During the campaign season, President-elect Obama made clear his intentions for the United States of America. He spoke with clarity of the need for a bigger, more influential government, one unfettered by the “restraints of the constitution.” He spoke of a National Civilian Task Force, stronger than the United States military. He spoke of group sacrifice in many forms, including what kind of cars we drive, how far we drive them, what temperature our homes are kept at and how unhealthy we will be allowed to be.
In short, he proclaimed that the government would be in charge of every aspect of our lives. From what we eat to how we spend, the government was going to be involved.
The financial crisis is the ideal cover for this government intervention.
“You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.” So said the now missing in action Raum Emanuel. And just what are those “important things that you would otherwise avoid”?
Who knows?
But one thing is certain. The government is going to expand beyond anything we have seen in history. And if history has taught us anything, it is that big governments lead to an increase in financial distress, and to an increase of incompetence. Big government causes decreases in personal liberty, military might and free market enterprise.
But for Barack Obama, a massive government, heavily involved in the lives of its citizens is the “only solution” to our current problems. It is the “only solution” to social and economic turmoil and the “only solution” for changing the behavior of the American people. In other words, Obama plans to use crisis, and the largest government in world history to implement every warmed over liberal policy ever conceived.
Which is why he has stated that he plans to create 600,000 new government jobs. Six hundred thousand.
Already the road is being built for universal health and day care, the socialization of the free market, and the government mandate of “healthy living” and “green living”. Not far behind are more restrictions on free speech, irrational gun laws, mandated abortion, and a foreign policy based on “bold diplomacy” that will cost the lives of American soldiers, and possibly civilians. For those listening closely to Obama’s words during the campaign season, instead of being distracted by all the mindless chanting, this is not surprising. Throughout his stump speeches are references, cryptic and overt, to increased government involvement in our lives. Recently Obama declared that “everyone is going to have to sacrifice, everyone is going to have some skin in the game.”
And what if I don’t want to “sacrifice”?
I suppose then, that the National Civilian Security Force will put me to work in the rice fields.
Indeed, this all begs the question: When has liberal policy ever led to an increase of prosperity, freedom, liberty, and independence?
Or conversely: When has liberal policy ever not lead to an increase in poverty, economic depression, widespread despair, and longer unemployment lines?
It is interesting that liberal politics are not the politics of results, but rather the politics of intent. Or as Hillary likes to say, the “politics of meaning”. And with the focus on intent, rather than results, those results can be altogether ignored. For example:
It doesn’t matter that the New Deal prolonged the great depression; it was intended to end it.
It doesn’t matter that the War on Poverty led to more poverty; it was intended to eliminate it.
It doesn’t matter that minimum wage leads to more unemployment; it is intended to increase employment.
It doesn’t matter that universal health care eliminates incentives for excellence, and thus decimates the population of competent doctors. It is intended to help the poor people.
This fits in line with Obama’s entire career. the housing projects he championed in Chicago have now been either bulldozed or condemned. His education theories, and the millions of dollars he and Bill Ayers threw at them have helped Chicago students become some of the worst in America. But all that is irrelevant, because his intent behind his failed career in Illinois was good.
I predict four years of good intentions ahead of us.
History is a stark, and brilliant teacher when it comes to economic and political “experimentation”, as FDR put it. Especially when it comes to the well-intentioned, but destined to fail economic dogma of, yes, here comes that bad word again, socialism.
And while the failed examples of German, Italian and Soviet socialism (all kindred spirits, but different in detail) are common and widely accepted, it is worth noting that Obama has spent a lifetime at the feet of socialists and marxists. One can assume that the ideological honey poured into his ears drowned out the historical failures of such ideology. But then again, perhaps he believes that because he is Barack Obama, he can cause the failures of the past to become the successes of the future based solely on the fact that he is, who he is.
Who could possibly ever forget:
I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth
So, while the iconic examples of European socialism are overplayed, they are still in fact striking examples of the utter and consistent failure of Socialism, Fascism, Marxism, Communism and every other “ism” of the left. China, Cuba, South America and even that mostly irrelevant country to the north, Canada, continue to show that socialism, and all its siblings, leads to, at best mediocrity, and at worst, genocide –in one form or another.
And yet that is exactly what Barack Obama is ready to bring back to the United States. Socialism, not genocide. Yes, back to the U.S. It has been here before, most prominetly under FDR. So the while comparisons to Obama are lame, they do bear some historical accuracy, although not the kind I think time Magazine was going for when they ran the fawning manipulation of the famous FDR-esque photo of The One.
And did American socialism, like European socialism fail? Absolutely.
Even before FDR, Woodrow Wilson, who has been called the world’s first fascist dictator implemented policy and prose that, surprisingly, influenced such stalwart socialists as Mussolini and Stalin. Yes,
that Mussolini and
that Stalin. FDR nationalized everything he could in order to hold back the tide of a financial crisis, when the solution was, as it so often is with financial turmoil, to let the free market correct itself. Instead the depression lingered onward, unemployment grew, and national despair increased. But not to worry, artists were painting murals and posters (some quite neat, incidentally), roads were being built, museums constructed and bridges repaired. Sound familiar?
But today’s crisis is nothing near the Great Depression. The American people are the punch lines to an ongoing national ruse. Our situation today is nothing like the recession and the crash that led to the depression.
But it could get that way, if Obama follows through on his promises of killing domestic industry, raising the taxes of “rich” people, and his 1.2 trillion dollar (and rising) stimulus package. Spending money is not the solution to a problem that spending money has caused.
But it is the only method Obama knows.
And for the people, who are to worried about witnessing history to read anything about history, it is distasteful to question the policy or the career of Barack H. Obama. Instead, we are to smile and wave at the historical historicity of this historic election and inauguration, which will cost some 200 million dollars. Again, Obama demonstrates that his only real competence comes in spending tax-payer money.
It would take a very small executive order to fix the current economic distress. A moratorium on capital gains and corporate taxes would send the market skyrocketing, restore consumer and investor confidence, put money in peoples pockets, and encourage businesses to expand and hire. In other words, the solution is for the government to stand down, step aside, and, as it always has been in situations like this, let the market correct itself.
Which is why I am extremely skeptical, and even frightened when Obama declares with all the confidence that ignorance can breed that government is “the only solution” to our problems. Such an attitude is not new, nor is it uncommon. But it is on the wrong side of history.
But nobody seems to realize that.
Or care.
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Adam, you entirely misunderstood Obama's message to the Muslim world.
Obama knows he won't win over the 'Jihadists.' That is not his target audience.
His audience is the 99% of Muslims who have never participated in a violent act but are skeptical of a United States that calls their country part of an 'axis of evil' or stacks their countrymen on top of each other in the nude in a make-shift prison camp and holds and tortures their loved ones indefinitely against international standards of war.
I broke down the numbers to make this easier for you:
There are roughly 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide.
You report that there have been 12650 'Jihad' attacks since 2001.
That means for every 118,577 Muslims there was one attack.
For sake of argument, lets say that 100 'Jihadists' were involved in the planning of each attack. That would mean that 1.26 million Muslims are 'Jihadists'
And that would also mean that 1.498 Billion Muslims out of the 1.5 Billion in the world are not Jihadists...
Obama's message was timely and brilliant. He is taking the ammunition out of the hands of those who would recruit terrorists.
He understands, as the former administration never did, that we can fight Jihad and terrorism without pitting the whole Muslim world against us. He understands that closing Guantanamo Bay was a powerful symbol that the United States is not above the law. He understands that the men and women in the Armed Forces will act with the same dedication, passion and patriotism in stopping any and all suspected terrorists without infuriating the entire Middle East.