These positions are utterly irreconcilable, and no compromise is possible. Either the totalitarians are decisively defeated in November, or there will be war. There has to be, or else the totalitarians will move to exterminate anyone who stands in their way. It’s what they do. Remember Bill Ayers’ quotes from the 1970s about eliminating 25 million recalcitrant capitalists. I take him seriously.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100428/ap_on_bi_ge/us_financial_overhaul;_ylt=At_ITLAt7qT6D41Bp333CHKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNsOWwxYmZnBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNDI4L3VzX2ZpbmFuY2lhbF9vdmVyaGF1bARjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzIEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA2dvcHRvYWJhbmRvbg–

The MSM, Hollywood, whatever, was in his corner and the Republicans were tarred successfully as not in touch with the people or their needs. There was no opposing viewpoints that made it to the public but for a few ornery newspapers. And, the Democrats were successful in writing the history of the 30’s as their great success in saving capitalism. All crap.

I think the Democrat Congress is running out of steam as the Democrat senators and representatives are looking around and wondering if they may not have gone a little too far and put their reelections in jeopardy. Perhaps they may have placed a little too much confidence in the abilities of their leadership to lead them to 40 more years of Democrat dominance. Perhaps the slowdown in due to the realization that there is an election coming very soon and it is time to stop playing games. Who knows.

Insofar as the Dope is concerned, however, who I think is using the Democrat party for his own purposes (as there is no longer any question but that he is a marxist and was never anything but a marxist), there is always something else in his pantry more stupid than his last proposal and its worth pushing if to do nothing more than further destabilize the country.

The saving grace for our country is that, at heart, we are all cowboys and have been since we ran around as youngsters with our cap pistols going bang, bang and shooting wild indians (unless we were then playing the indians). Our parents and grandparents and great grandparents came to this, the land of opportunity, to escape tyranny. Just as happened in the 30’s we will end up standing firm and, for the time it takes, undoing the Dope’s nonsense.

Keep your chins up. Life may (I hope) soon get more boring (at least on the domestic front).

If the democrats maintain majorities in both houses after November there will be no stopping their agenda. They will take such an outcome as vindication and a mandate. This will result in some places in open defiance of the central government. Where that will lead is anybody’s guess.

Times of real crisis tend to produce real leaders. So far the U.S. has avoided the rise of a Caesar, Cromwell or Mussolini. God willing we will continue to avoid such. But, in my estimation, the reason the U.S. has avoided these is because the bulk of the citizenry has been a moral and responsible people. That unifying set of principles and moralilty has been weakened (deliberately in my estimation) significantly and may not serve to guide the majority of people to make right decisions. If there is no unifying set of priniciples around which the majority can rally then there will be either fragmentation as disparate groups seek their individual enclaves or there will be a unity imposed by force by the dominant faction.

All of this is the fruit of indifference or apathy in the face of a concerted effort by authoritarian statists to undermine the founding principles and replace them with essentially nothing but naked power and coercion used to push whatever political/social/economic agenda is currently most expediant in keeping the ruling elite in place.

Thanks for the compliment. As far as Jimmy goes, I think I unfairly used him as a symbol of the Democratic party of the time.

The Democrats let Indochina fall to the soviets, and watched 3 million people die. The press reported it, but as little as possible. Jimmy ran a mildly leftist presidency, but less than congress wanted, which is why Teddy K opposed him in the 1980 primary.

Also, I don’t claim Obama is anything other than what you say he is. My point is that he is severely constrained in his job and in his power. One of the biggest and newest constraints is new media. He also is a man of limited talents. He really can only do one thing – give a moderate speech off of a teleprompter, and then try to sign as leftist legislation as he can get away with. People eventually figure out the trick, and then there is nothing left.

James

Someday, hopefully, we will be able to forget.

A couple years ago if you’d told me I would one day wish Hillary or even Jimmy Carter were President, I’d have asked for a pair of pliers to rip my own tongue out.

Yet here we are. And I would prefer either of them to Buraq. By far.

I will never forgive you for leading me to say something good about Jimmy Carter.

I think I’m right about 50% of the time. I guess that makes me as good as a monkey.

Hi Bob,

I really don’t think Obama is going to be able to do anything extra-democratic. He won’t be able to buy votes on a scale needed to hold on to power. He can buy them retail in a few select locations, but that won’t be enough.

He also won’t be able break typical legislative precedent such as a filibuster. So to get anything past the Senate, he needs to get a Republican on board. He may get one here and there, but not for anything substantial.

I’d love to give a dissertation on my optimism, but I only have time for bullets:
1) We are still a freer country than any country in Europe – except maybe Ireland.
2) The tide has been turning conservative/libertarian on many key issues for a long time: Education, Welfare, Crime, Gun Policy, taxes, even health care. Obama is attempting hold back the damn. He is good (in a bad way) at it, but he won’t be enough.
3) We know a lot more about how bad it is because of alternative media. Things were just as bad – or worse – under Carter and Johnson. But the alternative media didn’t exist, so it seems like it was better.
4) Obama stays relatively popular because he lets congress take the lead on really bad legislation. This destroys the Democrats in congress, but leaves him “Above it All”. Obama is destroying his own party to get what he wants. That isn’t a recipe for long term power.

Thanks for the conversation. Continue on if you find it useful.

James