff like this seriously then you have next to no powers of reasoning or analysis.
BTW, who are those Obama surrogates you allude to and do you have any proof they are connected to his campaign and working in unison? But of course you enjoy all the Coulter Limbo types when they savage Obama, don’t you?
Nick:
you are a moron. Here is proof in living color so go away.
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/03/video-of-obama-coal-bankruptcy/
Nov 3, 2008 - 3:29 pm 67. cheesehead:Anybody who thinks taxes are going anywhere but up, no matter who gets elected, is in for a shock.
Considering the way the Reps in the WH have been spending money, and the way the Dems in Congress will be soon after giving the GOP a but whooping, there’s no other way around it.
Whichever candidate gets in, the result will be the same. Higher taxes for everyone, and alot of borken promises, with the excuse that “the uh, political, uh and economic uh, environment has changed, and uh we can’t do anything we said we would…..
That’s the 2 party system. No matter who gets elected, we all get screwed. The GOP should have nominated Ron Paul. That would have been real change.
Nov 3, 2008 - 4:01 pm 68. jerryofva:Javelin:
You are right. I was just imagining all those stories about the maternity of Palin’s child and all the other BS that was put out.
You, like all the astroturfers employed by the Obama campaign, just think that you can repeat talking points and somehow everyone will believe them. Well, think again.
Nov 3, 2008 - 4:02 pm 69. TLM:Jonesy55 and comrades:
Regardless of the results of this election, this is still a center-right country. Get used to it. We’re not going anywhere, least of all to a sh*thole like Somalia. Why? Because many of us have been to such places and don’t wish to return. More importantly for your consideration, we have absolutely no intention of letting our own country decline to a similar level. So… No matter who’s president. No matter who controls Congress. No matter how long we have to wait. No matter how long it takes to undo the damage incurred under Democratic rule. We’ll still be here. Spread the word.
Nov 3, 2008 - 4:36 pm 70. Ron Kean:Someone75
‘dupes read your articles’ I presume you’re speaking about me.
Many people call other people names. It’s the guy, who doesn’t call him an name back, who is the coolest one.
Nov 3, 2008 - 5:25 pm 71. Russian Bear:Hey,you! Local redneck republican conservatives! Why are you worried about taxes for those who makes above 250K or even 120K per year? Is here, on this forum, anybody who makes this money? I do not think so.
Nov 3, 2008 - 8:32 pm 72. venividivici:Folks with such a net income are too busy to write to forums, and when they are not busy, they entertain themselves a better way. It looks like all of you, Obama haters here, are just a bunch of “Joe-the-Plumbers”, concerned with somebody else’s business and theoretical income loss.
I can answer a few questions set by the author.
I don’t know what Obama feels about drilling, nuclear power, FISA, NAFTA, capital punishment, abortion, guns, Iran, the surge, Jerusalem, campaign financing, etc. But I do get the impression that he is more or less cognizant that most of his views around 2006 were at odds with the American people’s,
First thing: are the American people electing a President or a dictator? This nation has a well tuned and maintained political system, that works! So, Obama will not be the only one to make decisions. Drilling? Why not? Why would Obama object what everybody else supports? Nuclear power is a good thing. A clean one. Obama as I can see is a proponent of building nuclear power plants.
NAFTA? What is the problem here? Why you speak about Obama and NAFTA whatsoever?
Capital punishment is the States prerogative. There are the voters, the State legislatures and the Congress to decide. Same about abortions, guns… Jerusalem is not in the USA. The USA have their position on Jerusalem. Jerusalem is recognized as the Israel’s territory, and I do not see why and how Obama may change THIS. WE NEED CHANGE is not about Jerusalem for sure. Iran? What will be bad if Obama have managed to get the Iranian nuclear program closed or put under strict control and international supervision? Just imagine that this can be done with some kind of negotiations involving the USA, EU, Russia, China, Arabs, Israelis… Indeed, is military intervention, the USA and Israel bombing of Iran a better option for the world?
When G. W. Bush came to power, one of his first steps was to stop N.Korea-S.Korea negotiating process and abrupt all those fragile ties the Democrats tried to establish with N. Korean regime. Than he proclaimed the “Axis of Evil”. He did not want even to hear about talking with N. Koreans. What he got is well known. The N. Korea resumed her nuke program and tested her own bomb and forced the USA to negotiate. As the result Kim Chen Ill got what he wanted, and the USA got a kind of humiliated. I think Obama, unlike McCain is going to be smart in this issue. The surge? What surge? This station is already passed. Think about a surge for Afganistan, which Obama wants to do.
So, guys, relax. Don’t worry, be happy. Socialism is impossible in the USA. It would take absolutely different political culture and historic background. And if Obama solves the affordable Health Care problem, who would mind?
So much for any pretense intellectuality or integrity, VDH is just another right wing Pro Bush mouthpiece. All I can say is he has 30 pts higher IQ than the average contard!
Nov 3, 2008 – 3:01 pm
You don’t seem to realize that the highest IQs typically belong to conservative intellectuals, if only because we’re fed liberal ideas from the moment we enter public schools and are forced to analyse for ourselves why those ideas are not aligned with reality, with little or no institutional support within academia. Once you get past the leftists’ reason for why their ideas are false (”It’s all because those reactionaries”), you realize that the problems are inherent in the ideas themselves. Most of those problems lie in the false understandings of incentives and information theory, where leftists remain committed to beliefs that can only be described as pre-modern, i.e. that incentives only matter at the margin (”If we take away the profit motive, people will still work as hard”) and that a centralized government can process information as efficiently as a decentralized marketplace (”command and control” economies). These assumptions are central to leftism and they are about as accurate as the theory of humours prevalent in the Middle Ages. In this sense, all leftism is regressive, some of it in the extreme (Communism), some of it more mildly (social democracy) and self-destructive (Communism literally becomes democide everywhere it it tried and social democracy leads to demographic suicide requiring the importation of “guest workers”, who will eventually displace the natives and because the leftist ideology is anti-assimilation, the “guest worker”, unless he comes from a social democracy also, which is highly unlikely, will eventually undermine social democracy itself), but all of it in one form or another is a step backward from what science can now explain to us about human behavior in groups and the optimal institutions designed to maximize the benefits of that behavior.
The history of leftist movements is itself the refutation of leftism, on both an intellectual and a practical level, only one has to seek on one’s own to discover that history, since leftism is an ouroboros that needs to cover its tracks by eating its tail and your leftist teachers will never tell you what really happens when their ideas get implemented.
Even the most IQ-challenged adherent to conservative ideals, in whatever adulterated form he or she adheres to them, has more common sense than the most pseudo-intellectual leftist, which makes that conservative more valuable to society.
Then, of course, there is the lowest of the low. The sub-moron follower of the leftist pied piper. Typically a thug (union “muscle”) or a social and economic parasite, these people are targeted by the leftist non-stop because, since the leftist cannot persuade those more intelligent that leftism is true, the leftist must seek adherents among the near brain-dead. I exempt the leftist’s youthful followers because their brains are not yet fully developed, although it is disheartening to me, as an adherent to the theory of evolution, to see the same tricks work on generation after generation of youth.
Nov 3, 2008 - 9:08 pm 73. geoff puterbaugh:My greatest fear is that Obama and his followers may turn out to be the Peronistas of the USA.
If that happens, kiss The Land Of Opportunity goodbye.
Nov 4, 2008 - 9:29 am 74. Ron Kean:Russian Bear
Nov 4, 2008 - 11:32 am 75. rizables:1. ‘political system’ It’s just been broken with unverified credit card donations.
2. ‘Drilling?’ Obama was against it before he was for it. Will he go back to his original position? We don’t know. Will he go back to Wright & Ayres? Lots of questions…like, ‘who is he?’
3. Fact. He was against NAFTA and then sent his man to tell Canada that he was only kidding.
4. Guns? He was against them in Chicago. Now? Who knows?
5. Many of Obama’s Muslim cohorts think Jerusalem is occupied arab land. Whose side is Obama on?
6. ‘Iranian nuclear program closed or put under strict control and international supervision’ The UN, EU, and others have been trying that for years. Haven’t you heard?
7. ‘bombing of Iran a better option’ Are you aware that bombing Israel is a goal of Iran…or do you think they’re just kidding? People don’t kid about killing Jews. They do it. Bombing Iran would be Israeli self defense.
8. ‘Think about a surge’ Obama’s talking about surging into Pakistan you know.
9. Socialism and totalitarianism is not impossible. All you need is a civilian internal security force of formally unemployed young men who have federal authority to intimidate and weak politically correct police.
O is convinced he can accomplish all with his rhetoric
I do not know what he wants to accomplish.
Nov 4, 2008 - 2:39 pm 76. TLM:Ron Kean:
Like his candidate, I doubt “Russian Bear” is who he pretends to be.
Nov 4, 2008 - 4:40 pm 77. Paul_Unalaska:Russian Bear,
Concerning your “if you made $250k you wouldn’t be on a forum…”. Fair enough. I’ve always appreciated the Native American saying, “The more you know the less you need”. I digress.
I was raised as I’m sure you have as well to have, or discover your “can do” type attitude. You needn’t any assistance, particularly Government assistance for your accomplishing tasks of your own volition. Bluntly, I don’t want a handout. Period. Whether from friends, family and certainly not fom the Government. The other groups I listed for assistance, my debt is paid to them and end of story. I ask the Government for assistance and the “need” for more G-Men internvention is inevitable.
“Nationalized” whatever is a disaster. Anytime a Government run program is at play the work takes far longer to complete. Thus becoming more expensive. The person(s) involved with completion of the job knows they’re receiving a paycheck regardless of the quality, effort exuted.
Free enterprise. Blue or white collar, your work is considered to be better than others another job may hang in the balance. Thus the ‘need’ and ‘demand’ are copasthetic. If your work is adequate or only decent other companies can move-in to improve or in many instances revamp. All the while leaving the power to accel, succeed within the individual(s).
Universal health care. Unless it’s of serious consequences, if you need Government to force your arm in caring for you or your child’s health, more than likely this is but the top tier of your myriad of problems. Esentially the Government will then implement more programs. Taking power from productive members of our society and attempt in leading us to believe we ‘need’ help. As the despair.com saying says, “You’re unique just like everybody else”.
Nov 4, 2008 - 5:13 pm 78. Judy, NYC:it is not about socialism, it never was. it was at the outset about separateness of the races, from a very sick mind that is confirmed by his coterie of strange undesirable friends, who want a job. he has thugs. we know it because he used them at the caucuses to keep people out. we might have a despot or just someone delusional who thinks he is. a mentally ill person does not scare me. i worry about who supports him. i worry that these promises he’s made to the underclass, that he cannot deliver. blacks, at the bottom are angry and militant, not bright, to whom the offer of opportunity doesn’t apply. most, cannot even read and are unteachable. we are the targets of their aggression which before this had been mostly illusory power. mr. obama has stirred up the bottom of the pot. they now have taken his meaningless diatribes against whites, as an implied promise to them that they will be elevated above white people. this goes directly to the bizarre fantasy that racist whites rule them, and that is why they do not rise, and success always seems to elude them, and why they overwhelm the prison population. not because of them, because of us. guess they have never read shakespeare.
Nov 4, 2008 - 6:55 pm 79. TLM:At least we’ll get to see what’s written — in invisible ink — on that blank slate. I’m sure Obama has a few Hopes ‘n Dreams inscribed there himself that he hasn’t told us about.
Hopefully there will be a few “The Obama I Know” books come out shortly. Ayers, Khalidi, Pfleger… who knows. Must be some anti-capitalist in his background hoping to capitalize on what they know about The Unknown One.
Kudos to VDH and the NRO crowd for their campaign coverage.
Nov 5, 2008 - 6:22 am 80. Abu Nudnik:If he behaves according to the philosophy which he has take pains to hide, he will stand down in Eastern Europe and let Russia bully its former satellites, he will let Israel be wiped off the map, let Iran get the bomb, teach victim studies instead of educating kids, perfect stealing elections, feed the regulatory stranglehold on capitalism and thus kill the goose that laid the golden egg, set up a “security force” as big “and as well funded as the military,” dig into government records to destroy all dissidents and… the American people will just naturally do the only thing that makes sense: withhold their taxes. King George is dead: long live King George!
Nov 5, 2008 - 10:29 am 81. opendoormedia:Were it not for the media, would Obama not have won?
Nov 5, 2008 - 1:30 pm 82. Dimitrios Chaterjee:Can we become citizen activists and journalists to change the mainstream media? Hold them accountable by getting them on camera talking about their biases?!?! Become part of the ODM wiki and see for yourself: http://www.opendoormedia.org/wiki
Sorry, Dr. Hanson. See how events have overtaken you and your band of patriots, as retirement into private life looms for the Bush faction. May the frothy blessings of post-racialism annoint the land. Obama wins!
Nov 5, 2008 - 1:58 pm 83. TLM:Dimitrios Chaterjee:
“…band of patriots,”
Odd, I thought Obama and McCain made it perfectly clear: We are all patriots. No?
“May the frothy blessings of post-racialism annoint [sic] the land.”
Here you froth at the mouth, though I would agree Obama’s election IS a blessing (for him and others) of our post-racial society. Note, his successful campaign was not the beginning of post-racial America, merely the verification of its prior existence. c.f. Shelby Steele in this regard.
The “Bush faction” can all go to hell as far as I’m concerned. Bush was right on the surge , and little else. That said, he is not the worst president we’ve had in recent years. That honor goes to Clinton. Let’s hope Obama is better than both.
Nov 5, 2008 - 6:30 pm