The gymnastics of defending Obama
Here’s what it’s like to try to reconcile personal admiration for Obama with the contradictions of his economic agenda. One is forced to argue that he’s “the right man at the wrong time.”
This is the way it goes: Obama’s got wonderful intentions. It’s not his fault that there’s not enough money to fulfill them—and that, by stubbornly going forward with them in spite of that, he is set on a course to bankrupt the US and “topple the dollar, and with it American power.”
No, we can’t blame Obama for clinging to his agenda despite the fact that he’s driving us all over a cliff. He’s the right man; it’s only the times that are wrong.
But isn’t flexibility and judgment part of being the right man—at any time? How can a person be the “right man” if he is unable to evaluate a situation or react to it properly? That’s the mark of a fanatic, an ideologue who sticks to his plan in the face of utterly changed circumstances. A megalomaniac. And it’s hard to see how a person such as that could be the right man for any time.
And/or of someone who refuses to understand economics. Government does not create wealth. By funding pet projects (say green jobs) it sucks wealth from productive enterprises and gives it to unproductive / unsustainable projects….
Anyway, refusal to grasp this is one of the requirements of being a progressive. There isn’t enough money because of meanie bad corporations and rich people playing games…
There are precedents, of course. The Bolsheviks discovered shortly after the Revolution that Marxist historical determinism simply didn’t work, so rather than abandon their beliefs and plans, they used what Solzhenitsyn called “The Lie” and killed anyone who wouldn’t go along with it. And, in Argentina, Juan Peron destroyed one of the most prosperous economies in the world at that time by refusing to alter his beliefs and plans for massive, unsustainable social spending coupled with constant class warfare. Let’s hope Obama’s term in office ends before either of these precedents applies to America.
A couple good passages (with my emphases) from the linked article:
[Obama] knows that his appeal is still strong, which explains why, virtually every day, he makes a speech.
How does this guy have the time to get any work done? Happily, from my viewpoint, his poll numbers continue to shrink. Rasmussen today shows his approval down to a new low of 54%.
Margaret Thatcher confronted economic crisis when she first came to power in 1979. The point that strikes one is that it was the crisis which, above all, galvanised her, captured her intellect, harnessed her energy. Like Churchill in relation to the Second World War, she felt that all her life had been a preparation for that hour. Her vision of what was wrong with her country, and how to put it right, was seen entirely through the prism of the crisis.
The same cannot be said of Barack Obama. This is not merely because he has no previous experience of governing. It is because his idea of what he wants to do is really something quite different from what is actually happening to his country. In his inauguration address, he spoke of the need to get on with the business of “remaking America”. For him, that economic stuff is not really part of the remaking, but a distraction from it.
As always, anything that is not part of Obama’s grand plan is a distraction. He is not here to lead America, but to remake her. Thanks, but no.
huxley, that is a very interesting contrast. Rather than any sense of what America and the world need right now, Obama (like most progressives) believes he knows what America has needed for the last two hundred years, to be implemented whenever a person who knows what’s good for us gets into power. The difference in approach is enormous.
Note, for example, that the former allows for intervention by God’s advice, or Burkean development of culture, or reversing course in the face of failure. The latter is by design a method for endless tinkering and little self-questioning.
I think you’ve hit on one of those major cultural divides here, huxley.
Shorter version: Obama drives fine, it’s the road’s fault for moving out from under him.
But isn’t flexibility and judgment part of being the right man–at any time? How can a person be the “right man” if he is unable to evaluate a situation or react to it properly?
obama and his kind take a particular saying the wrong way, but it reveals a lot. (i am paraphrasing the quote)
a REASONABLE man cant expect the world to change, for he is reaonable and he is against the world.
an UNREASONABLE man does not change to meet the world, but expects the world to change for them.
therefore all progress is accomplished by unreasonable men…
so, obama believes he is destined for great things, and there is little in his life to asuage that belief. and so he is the right man because he refuses to listen to others and expects the world to change the way he wants it to.
thefeore he thinks he will make great progress.
of course that is a perversion and inversion of the concept of the quote, but hey! doesnt it justify megalomania as a social good in a leader?
heck, its that kind of view point that accepts Stalin as a hero, after all, he was a VERY unreasonable man, as was lenin, pol pot, mao, allende, castro, kim jong, and a whole host of others.
AVI – Thanks!
Yes, it strikes me as astoundingly arrogant that this neophyte who has never run anything presumes that he has some divine mission not only to run the country but to remake it according to his vision.
Appearing before a packed high school gym in Elkhart, Ind., the young girl asked Obama why he is running for the White House.
“America is, is no longer, uh, what it could be, what it, it once was,” Obama said haltingly. “And I say to myself, I don’t want that future for my children.”
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71713
Aside from the glaring failure of Obama’s fabled speaking powers and caught flat-footed by a seven year-old child to boot, I thought this was the most damning quote of his entire campaign.
America is no longer what I, Obama, think it could be and I’m going to fix that.
Doesn’t that describe a substantial portion of the progressive reality based community?
They and Obama are of the same mindset that commenter Don Janousek refers to in his comment above. They just don’t have the power, yet.
Let’s pray they never get it.
Here’s a better link.
One last comment. Contrast the seething hatred of Prairie Fire, not to mention the lack of concern on anyone’s part about it and its outright intent to ‘eliminate’ with the so called right wing extremism in the DHS report that just came out.
OK, back to work. Lunch is over.
I hear Indonesia is lovely.
When exactly was “this once great America” that Obama and liberals keep refering to?
Seems to me every year you retreat in time violates even more of their absurd contemporary visions of what greatness even is.
Maybe they’re actually refering to the womb, and resent the fact they ever left it.
SteveH: I think perhaps the days of Jimmy Carter?
When exactly was “this once great America” that Obama and liberals keep refering to?
Well, that’s the question isn’t it? If one thinks it through, especially for someone like Obama, it’s clear that that America never existed.
It couldn’t have been before the Civil War because there were slaves. It couldn’t have been before Civil Rights, because of Jim Crow. It couldn’t have been the sixties or early seventies because of the Vietnam War. It couldn’t have been the eighties, because that was the Reagan era. It couldn’t have been the Carter or Clinton years, presumably because those are too recent and too similar to the current America which must be remade.
No, Obama and his fellow progressives are talking about their vision of an American utopia that only exists within their minds.
And utopia is Greek for nowhere.
No wonder the clumsy contradictory construction: “America is, is no longer, uh, what it could be, what it, it once was.”
I had the same reaction. This quote is of a piece with “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” Huh? You’ve been waiting…for yourself? (And, of course with the timeless, “If I Did It.”)
Bush was a terrible speaker, often tongue-tied and inarticulate, with syntax that was the linguistic equivalent of orthopedic shoes, but at least he more or less made sense.
When this bird is on the teleprompter, you’re in for a session of content-free communication, the political marketing equivalent of Nostradamus’s quatrains.
Take the teleprompter away, make him speak extemporaneously, and pre-teens take him to the mat. Makes you wonder how he ever made a living as a lawyer (or, for that matter, made it through law school).
We can’t know that Obama’s economic policies are helping or hurting, he just started, so we really can’t make any conclusive evaluations either … I don’t get it … who’s being fanatical?
Tapped out unemployed guy down the street just got a no-down $600 K mortgage, then took a second mortgage to buy a new car, a boat, a couple of ATVs, join a country club, and co-sign a note for his mistress.
Kinda hard at this point to see how this is going to turn out. We’ll just have to wait and see, I guess.
I don’t think, on the evidence, that Barry was ready for his close-up, Mr. DeMille.
Seriously, Occam? And in the past month?
I don’t get it … who’s being fanatical?
nyomythus — The point is that Obama is pushing forward with his grand plans to remake America as he wished to regardless of the financial crisis.
Charles Moore in the article Neo links puts it:
[Obama’s] vision of a more social-democratic country was conceived almost without reference to the greatest economic catastrophe to hit America for 80 years. He barely had to argue, or even think about it before or during the campaign. It shows. He says that his education, energy and health reforms must happen so that “such a crisis [the financial one] never happens again”, but he merely asserts the link: he does not prove it.
I know this is way off subject, and I apologize.
I just can’t stop wondering what kind of crap Feinstein would be in right now, were she a republican.
Huxley, nah. Just kidding. But the outcome would be just as predictable as that of Obama’s plan.
“We can’t know that Obama’s economic policies are helping or hurting..”
Really? The greatest spending bill in this country’s history passed without anyone reading it? Have you seen the CBO AND White house spending projections? Have you been reading any of the headlines on the corruption accompanying this level of unscrutinized spending?I could go on & on. Please go read the headlines on Drudge right now.
By your logic (or lack thereof) we can’t know if driving into a wall at 100 miles per hour will hurt either. Do we have to wait until the whole economy melts down before we decide he’s wrong?
I understand your wanting to give a new policy a chance, but in the face of all the evidence (and if you say what evidence, I say go read the news for the last four months) that his policies will end in disaster, I for one do not want to give those policies a chance.
Tapped out unemployed guy down the street just got a no-down $600 K mortgage, then took a second mortgage to buy a new car, a boat, a couple of ATVs, join a country club, and co-sign a note for his mistress.
Kinda hard at this point to see how this is going to turn out. We’ll just have to wait and see, I guess.
Wasn’t this going on before he got in office? Wasn’t that like three and a half months ago?
Nyom wrote, “We can’t know that Obama’s economic policies are helping or hurting,”
That makes two people who don’t understand macro-economics. Obama and nyom.
Seriously. You don’t raise capital gains tax rates, income tax rates, corporate tax rates and expect a positive impact on the economy.
Only folks like Obama, Barney, Dodd, and nyom would have any idea otherwise.
He just whacked another trillion bucks on the debt, in his first three months.
You can’t have it both ways. If Obama didn’t spend a bazillion dollars, then he can’t claim to have done anything to stimulate the economy, and can’t later try to claim credit when it recovers (which it will eventually anyway).
But if he did, then he’s on the hook for the fallout from doing so – namely, staggering taxes and an anemic economy.
(Actually, I’d have been pleased if neither President had spent the money, but that’s water under the bridge now. )
The point is that Obama’s plan is akin to my mythical neighbor’s financial strategy: double down, spend like crazy, and hope to hit the lottery, the deux ex machina solution. Obama’s basically implementing Juan Peron’s economic plan. The outcome is inevitable.
Sorry, that should read “deus.” Missed with the ring finger!
One further thought: the original appropriation in October was to provide banks with liquidity and ease the credit crunch.
Banks are kind of a special case: money is their raw material. Keeping banks liquid (while irritating as hell) is arguably a good idea, because without them no part of the economy functions. They’re like the circulatory system.
Keeping moribund manufacturers (GM) afloat is (IMO) not. If the banks are the circulatory system, GM is a gangrenous foot.
You don’t raise capital gains tax rates, income tax rates, corporate tax rates and expect a positive impact on the economy.
Only folks like Obama, Barney, Dodd, and nyom would have any idea otherwise.
Why would I do that? You presume to know much more than you possibly can — sounds like a defect of faith.
…faith in reference to political ideology, criticism of Obama is always something we assert the right to, just be fair.
I hear Indonesia is lovely.
its incredibly lovely…
When exactly was “this once great America” that Obama and liberals keep refering to?
its anything you paste in that you think makes it reasonable. they dont believe that, but they know the people they are manipulating have some such image, and if they can make you believe that they are bringing you back to it, they can lead you around in exchang for power.
its like a sociopath knows its victims are those with guilt. they can get a lot out of making people guilty, but have no guilt doing so to them.
nyomythus, what is unfair?
Or perhaps I should ask, what would–in your opinion– be a fair criticism (of Obama?) under the circumstances?
What is the argument that economic good is going to come out of Obama’s economic policy? Why is that argument plausible?
OB, you are right: banking is a special case, and there is an overwhelming public interest against systemic bank failures.
Or perhaps I should ask, what would—in your opinion— be a fair criticism (of Obama?) under the circumstances?
What is the argument that economic good is going to come out of Obama’s economic policy? Why is that argument plausible?
A moment to try something … I’m not making an argument that good or bad will come from Obama’s economic policy … just that …I know he’s a liberal and conservatives are supposed to attack liberals and visa verse … I’m just not on that ”you’re either on the Right or on the Left” ball field I guess.
Axelrod told us what Obama has really been focusing on: He says that anti-Americanism isn’t cool anymore.
We have a bunch of 16 year olds in the WH. Do these a**holes think that the Durban attendees care about our coolness? Do they think that any of the perpetual protestors in Europe will now come to our defense over anything? How many books on anti-Americanism are out there? Dozens, I’m sure. But The One knows better than all others. Show em your pecs, do a fist bump, and promise to stop the rising of the seas. Then all will be forgiven–even the uncouth McDonalds that ruin the landscape and make everyone fat.
Maybe Moore is onto something. Obama might be OK at at the right time–say when he has reached maturity.
nyomythus, you are a little too cryptic for me to understand what you are talking about. Are you trying to defend Obama’s economic policy, sort of?
The point is NOT to be mindlessly adversarial, though that may be what is happening to neo’s friend so afflicted by pretzel logic. The argument is about actions and their consequences, some of which are knowable.
If you don’t know where you are on the field, are you lost?
Blackness aside, there are remarkable similarities between FDR and BHO. Neither was smart, neither ever had a practically productive job, neither practiced law meaningfully though both were lawyers, neither understood basic economics, both hated the wealthy though both were very well off; both were very smooth, crowd-loving, glib talkers, and both lied. Both seized power with both hands.
FDR plus minions made the Depression worse, it is almost universally agreed.
But BHO will make FDR pallid by comparison. We have a mafia loan shark for POTUS.
If you don’t know where you are on the field, are you lost?
No … I’m in the process of taking my seat, as the first quarter is about to get under way.
nyomythus Says:
April 21st, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Obama is not “liberal”. He is a Marxist, and Marxism is not only destructive of human liberty, it corrodes the soul. It makes people dependent on the State rather than self-reliant.
Nothing good can possibly come of it. And if history is a guide, the forced collectivization of America will lead to widespread suffering and great loss of life, just as it has everywhere else it has been tried.
How about trying …waiting?
A recession — which is what this is — like a cold, blows over in time, pretty much regardless of what one does. (As the old joke goes, this cold remedy will make your cold go away within seven days. Otherwise it’ll last a week.) And again like a cold, one cannot shorten it, but only prolong it through ill-advised actions.
Besides which, a lot of the spending of the stimulus bill (which I’ve read in detail, btw) doesn’t even kick in for 18 months, long after the recession would naturally be over.
Nyomythus, DOWN IN FRONT! (As we used to shout at nitwits who arrived late to the game and blocked our view of the field whilst taking their seats…)
Besides which, a lot of the spending of the stimulus bill (which I’ve read in detail, btw) doesn’t even kick in for 18 months, long after the recession would naturally be over.
This is absolutely true and entirely overlooked in current discussions.
@Nyomythus
Just to add on to what Oblio said, the debate is not about action and consequence. Any macroeconomist, liberal or conservative, will tell you that raising capital gains will have an adverse affect on households and businesses.
However, the answer to whether an economist supports such a measure is based on two things: 1.) The possible alternatives, 2.) the net-gain for all parties involved.
Liberal economists will argue for the capital gains tax hike because they think that government programs will have more overall value than private sector spending.
On the other hand, conservative economists usually do not support a capital gains tax increase because they think that government programs have less intrinsic and societal value than simply allowing consumers and businesses to allocate their money wherever they should see fit.
The present opposition to President Obama’s plan is thus deeply-seated on the view of government programs rather than taxation in and of itself. We are arguing that these taxes will destroy more wealth than they create. Thus, as conservative economists, we are arguing for efficiency rather than equity.
Since efficiency is the only variable that can be measured absolutely, and equity is a loosely defined term, the empirical data is on our side as of now.
Also, capital becomes “stale”. People would rather hold onto capital (homes and large equipment and investments) rather than sell it and pay confiscatory taxes.
So as capital becomes “stale” it doesn’t move from one person to the next.
In the case of homes, less are sold and therefore scarcity leads to highe prices which hurts the poor.
When less people sell capital less capital gains taxes are paid and THAT is why when capital gains tax rates rise – revenue into the government decreases. And what good to the government is that? Liberal economists aren’t worth their weight in salt for this very reason.
Okay … w/e
Liberal economists will argue for the capital gains tax hike because they think that government programs will have more overall value than private sector spending.
On the other hand, conservative economists usually do not support a capital gains tax increase because they think that government programs have less intrinsic and societal value than simply allowing consumers and businesses to allocate their money wherever they should see fit.
This is not right. Period. It does not fit. Period.
Liberal economists want a planned economy as they are no longer liberal capitalists but liberal communists. See Chechoslovakia and its liberalization.
They have an open desire to change the system to one of a planned economy where they can mold the presumed future like clay and damn what ever happesn to the people since eventually it will work itself out anyway, and so that makes the people have no worth.
They value state employment because each state employee is a ghost employee in a capital earning company. like a mobster that has a few people on companies payroll that never show up, don’t do any work for the company, and work for someone elses ends on the company dime. They reduce the amout of capital available to have an employee actually work, they shift the load to the others, they reduce business ability to treat their employees that earn well, and helps create and foment the illusion that marx was right.
They know that they can run the thing into the ground and in the emergency that insues, suspend the constitution, which activates the show laws and such, and then get to work removing the oppresors, and such.
My family experienced this.
Last night I watched Schindlers list. Anyone notice that it was a rampant capitalist that saved them from the SOCIALISTS? While the movie was excellent, almost no one knew the history of where they were. I remember my great grandmother crying over things she saw, and others were there for. But you see, go to the end scene. Where they are sitting in the camp, and the soldier comes up and tells them they are liberated. They were actually VERY lucky, for the soviets who liberated others camps, raped the women, and abused the victims.
When stalin took over Czech and Poland, the areas where this happened, he continued to use the camps. The end of the movie says. there were x amount on schindlers list, and that was clost to the amout of 4000 jews left in Poland. What they don’t tell you is that the reason there are only that many is that stalin continued the job after Hitler was gone.
In that movie you can see WHY they love state employment. For those who love to wheel and deal and make profit outside of their own tasks, this kind of system works well. how many palms got greased by schindler to get things done normally.
How many of the potus crew are in trouble for evasion, collusion, pay offs, etc?
See how it’s the same? this is how the state of germany changed. The people who started siding with his saw that there was a lot to be made on the backs of the oppressors (the wests new set of oppressors are now all whites, jews again, capitalists again, etc). the secret internal organs of the state, like obama just set up, were another key facet. Note how many jews took jobs which amounted to being snitch and serve the germans.
That is why they like this. they don’t want an economic system where someone can just show their stuff and take their place. they want a system where all levels of the hierarchy are controlled, and everyone is dirty so the aboves have something on the bellows. Where if you want to move ahead, purges and great games are possible.
They have a hankering to live the exciting lives of the feudal. The patron, etc.
Conservatives don’t support this stuff because they are aware that for certain tasks the format of the state is good. like military. Or international interfacing.
But they also realize that when the state gets into things its not supposed to, the end result is a given, no matter how mych the left wants to crow no no no.
Take hospitals and medicine. a external company is responsible, the state is not, you cant imprision the state, you can imprison the company. the state will not let a bad entity die, while in the wild, companies die and Darwin makes it better. to save money an outside entity cant cut costs anywhere they feel like it and be damned the consequences (even if the conseqyuences are only temporary till damnation, then recinded).
want to earn money as a company serving patients, then you are going to have to serve them and make them happy or they go someplace else, or sue you for your responsigbility to them
want to save money serving patients as a state entity? increase the bad, so they die off faster. Ration care so they die off faster. Increase beuracracy to increase salaries, and make the patients die off faster. Restrict the pay outs once people realize that this is so frequent its systemic and intentional, and so they cant change it. change the rules so that desease like mrsa is more rampant. Etc.
see how it works.
And to show you how the wealthy intend to avoid it, it’s easy. I hire a persona doctor like lords and ladies and. And want to know how they avoid the problem of crime and violence of the peasants? They can hire people to carry guns for them.
So they are insulated from the farm animals way of life, so they can pay people to write and tell people like you things that make you think that your going to get the greatest freebie of their lives.
But I again ask you to watch schindlers list. They are the kind of people that are NOT like schindler. They are the kind that realize that a slave population makes for a nicer life for rulers. That’s what liberalism means today, it means follow your feudal lords who will control your lives.
Its like mike daily said yesterday.
We have to learn to want less for ourselves and to earn more for others… etc.
Well if we all want less then we don’t need to earn more for others, since the others want less too. so in essence he doesn’t realize that he is giving a missive to slaves who want more than their leaders think they deserve. For the leaders are not going to want less!!!!
Go to go…
Obama is a classic sociopath. Everything about him is a fraud, except his obvious intelligence and skill at manipulation. As his arrogance meets realities he’ll become more paranoid, and then he’ll press his venal yet inept minions to clamp down even harder on the freedoms we have left. America is beginning to fray, a process fomented by Obama as a method to create opportunities for oppression, or, as he sees it, “righting wrongs”. However, he cannot rapidly destroy the inherent strengths of this nation without an armed struggle, thus he needs a new civil war to occur within a society already polarized. Can this be avoided? Will real “democrats” wake up? Will an effective opposition coalesce around strength and resolve, or just slogans? How we respond to this nascent tyrant will define us for many generations to come.
nyomythus Says:
“just that …I know he’s a liberal and conservatives are supposed to attack liberals and visa verse …”
It is not that simple. I made fun of Bush’s stimulus plans… because stimulus plans don’t work. If Obama passed a 100 billion one I’d make fun of it too. But he did much much more along with strings that would keep spending high after the fact. So, we are going through the roof rather than doing an eye roll…
Ok, slightly off topic and nyomythus, don’t faint, but I have to say it. It seems that Obama is doing the right thing regarding Columbia. I figured that he would just let them twist in the wind. A pleasant surprise for a change.
You might like to go over to PJTV and watch Andrew Klaven’s Night of the Living Government.
We can’t know that Obama’s economic policies are helping or hurting, he just started, so we really can’t make any conclusive evaluations either … I don’t get it … who’s being fanatical?
Yes, we can know . . . his policies are pretty much economic stupidity.
Just one major point is his budget, which essentially doubles our national debt. How are we going to deal with it?
Sell our debt to China? They are getting weak knees on this, we are running out of people who will buy our debt, since it is so high.
Taxes can’t cover it, and will hurt the economy if increased.
What’s left is printing more money and inflation.
Ok, slightly off topic and nyomythus, don’t faint, but I have to say it. It seems that Obama is doing the right thing regarding Columbia. I figured that he would just let them twist in the wind. A pleasant surprise for a change.
Indeed.
the way i see it… we are heating up to a world war… as in the past, and as i said in the past, they are turning on all the burners at once.
the way the socialists of the world see it, they will not get another chance to all act at the same time and have an incompetent that ishelping them not be able to respond.
mexico is spillig over to the US
china is ready to grab taiwan.care to see the google satelite images of all the sam sites?
korea has amassed huge equipment. they now have (as reported today) the largest mortar forces, and the largest special forces in the world.. they just kicked out the inspectors, shot off a missile test, etc.
and right on cue, russia is pushing into georgia again to finish the job.
i want to be able to illustrate the tactical positions that are happening.
we pulled out of iraq too soon.
with russias help and pakistan we are getting bogged down in afghanistan. our troops are too thin all over.
obama pulled back our military and wont respond. after all, he is on the same side that sided with the north vietnamese, so what do you think kim thinks?
here is a very workable scenario….
kim fires into south korea… that gets hot, obama stutters in actions… and before he can even react. russia goes in and takes the rest of georgia which they couldnt get away with before. kim continues to cause trouble. obama is loath to send our tropps into a real war where real russian soldiers and chinese soldiers will again be fighting americn solders
kim knows that if he makesthe fight like stalkngrad, our own people will give him the win.
thats two countries down, and i dont see obama willing to send the troops in and start a real war, so they will heat up.. afghanistan will heat up and give a deadly embrace. that will put us in the positio of abandoning them, and using them someplace else, or being locked down there.
china can then grab taiwan… what would anyone do to stop it? they know obama wont fight, so they can take it during the rest of the noise.
i can see chavez going at columbia, they already have had troops on each others borders. but i can see bolivia and others ganging up once they know that the US is locked.
at this point, the gangs and groups in the US will start their acts in cities, and such…
the idea is which way do you turn. do you fight them in the states, in south america, in asia, etc.
the point is that allt he prizes are small, and obama wont think them worth fighting over. even if he did, he will not be in a position of having any historical or military knowlege of what to do, nor will anyone he will listen to. he wil fancy himself a general…
so china gets taiwan maybe singapore and all the technolocy and such…
korea and south korea mix it up… but wont resolve for the same reason as before.
remember recent report that says china has 38 million extra men of war age… so they can put 2 millino in taiwan, station anotehr 2 million in near north korea, etc.
russia will take the rest of georgia.
iraq, syria, etc… will try to take egypp and israel (they already tried egypt recently).
the point is that we are completely laid bare by this or parts of it…
if it goes, it going to happen real fast… as the members split off…
but remember… we just alienated all our allies.
so while all this dog and poney show is going on… we are not watching how the chess pieces are being put in place for grand opportunities if they present themselves.
and for daring sociopaths with a hunger for world domination, things are starting to look better than they have every looked for succeeding
ARTFLDGR: You paint a credible scenario. Except that I believe Hussein will welcome these events because he’ll be enabled to really seize the USA under guise of national security.
China is indeed a demographic time bomb which must have foreign outlets.
Tom,
Your agreeing with me is not settling. At least that scenario wasn’t a real analysis.
I think that people don’t realize something. And I was too long (as usual).
the analysis of the iraq afghanistan thing easily pointed to things heating up. but what i didnt see was that the attempt could be seen as an act of war taking us out of our silent war. silent war being a replacement to the cold war. since i didnt see any halt in inter state games, i only saw things as shifting to a more silent form, in which the public was allowed to go on and work as if there wasnt even a cold war.
but what if closing the door to future easy destabilization was seen as a betrayal of the game? that without that corridor, the ones being threatened would be (to them) in a very bad position. they would be forced to either build a secondary economy that takes raw materials and enter the market (which would rquire real freedom for the people meaning real capitalism), or then what? if they refuse that, then the only option was to return the violation. the rules seemed to be that they could screw around, but toppling the other or such was not allowed.
All of this is completely just speculation… so even if it all sounds good and fits, doesn’t mean that it’s right.
I cant see where this will go. The outcomes are as broad as it sucks wind but we muddle through to next election, reverse the worst like fdr, and go on with our lives. All the way up to that scenario above. Which is extreme, but possible depending on the audacity of the players and if there really is lack of response from the US.
It’s like we are standing on a node in history, a critical node. And rather than follow a line, there are a huge number of lines coming off this current situational state.
Also, while the conspiratorialists want to say this is the result of a grand plan. I am more inclined to say this is the end part of a grand game started a while ago, and it continued on, and no one was driving it any more. And now since the original driver has not the resources they had, nor is this the same topology, its turning into a kind of free for all.
Given the players and the history, there could be no cooperation at one of these points. They would all try to cheat each other. And so the free for all and lack of ability to even make a good guess.
@Artfldgr
You misunderstand me. I am stating what “liberal” as in “progressive” economists will argue, not what they actually believe.
The thing that actually makes them economists is their focus on costs and alternatives. Some like free markets, others don’t. There are economists like Paul Krugman and others that want a corporatist or socialist economy so that they can have central planning.
You are right to be confused by my language though. I meant “liberal” as in “progressive”, while I frequently call myself Economically Liberal to denote my free-market Classical Liberal ideology.
To painfully state the obvious, Artfldgr, all attempts to see the future are speculation. But those of us who thought what we did 9-12 months ago, and have seen our worst speculations realized, may have at least a bit of confidence in our further speculation.
We are indeed on a node. Burke’s “For evil to triumph, good men must do nothing” has never been more true. Games/Events are never out of the hands of the players unless we so mismatched and outnumbered that we must inevitably lose. The score is against us but it’s not over yet.
Ozymandias, sorry..
I know you want to get the meaning out, but these terms have been tainted. by taking or owning the language and terms and in turn going from term to term to renew the old ideology and make it seem fresh, the terms get poisoned.
when liberal do we mean that we are not tight? or do we mean capatalist, like john stewart mill? or do we mean neo communism?
when talking progressive, do we mean forward thinking? or do we mean communist?
this is where i get confused too. see, when your talking today with say joe average to the left, joe no longer has those clear distinctions. liberal to him/her is all those things, and none at once. its not a clear concept any more.
here is a valid thing to say about a friend who is no longer a liberal… he has become a liberal..
thats how bad it is… he is abandoning the new gutted and overtaken liberal, which he didnt realize this was the thing (kind of like in bill murrays movie about camp. they kept taking the person runnin the camp while he was sleeping and put him places. well, its like going to sleep, and waking up and you dont realize your on a new boat and its going someplace else. its the same, but not the same).
so how do we make the distinction between being progressive, and being part of the progressive movement calling oneself progressive?
i have no idea… and i am sorry i misunderstood you… this is how bad the games are. they have been workig on us so long that our language has changed till its dysfunctional.
the problem is that they are following a plan that is 60 years old and defunct. a plan that would have continued had the soviet union ended, became part of america, and a complete free market country.
@Tom
i am glad you stated the obvious. because sometimes it needs to actually be said to be seen. last thing i want, is to be taken as a tin hatter because i entertain all angles, not just the approved preferred ones. but then again, i am an indivual, not part of a collective.
when i state these extreme angles, i am glad when someone like you comes along and gives rational discussion to them. not because they are correct, or going to be the end, but because they ARE options, they can happen, and failure to do so will mean that the one time, just the one time, it is true, we are screwed. (like the current election).
i guess what i am saying is that by not regarding those bad things that are perfectly doable, we do nothing to prevent them. its the force that creates the situation that you illustrate quoting burke.
It also explains why some people are going to get real nasty, act abberant, maybe muder suicide, etc.
because they can see those options, but ratther than see the panoply, they latch on to it as the only end and their anxiety wants the thing to be over and resolved. so in their angst they resolve it.
thats what i actually think happed to the CFO who committed suicide, but i put up the otehrs questionalbe ones. why? because thats reality, its part of the equation whether we like it or not, and so a real assesment wishing to be most valid would have to include it.
in my opinion, he couldnt resolve the issue, and so he resolved it the way he thought would work out best for all.
its very disconcerting not to have a clue as to which direction to go in. its kind of like playing pin the tail on the donkey on a platform 40 stories up, and there is only one thin walkway to the donkey. (even worse your on a segway)
i figure georgia is going to fall withing 6 months. eitehr a soviet ruler will replace the current one, or russia will move in and take it. they have already started the pretense. and they have increased troops on the border. and are now in violation of the distance limit. given that no one stopped them from grabbing the other two pieces, its pretty much a done deal for the rest. if i was there i would be trying to get out now… acquisition of this coutnry keeps the door open to destabilizations.
to tell you the truth, russia is the bad boy on the block still. the big question is china. are they going to play good cop bad cop? i dont know, china has had a lot to think about. their economy and fate of their people is now tied to the outcome of the US, and they are not happy with Obama helping hurt the US for his own ends, because he is going to more seriously hurt the chinese whose whole economy right now is exports which were supporting the creation and stabilization of the internal economy. exports are down more than 20%… farmers will nto want to return to the feilds when the factories close. it may force a clamp down and return to hard totalitarianism rather than the totalitarianism they ahve now.
but make no bones about it. we are VERY stupid not to understand the differences and options/weaknesses between these various political forms.
will they grab taiwan? i dont think so. i think that they are more likely to grap eastern russia! given the choice between the two, thats a better deal for them. they want taiwan for ego reasons, but unlike the west they are often in control of their ego. and definitely not controlled by it like russia.
it literally can go in any and every direction and there is literally no hook i can give to tell me or you which way it will go. its probably going to be a whole bunch of facets of things i mentioend and not one execution of things. kind of like A does something to B, nothing much happens, so C does something to J, etc. while its attractive to think of the tight conspiracy between china and russia, and this whole thing coordinated. the players on that side of the game are not moral so they step on each other when they think they can take a swipe.
its what happened in indonesia, russia set it up to fall out of western influience during vietnam, and before they could close the deal, the chinese interupted and botched a coupe, which then resulted in them cleaning house.
also our view of nuclear weapons is so far off, that we are not making the right choices or even understanding the situiation. kim and others didnt get to where they are and hang on to it because they are as stupid as everyone paints them. they paint them stupid becayuse they are uncooperative and we think that if they were cooperative everyone would be happy, the tele tubbies would come out, the lolly pop league will sing, and everyone gets ruby slippers.
no one wants nukes to really use them. every small country wants nukes to prevent being taken over by material war. that is, nukes prevent closure of the end game. put king in check, chess board is removed. so there would be no way to remove or change things by direct force once they ahve that. once ALL of them have it, then there will be no way for larger ones with them to use their property to have thier tiffs on.
so the reason kim and iran want nukes is not to use them. but to prevent the situation in iraq from happening!!!! and the reason we want to prevent them from having it, is that the countries want the option of doign something about some nasty people willing toact on it.
the other implication of this is something people can understadn, but dont seem to want to.
it means that material war.. moved to cold war… cold war determined that material war will not happen again under normal circumstances, and so it moved to silent war. where they fight and the public is unaware of it. to the public its all terrorist things, or odd imperialism, or wars that are started on lies (they seem to be too stupid to realize that if they leader tells the nation the actual plan in hard facts an the goals, its not a secret any more and the other side will win).
under this new thing the only ways to compete and fight are through subversion, sabotage, manipuilation, economics, etc. (with the military limiting that conflict from escalating).
this means that war as we knew it was over. but the left doesnt get that the war never ends for many reasons and i am too long already.
chinese and russian war papers show this. this is why we get poisoned food. adulterated toys with things that are ambiguous but seem to be wonderful tactical outcomes if they are fighting. the guy who ended up dead that was at the head of it, everyone assumed it was because he saw the bad. what if he did it beacuse he was careless and we found out and stopped them from diminishing the mental capacity of their oponents by changing the brain structure of children? (and if you don think that they ahve the stomach for it, then you dont know history, even up to today. see laboratory 12).
what IS becoming clear is that the US cant survive this silient war with an ignorant population like china and russia can. china and russa take very little input from their people, so keeping them in the dark as the silent war progresses is easy. they just live in good and bad times and never quite get it.
but for us, keeping the population in the dark, and letting them go about their business is finally having dire consequences. chinar and russia are not open to this kind of poison, we are. why? we ahve open borders, where they can literally ship people to go to work here.
so american people being a integral part (still) of their government and its actions, cant be in the dark the way they have been.
on another note, i also think that there are other deeper games being played. that once the house and senate was compromised they then have to be corrected by the other agencies. note that the other agencies are not sworn to serve the president directly over the constuitution and the country. many of these men, contrary to popular belief, are some of the most patriotic and capable people on the planet. and the agencies by no means are homogeneous.
so you have all these wild cards… how much of the military wont stand for things? how much or what games are the agencies going to play to get thigns back?
is this whole obama thing waht it appears? or is it a judo move… for those that dont know judo, both people have a grasp of each other. both are pushing and pulling to find when one can move things too far that the oponent cant pull back. in essence politically they have been throwing themselves back and forth… and now rather than keep that process going, i think that they have been push popped (and done in by their own game). that is they have now been let go and ahve no opposition. they are off balance… now they feed into it more.. adn things get really really bad fast… a speed which people DO percieve and get to blame correctly…
its a dangerous game. if they lose, its going to be a very hard time for a long while, perhaps a century or two… if they win, you could see a complete reneissance and resurgance of the old principals and cultural positives.
people in control are not quite in as much control as they think or act. ask the sun king how that went for him.
I think that people don’t realize something. And I was too long (as usual).
AD — Yes, you were and nearly always are. You need to edit your posts.
Editing is part of writing. There are many good books on writing. To you I would recommend “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser, which you can find for a good price at most used bookstores.
It’s not hard to do, but it must be understood that editing is part of the writing process.
Art, I think Ozymandias has been very clear in what he writes and extremely precise about what he means. Be careful about taking other peoples’ language and manipulating it so you can say something else – that’s what’s so pernicious about the Humpty-Dumptyism of the left, after all!
The only way our language can change so that it becomes dysfunctional – as you state above – is if we allow it to happen.
Please don’t be offended by this gentle criticism. I mean it in a spirit of respect.
@Art
You get to a very important point. We have troubles defining the terms “liberal” and “conservative” now due to the MSM and cognitive dissonance on the Left and Right. I was trying to propose the mainstream “liberal” economic argument that taxation is a good thing. However, there are so many different types of “liberals” or “progressives” that you must address the lowest common denominator: what they argue, not necessarily what they believe.
For instance, one may call me a “liberal” because I have classically “liberal” social values and I believe in market efficiency and thus economic “liberalism”. However, I am not a progressive because I do not buy into the progressive economic and social worldview, which is dominated by Marxist concepts.
One may be a Democrat or a “liberal” without believing in the progressive worldview. Many of these “liberals” dislike conservatives when the Right insinuates that they are communists or socialists, when they might not be. This is why I am making a distinction between the two.
Thus, to win the debate, we have to undercut the prevailing assumptions and go after the mainstream argument, not their beliefs. We can’t change their convictions, but we can make them look foolish, inconsistent, and intellectually weak by questioning them and their assumptions. If we neutralize the arguments, we will win back the populace.
I don’t agree artfl needs to edit his posts. I think, instead, people need to wait and read them when they have time. I’m serious. I find his posts fascinating. When questions get asked, he responds with a flood.
The scenario he painted above puts him directly on a level with people in global / military think tanks who sit around and imagine these things, like Thomas P.M. Barnett – who I have lost all respect for since I heard him state that Obama is a genius and probably the smartest president we’ve ever had.
Christ, Barnett, brown nose much?
Thanks for all the comments guys!
I am trying to be shorter, but sometimes a line clicks and this whole thing comes out. i am also usually at work, so i only have bout fifteen mins, to get that idea out, and then back to stuff i have to do. thats all straight out one shot no looking back.
then i get the mixed reviews and no matter what i do, someones unhappy. and then i hear otis redding in my head. and if i am short and leave it at that, everyone would think i was nuts. but if i add the lyrics.
Look like nothing’s gonna change.
Ev’rything still remains the same.
I can’t do what ten people tell me to do,
so I guess I’ll remain the same, yes.
and thats what ends up happening. sigh.
thanks E, i am never (rarely?) upset over honest criticism.
and thanks for the comment br549. I really dont want to flood, but your very correct, the question is the trigger that unlocks the information. very astute of you. otherwise i dont think of these things much (conciously).
I really do want to be shorter (more concise). though i am honored that you find what i write interesting. i am trying to be and i am trying to have a good angle, though like roshomon, which view is the right one? most of the time i notice people dont actually see things deeply. or if they do they tend to all walk the same route. sometimes they say things that they dont even understand the meaning of, origin of, etc.
i am completely unfamiliar with Barnett. but that doesnt surprise me since i dont read or follow anything in that think tank area (though if anyone is offering such employment…. 🙂 maybe i missed another calling). though i am sure that i have read stuff.
do you follow that stuff much? any recomendations for a decent read on the net? its like i always have to feed the beast or else i get bored. so i read alot, think a lot, etc.
thanks for all the comments!!
artfl;
Barnett has written a few books. He spent a lot of time at the Pentagon, as you can imagine. Some of his Pentagon seminars have been on C-SPAN. I saw him hawking his latest book on the tube a while back. Seems he was pro Bush when Bush was POTUS, and now is blubbering about Obama. So I now doubt his sincerity.
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com
I have not been to his site in a while. Seems he’s kind of building a rock star status for himself these days.
Art, you should read Niall Ferguson. And check out Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, “Outliers,” which takes on the issue of exceptional individuals and how they got that way. It turns out effort and access are way more important than innate talent (which doesn’t develop absent effort and talent.) Speaking as a musician, I find this to be more true than not…even so-called prodigies spend way more time practising than others. The magic number is 10,000 hours, an idea for which Gladwell credits brain cognition expert Daniel J. Levitin. Levitin’s book “This is Your Brain on Music” is a fascinating read.
I have read gladwell..
but he is wrong…
the purpose of gladwells book is to promote communist equality, that we are all the same and that there is no such thing as talent all you need is time and everyone can be einstien. (a bit sarcastic but its illustrative).
by his book you could work in the morning as an accountant, a brain surgeon in the after noon, and a nuclear scientist in the evening and still be a michilin quality chef. all it takes is 40,000 hrs
it will only take one 13 year or so to do all that and be an expert in each and every one.
does that sound right to you?
thats how silly his book is, but how the leftists eat it up because its pretends to confirm tabular rasa.
your not better than me, all you did was study.
and now every idiot is equal to a genius because he can discount the genius by saying he is nothing special.
however i will point out something. IQ is REAL. its not a product of environment. look at it this way. a balloon can only be inflated so far. no amount of environment will change that point. you can fill it up with air, but you cant take a small baloon and fill it beyond its capacity. can you? (and we even use pop as a euphimism for when the brain has too much 🙂 )
under tabular rasa, i can win a scientific argument with a incompetent more than i can win with a competent scientist. global warming is being promoted by incompetent scientists mostly.
its the ONLY way to get an alternative side to something that is empirical. the person has to be so bad, that they can come up with bad conclusions and believe they are good!
then, because of argument by authority, they get equal standing next to the very competent guy. worse, the incompetent has an easier time, as the competent guy is tied down by facts, and things that the incompetent cant even see.
fascinating reads do not equate to validity.
which is how this all works. their stuff is MORE facsinatign because its not valid.
we readily accept that a person is tone deaf. how many years of study by a tone deaf person will make them an expert at tuning a piano by hand wihtout a machine? according to these guys 10k hours.
how many years of study witll make someone an expert on painting and art in full color, if they are color blind? 10k hours according to these guys.
of course mild schizophrenia will also not matter, since they too can be like niels bor, if they only had the right environment and 10k hours to kill rather than working.
i work with researchers. they respect me a lot. why? because i am less educated but vastly more talented than them. (and they are slowly turning away from socialism. why? beacuse when you see real talent, then you know thsi game is a farce)
i often have performance characteristics leaning towards rain man, but wihout the social or physical situation. play me some bars of music, and i can recite the rest of it or sing the song. when in high school the geeks would get around trying to find old 45 albums and then see if they could stump me. we would sit for hours.. and htey would play a bit, and i would sing the rest. they tried the 50s.. no problem.. 60s even easier.. 70s, and 80s too (but those were cds).. then they went to the 30s and 40s.. one tried to give me one song that was 900 years old.
if i heard it, i have it. end of story.
i remember almost every paper or textbook i ever read. sometimes to the page number. i can go back and often see the pages (though for some reason i cant read the words, but can remember the content).
this is why my stuff is different. i remember all those tiny articles and facts. every one of them. and i can hold hundreds at once in my head as i try to juggle a solution.
neo has seen some of my photography, and she has seen a photo realist portrait i did (that was stolen). i can produce art in whatever style you like.. or mash them up. I just helped an author rise up and we just collaborated on a horror story that has sold in 2 countries and they are peddling it more. he is now knocking off a television treatment for me…
its actually a curse. it reminds me of an erie or creepy comic story.. about some special elves. if you collect the right thing for them, and go to their cave, you can call them up. but, there is a catch. they want to be kept busy, they are so bored. and so in the story the man or readers cant work out the implication of it, and so it is a surprise. he gets the stuff, and the elves appear, and he is their master. they explain the rules to him now. he has to find things for the to do, and they will return when done to ask him for more, if they ask three times, and he has nothing, they will anger and tear him apart. so he asks for a castle, and they bild it, riches and they bring it.
well thats the curse. i have to keep busy all the time. i only sleep about 4-5 hours a day… so my days are 20 hours long… more than 4 extra hours a day others dont have.
and there is so much more. which is why i was a ginea pig as a child…
my son is a mathemetician, but he and i are very different. he is always frustrated with me. i see math more abstractly than he does, he sees it more concretely. he can do the formuleas better than me, and explain how he got there. i just spit out the same answer and describe landscapes i fly through. he tells me that you cant do that. 🙂
for me its not synethesia like another famous mathemitician, its just visual and constructed, as i abstract to the extreem.
and thats something else. how many hours to develop the skills of someone who gets answers through synethesia, or other sensory domain mixes?
i was a prodigy as a child… its more than just practice. and others whoc ant do it want to be thought as equal.
collectivism means we are all the same, and that book seeks to make us all the same.
you want to know the deep down real reason people like socialism?
they have been made incompetent and ineffective, and ahve lost all the knowlege from culture and family that would have made schooling an augmentaion of life, not the whole cloth itself.
so they deep down know that they cant function. and the major difference between these two thigns is that in capitalism, you have no one else to blame for your station than yourself.
you are the reason you are where you are.
and the fact that its hard is not a conspiracy against you. its life in a world in which you compete or die (or dont have future versions to compete).
in socialism. nothing is your fault. you can be as incompetent as you want because everything is the falt of other things.
[edited by neo-neocon for length]
by the way..
if we are all the same and interchangeable then there is no problem to exterminate half the population. as you lose nothing other than volume, not ability.
by accepting gladwell, you not longer worry about the infirm that might have become reimans, or hawking.. you dont need to worry about the jews killed who might be einstien, bhor, wiggenstein, and tons and tons of others… because their talent is just 10k hours.
it neutralizes any argument that anyone (except leaders), are imporaant enough to keep around.
see team hoyt… maybe now you will get that the spastic quadrepelegic might not follow his formulea.
he relies on you not realizing the differennces around you beacause the base level of competency to live is low…
so a purge of scientists and taletnted artists and musicisians are ok… because it only takes you 250 weeks to produce more of them just as good and not poisoned by capitalism, individualism, etc.
but tell me..
where do all teh inventions come from that are new and not incremental variations
why couldnt russia make their own weapons rather than steal the stuff and be great at copying but never can innovate (other than ak47.. but if you look that was a person who was an exception in their system).
with all that china now has and can do.. why isnt there this huge flood of invetnions?
where is the earth shattering art and music
look back ad the most indicualistic times. and you will find the renaisance, you will find the industrial revolution.. the progress of art…
its that easy to refute gladwell..
Art, I don’t have time for a full response here, but I caution you against the blanket assumptions you outline above – particularly about Gladwell’s book being a socialist document.
I believe Gladwell’s position is essentially meritocratic, not socialistic.
I don’t suggest you’re not an exceptional person – you are! But you’re certainly not some kind of freak of nature. You remember music because it suits your cognitive capacity and pleasure center to do so. I’m exactly the same – my fellow singers find it extraordinary how quickly I learn and remember new music. They could do it too, if they wanted to and if it pleased their bodies and brains to do so. Not everyone is built that way. But our capacities to learn, remember, and perform are les differentiated than one might think.
People excell because it suits them – they work at it – and they make use of their opportunities. I don’t see what’s socialistic about that.
I wish I had more time to write about this.
the book does not have to be about socialism to push something that when you dont think it through brings you to a certain place mentally.
I don’t suggest you’re not an exceptional person – you are! But you’re certainly not some kind of freak of nature.
thank you.
and i think what you dont realize is that you dont have to be a freak to have the right combination of genetic traits to be more exceptional than someone else.
I remember music because i have no choice. hows that? songs i like, songs i hate, tunes i neer want to hear again, but occisionally i hear them note for note inflection for inflection.
i kind of do the same with most of what i read, but with reading you have more choice. imagine that i remember reams of elevator musak representations of favorite songs. augh
and how i see math and move through that space to get answers? you let me know how you teach that one, cause i cant even get others to understand it even though my representations are not bizarre abstractions but just representations.
for instance, some bizarre abstraction versions, which i cant do, regard 9 as being blue and fuzzy, and each number has qualities.. i just see what might be termed representational graphs and they make up a lanscape in which they define structure.
People excell because it suits them – they work at it – and they make use of their opportunities. I don’t see what’s socialistic about that.
nothing. not one thing at all. but that is not what his premise is. and thats where the difference is.
yes, people can work their butts off and reach their capacity.. no doubt. but the idea here is that there arent people who have aptitudes and things that put them WAY ahead of the game, sometimes without ever needing to be taught (but often not having a direction for it so its not exploited – or its taught out of them, and they use the way that everyone else does).
now in order how to understand how its socialist (marxist) you would have to first know the points of what marx claims reality is.
and marx and todays left claim that there are no differences between races and individuals, and that any difference between them is a product of their environment.
but that is a farcical statement if you understand genetics. every one of us is a new mix of qualities from both lineages of individuals, and like a big sorting machine each new set of combinations are tested… and if they make more then those are tested..
and the best lines do better.
got that last isolated point? Marx and the left want to erase the concept that there is actual merit!!!
and actual merit is not that we are all the same and how we develop is what we choose to do and work at hard…
merit is that some are “better” than others at different things, and this means that depending how you look at it in isolated areas there are winners and there are losers. there are people with better genetics that do better becuase of it, there are people with worse that dont.
healthy populations cant function at a higher level with out a certain functional spread. and marx and the others never care about how things actually work, they only cared about how the believe in a premise as to how they work would move people in a way in which they would forgoe merit and such in how htey choose and manipulate the world around them.
in this way, those who are completely incapable of competing and fairly taking a position by merit, would be out of the game.
and so the smarter, more capable people are turned into oppressors, because if we presume we are all the same, then they cheat.
but if we are all unique individuals and even cripples are important (hawking proves that easy), then all these marxist truths are wrong.
so you ahve a lot of books out there that have ulterior motive in that they are getting you to accept a well thought out false premise that you have no real way to assail unless you do some deep thinging as to the premise and even more importantly where it leads.
so he cleverly clothes his falsehood in a garmet of merit, but accepting it denies that there are special people. which then would deny culling the herd and breeding new socialist man, wouldnt it?
and yes they think this deep and even deeper at the true believer level… thats how far away they are from those that are useful idiots and fodder to a bunch of people so smart that they convinced you that there are no special people, as they themselves fool most of us.
why do you think they go after the smart? because the smart can work out what the others dont or cant, and then tell them the game. but they like the smart that will play that game. and as more people go that way, more would rather be on the winning side, which is how the propaganda shapes which side they join or decide to prostitute for.
gladwell does not tell you what IQ you have to have to do the 10k thing. nor does he tell you that those with higher IQs would need less time.
and there are things that no matter how much time a person has, they will never get it. but there are people that can. (and before someone brings up mensa, they are barely above. they are the short ones in the above 100 game. and they have the most inflated egoes. ergo everyone knows them, and almost no one knows prometheus, mega, and others.)
the 10,000 hours is a false premise… and then one has to ask why promote a obviously false premise? above is part of the result of asking that question in light of “why did the liberal press print and promote a meritocritous promoting book?”. why hasnt the left excoriated him?
hows this since you know music.
if i sing a C into the top of a piano, what happens to the strings inside?
did i ahve to actually sing a high C to get the high C string to move? so its not that hard of an abstraction is it?
thanks for some great converstation. sorry about the time… but am very glad you did take some time!!!! 🙂
E and artfldgr, peace. Brains matter AND time on task matters. Talent matters AND support and patronage matter.
It is better to be smart than stupid.
It is better to be rich than poor.
It is better to good-looking than ugly.
It is better to be charming and socially adept than grating and obnoxious.
It is better to have family, patrons and fans than to be friendless and alone.
It is better to work hard than to slack off.
If you want to hot it big, it is better to be in a time and place where rapid change is happening than in
a time and place where regulations prevent change.
It is better to have the government with you than against you.
We could go on and on. The point is, it has always been this way.
Its smarter to be lucky than its lucky to be smart!!!
and my personal favorite from the same play
i wonder if all the fornicating i am getting is worth all the fornicating i am getting : )