Obama and Sowell: who can tell when people have made enough money?
Remember Barack Obama, Joe the Plumber, and “spreading the wealth?” It seemed a surprising revelation at the time. But Obama’s income redistributive tendencies have become an old and familiar story, if hardly a ho-hum one.
Now Obama has done it again, giving a speech in his home state of Illinois in which he included the following remarks:
We’re not, we’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or providing good service. We don’t want people to stop, ah, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow our economy.
The original speech as written was to have gone like this:
Now, we’re not doing this to punish these firms or begrudge success that’s fairly earned. We don’t want to stop them from fulfilling their responsibility to help grow our economy.
But apparently, he just couldn’t resist the additional embellishments. Michelle Malkin points out that:
We have a commander-in-chief who presumes to know when you have earned “enough,” who believes that only those who provide what he deems “good” products and services should “keep on making it,” and who has determined that the role of American entrepreneurs is not to pursue their own self-interest, but to fulfill their “core” responsibility as dutiful growers of the collective economy.
That famous mock-up poster of Obama as the creepy socialist Joker never seemed more apt.
None of this should be a surprise; it was all apparent before Obama was elected. Nor are such ideas unusual among that group of people known as intellectuals, of which Obama is a full-fledged member. Here’s another intellectual (and another black man), the conservative economist Thomas Sowell, on the subject. The excerpt is taken from his excellent book Intellectuals and Society [emphasis mine]:
Many intellectuals and their followers have been unduly impressed by the fact that highly educated elites like themselves have far more knowledge per capita—in the sense of special knowledge—than does the population at large. From this it is a short step to considering the educated elites to be superior guides to what should and should not be done in a society. They have often overlooked the crucial fact that the population at large may have vastly more total knowledge—in the mundane sense—than the elites, even if that knowledge is scattered in individually unimpressive fragments among vast numbers of people.
If on one has even one percent of the knowledge currently available, not counting the vast amounts of knowledge yet to be discovered, the imposition from the top down of the notions in favor among elites, convinced of their own superior knowledge and virtue, is a formula for disaster.
Sometimes it is economic disaster, which central planning, for example, turned out to be in so many countries around the world during the twentieth century that even most governments run by communists and socialists began replacing such top-down economic planning by freer markets by the end of the century…Other forms of this general notion include judicial activism, urban societies, and other institutional expressions of the belief that social decisions cannot be left to be determined by the actions and values of the less knowledgeable population at large.
One of the most interesting things about the Obama quote under discussion is that, if you look at his scripted speech, he was trying to do his version of supporting what Sowell says—that is, of praising the power of capitalism’s ability to allow the aggregate forces of private enterprise and personal initiative to grow an economy. He knows that’s the American way, and that it is necessary for a president to pay some sort of lip service to it. But he couldn’t help blurting out what for him is the truth—that he doesn’t really believe in it at all—and that he and the other brilliant intellectuals surrounding him know much better, both practically and morally.
And the fuss they made about William F. Buckley, Jr. and Cicero.
You are quite right, he can’t help “blurting out” what he really feels. Sometimes I think he is ready to explode if he doesn’t let this out. He is really angry!
I keep thinking that his adoption of an urban black persona by choice (and the locals on the South Side of Chicago had him pegged) rather than a multi-ethnic, international heritage has a lot to do with this. He wants to be the oppressed guy with the white elites earning “too much”. Really complicated, but I think Bookworm had it best “What a Horrible little man”
As the recent coal mining and oil drilling deaths illustrate, the people in primary industries like farming, fishing, timbering, mining, and drilling are ordinary people who endure great danger and hardship to allow the rest of us to live. These people have great amounts of specialized knowledge about the physical world which has been dearly bought. Intellectuals have little use for such people, but it is such people who pave the way for the intellectual to avoid dirt, blisters, and danger.
For some reason I’m reminded of something Julius “Dr. J” Irving once said:
“I live my life trying to never appear to be a small man.”
I take “small man” to mean petty. As such, it’s a lesson I dearly wish our President had learned a long time ago. Because when he doesn’t get what he wants, he can be very petty indeed.
Keep going off script, Mr. President… especially in an election year. Believe me, we’re listening.
I agree that he wants to play the role of the oppressed guy accusing the white elites of earning too much, but it’s a hard part to play when you earned more than $5 million in the most recent tax year. How I wish someone would ask him whether that was “enough.”
But it’s even more disturbing that he thinks people have a “responsibility” to grow the economy and that’s the only reason to allow them to make money. That part wasn’t even off-the-cuff — it passed muster for the prepared speech. You couldn’t ask for a clearer revelation of his idea of the proper relationship between the individual or the state.
daggone it, saw it as I clicked — individual AND the state.
It would appear that our dear CIC is having the recurring problem of putting his foot between his mouth and those he’s taking verbal aim at.
The malaise currently affecting the Democratic Party in general, and this administration specifically, seems to stem from the frequent insertion of foot-in-mouth and head-in-a**
Perhaps providing the president with a medical (or PR) team specializing in extemity extraction would be an option when he’s giving speeches.
The arguments as to what is greed is a false argument.
greed cant be determined on the entry side of the equation, nor can it be determined during the process… the only way to know greed is to measure how much you have after you cant participate (your dead).
worth – need = greed
they are saying that we control the future
so we can tell what you need
and we will set the level that will be greed
which if you re jigger is
greed – need = worth
ie… they are going to dictate what people are worth.
if your a politician your worh more.
because unequal treatment is now you get presumed equal (unjust just) outcomes.
do note that they are going to implement the biometric id system. this will allow them to track the productivity and output, as well as health of all their cattle (slaves)
wow… dat guy was right..
mighty oaks from little acorns grow..
and acorns don’t look like oaks
and socialism doesn’t look like communism
but it sure does when it grows up.
and here we thought that dung piles become butterflies.
imagine our surprise as eradicating freedom
[want to know how they will get et the miltary to fire on us. well they are already making a dust bowl of our food production… when credit finally goes. we cant get food. and greed, need worth will apply to whether you obey or not, and if you don’t obey, you dont get enough rations. so a military man will have to choose between watching his family starve slowly or shooting you. you control this stuff, you control people tell a man he either shoots or he gets no food or medical care for his family. not just his wife, but children. not just them but his parents. not just them but brothers and sisters. after all,, this is a obedience breeding program that favors obedience to the elite over everything else. everyone mistake is to think that the people that immigrate here and assimilate change. they dont… and so the logic that our people will act differently when the real thumbscrews are put, is inane… doing this resulted in underestimating their ability to compel the masses. however, that also requires forgetting that torturing 100 million has a way of getting everyone else to fall into line]
The comment is even more astounding when considering what money actually represents. He may as well be saying “I think there comes a time when people have been too creative and efficient with their skills and talents”.
How do Peter B. Lewis and George Soros fit in this discussion? It’s all about governance by exception and not by the rule of law.
Remember..
we only pay attention to all the stuff about germany AFTER Gleichschaltung
not knowing the process, everyone would argue thats not it. but if that’s not it, why prevent it.
by the time you start to recognize the tiger out of the dark as a tiger, its too late.
the immigrants are the US that will facilitate the crack down… as i said, they need us to act a certain way to act or else cause a total melt down.
lets see… not liking Israel / disfavoring whites and Christians & white (and chinese) [they are self sufficient, and wont make good pets/drough horses. so abortion, euthanasia is now more in place. blacks are on the list as they are too violent for the elite – especially when you do them wrong, which the elite have been doing]
favoring brutish criminals to put pressure on the good people to allow the state powers that they shouldn’t have (rather than get them to enforce what they should or through your favorite team member out)
promoting socialist cults to work on different section of the population by changing their real perspective to a false perspective through consciousness lowering. called consciousness raising (i keep saying their points are inversions. so by hurting your thought processes and your functionality, adn then giving you a lolly pop that your more evolved you get them to step forward for a lobotomy)
read them today, and you say… wow… such a movement, and don’t think cult (neither do cult members, duh)
i did try to link all to guys like Moses Harmon. to read about him is to say he was a pretty liberal left communist. (and since everythign is in opposites if you are going against judeo christian reality, which side do you take as opposite?). his newsletter or paper was called Lucifer Bringer of Light. later to become the american journal of eugenics. read it and the points made and you find out that he and a few otehrs are the source for feminism ideas of communal female live away from males, and breeding, and cult obesience.
but i guess if you have cows, adn bulls, and they are your cattle, you dont let men and women mix do you?
and if your going to decide winners and losers and outcomes and such, then people become your cows.
the leaders remain human, but those that follow their ideals become THEIR cattle. women will be inseminated (a variation on lebensborn)
they get to abort those that dont measrue
they get to early terminate those that are unproductive
they want those that will breed no matter what conditions you impose (ergo abortion in American dividing the population between responsible people and people who cant help have but 15 children)
their religion is not allowed to change, so they preach change to everything else.
if something is stable and everything else changes, then everything else slowly accommodates that which is not allowed to change.
so change si good to make human cattle
and you dont want to support such things on your own, so you had to get women to work apart from families, that away the cows are self sustaining like the bulls.
you also have to make sex the biggest thing and reward for them. after all to breed and have a farm your animals need to rut when you let the be together.
the plan has not changed since the era of the 1800s and the many fruitbat communes… they were the petri dish to refine the process of creating cults.
why?
so that through cult movements, one can garner a high enough percentage of the population on your side to push out the people, and put in ruelrs and cattle.
haven you noticed that they even want the productive output of cattle that they let stay on other farms?
no no no… it cant be that.. no no..
and marcus wolfe didnt design our new national ids.
Markus Johannes “Mischa” Wolf (19 January 1923 — 9 November 2006) was head of the General Intelligence Administration (Hauptverwaltung Aufklé¤rung), the foreign intelligence division of East Germany’s Ministry for State Security (MfS, commonly known as the Stasi). He was the MfS’s number two for 34 years, which spanned most of the Cold War.
no..they dont want to own everything and then push us off their property…
problem is that we have no other world to go to, so when they finally say get off our land… you get now why the exterminations of Germany, china, etc.
when a farmer breeds his animals, what does he do with the rejects?
and do they provide for their cattle. give them tv, let them travel, maybe even leave?
May Day occurs on May 1 and refers to several public holidays.[1] In many countries, May Day is synonymous with International Workers’ Day, or Labour Day, a day of political demonstrations and celebrations organised by the unions, anarchist, and socialist groups.
As on Belmont Club poster said recently:
There is also the problem of the elite’s lack of humility. I’m a pretty smart guy, and I think I could do a decent job of re-ordering the world if given absolute power.
But … It wouldn’t be right. It is not up to me to tell my fellow humans how to live. I think bowling, for instance, is stupid, though many people enjoy it. What/who gives me the right to tell bowlers that they should be going to the symphony instead?
But nobody is forcing me to go bowling and nobody is using my tax dollars to subsidize bowling, so I don’t care. Not my business, and not a problem. This is the essence of liberty.
For a thought experiment, substitute guns, french fries, or abortion for bowling above and see how you feel. The realization that you do not have the Moral Authority to try to construct a perfect world that eliminates what you dislike is the essence of humility. Many very bright people lack humility.
OlderandWheezier, your comment made me remember these remarks of Michelle Obama’s in February 2008:
“Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.”
We can’t say they didn’t warn us — about their vision of power, their idea of the proper role of government, or their contempt for ordinary Americans.
art,
Speaking of cults, Ron Radosh at PJM has a good account of the cult the Redgraves were/are attached to.
Next point: What have Obama and Michelle ever done to grow the economy? Why were they ready to make a boneheaded (read sleazy, corrupt) deal with Rezko to get a fancy house? Wasn’t the simple house Michelle grew up in enough? Is that contibution to corruption an example of living up to your responsibilities? As much as I dislike Jesse Jackson, I have a similar response to Obama’s little lectures.
Here’s what really gets me:
The elites and intellectuals have a world view which renders moral judgments of good and bad and seeks to impose those judgments on society.
However, because their beliefs and values falsely fall under the rubric of “education” and “science” their edicts and proscriptions are not considered religious. Both Freud and Marx considered themselves, first and foremost, great scientists.
Intellectuals pay lip service when they must, but at the same time show that their beliefs are really what matter to them despite the facts–such as when Obama just can’t help blurting out his ‘share the wealth’ motif.
How much pain and suffering must the world endure until the pseudo-scientists are debunked?
Curtis asks, “How much pain and suffering must the world endure until the pseudo-scientists are debunked?”
See the 1940’s for the answer.
i am adding this. its not direct in line with Sowell, but it fits the arguments as its a big source of where their ideas come (and there is a lineage to all this… but who cares? right?)
Welcome to Mr. Obama’s fascist America
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/30/is-obama-fomenting-a-race-war
Instead of seeing Americans, he classifies people according to their race and gender. Modern liberal identity politics is rooted in fascist doctrine. The most influential philosopher of the 20th century was Martin Heidegger. His 1927 classic work, “Being and Time,” is widely acknowledged as profoundly influencing Western thought – especially the academic left and its embrace of postmodernism. It’s the very culture from which Mr. Obama – by his own admission – comes.
Knowing history I have read and know the history of Heidegger
So I know the ideas of all this stuff, which is why I could see it coming.
Those that didn’t only asserted by nothing that I was wrong.
This is why they didn’t see it, couldn’t see it, and still think certain things.
It would be like trying to recognize a marmoset and never know what marmoset looks like, but only having myths of what they are like which serves current political ends.
Or knowing what a butterfly looks like but not the caterpillar that leads to it.
All us people who have owned and know marmosets can show you them till we are blue in the face, we can even show you real ones. Teach you about their habits, games, rules, and lineage. They could stare one right in the face, and say, no, you haven’t convinced me.
Their ignorance means that the debate in the absence of a real authority
Can’t be resolved as we no longer have the ability to lose gracefully
Not even when losing is the right thing to do, and would put a better captain at the helm. “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the ONLY thing”
It turns ignorance into a more potent debate tool than knowing
Because in the absence of knowing, they refuse to concede
So the more ignorant they are, the more they can appear to win debates
The measure of wining a debate is being right,
not refusal to accept being wrong.
now that we are infested with the same people, ideology, and its flowering, any one notice that the flower looks like a hybrid of the German and Russian flowers? No no, a hybrid is different…
Yes it is. Its usually better than the two before..
and we now are worse than when we met those.
My thought exactly. Or the scum that infest Hollywood.
Yes. It is to laugh. Neither was a scientist at all, much less a great one. Two clowns arrogating to themselves the patina of credibility that had come to attach to science, and in that respect much like the climastrologists babbling about global warming.
Mrs Whatsit
That statement of Michele’s should have tipped off everyone with a sense of history, or at least common sense, that fascist is not too mild of a word in describing the Obamas. Recall the fascist mottoes “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State” and “Believe, Obey, Fight”.
Here is the same statement abbreviated to show what the obermenschen intend for us uneducated rodents “Barack Obama will require you … He is going to demand that you ….. That you put down …. That you come out …., that you move out of …. That you push yourselves …. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.”
I wonder if this arrogant, insecure, naive, fraudulent, corrupt, inexperienced, egomaniac thinks we can be trusted to do anything positive other than adore his wisdom? He must have a copy of Fascism for Fools under his pillow, although I will admit that thanks to him I am unlikely to go back to my life as usual, uninvolved and uninformed.
Are Americans Going John Galt?
by Doug Patton
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36761
“”The elites and intellectuals have a world view which renders moral judgments of good and bad and seeks to impose those judgments on society.””
Curtis
Our descendants will wonder what the hell we were thinking by allowing a worldview to over run us simply because it lacked faith in a transcendant creator. They won’t understand our gullibility on this seperation of church and state issue. I don’t understand our gullibility on it. The rollover and die plan?
He hates us. The only saving grace is that he probably hates himself too. He’s a hateful, spiteful person. Thanks to his mom, I suppose. F
Obama’s goal is redistribution. That is not just moving a bit of something from here to there. You need to judge everything in order to redistribute intelligently. Life is complicated. People have different needs, abilities, group memberships, and histories. You need to decide what is enough for each person, what is not enough, and what is too much.
Obama sees a static world where people hold jobs specified by some more intelligent master. Being employed by an independent business owner is a crude slavery of one man to another. Being employed by benevolent, independent, intelligent, and community oriented intellectuals is a higher form of organization that removes this slavery. Plus, only this top-down system can properly take account of the needs of the community, environment, and world order.
Ironically, this is the world of 17th century France, of elites and peasants, everyone knowing their place in the order of things.
These people want to control everything for your own good and the good of the World. They want to control what you eat, how much you exercise, what your potato chips contain, how much you can operate your air conditioner, and whether you get a toy with your meal at McDonalds. You are to be a healthy, cooperative member of the World community, doing your little peasant part in supporting the elite goals for humanity. You must be healthy and inexpensive in order to best serve the
Statecommunity.A call to action. If you don’t want to be a peasant along with your children, then vote out the Democratic Party that is pushing these ideas, vote out anyone of any party that wants to control you in detail for your own good, and vote out Obama in particular at the earliest opportunity.
Redistributing wealth isn’t just about who’s going to pay more, it’s also about who will be able to get access. Hence the rush to stack the deck with as many jokers as possible. The jokers insure that the “right” people can be seated and will be. Little Roland Burris’ name comes to mind.
Think back to the recent mayoral election in Atlanta, and what was publically and unapologetically said about the single white candidate who dared to oppose the others. I’m still waiting to hear outrage over that…crickets…
For that matter, what of the swastikas smeared on the windows in Arizona?, no Justice Dept. Investigation? Hope and change, there it is, for you.
I don’t understand our gullibility . . . STEVE H.
I think there’s another way of looking at it. Children are gullible. We were negligent.
The commandment is to the parents and it cannot be abrogated or delegated: Teach them [the commandments] diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit down and when you walk, when you lie down and when you rise” (Deut 6:7)
William Ayers well understood this principle when he become an educational terrorist.
expat: What have Obama and Michelle ever done to grow the economy?
Until now, not work in the private sector?
Redistributing wealth is about inverting genetic IQ progress… its all about breeding out the middle who move up.
nothing more… its all about demographics… masses.. all explanations that have to do with morals, and other things are false arguments to facilitate the animals to move in mass to take up the position you want.
its a way of looking at minds not a sacred things that god gave and each one a world and universe of its own. but as something to grab hold of and get to do what you want.
its the view that if your mind is more powerful savvy and such, you can poison another one, and through such things seek genetic advantage.
i keep pointing things out but i think that people haven’t tried to apply what i am pointing out and see if it works. its more like, wow, that’s weird, shrug, and then go back to a circular conversation where a lot is made up, and no one knows where to look for answers.
ENDS justify means…
so what are the ends… and remember there are TWO ends here to look at or two perspectives.
what are THEIR ends, and what are they ends they give you to grant them ends?
once you have a manipulative liar, its not like, lie, bang, go back to normal, don’t lie…
people lie for a REASON and once they get the bug that lying is the means to anything they reason should be theirs. then this whole concept of looking at their argument with any validity in terms of what is on the table is a complete farce.
want to learn to dance with snakes?
then see yourself as a meal, add up what they want to see the end result…
what is the only thing that is real and counts in a reality with life and lineage?
i will say that i had more written…
Nuanced petty-bourgeois comes back home:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwoUFEI7VBs
Nothing new. We seen it before.
Prepare.
“”I think there’s another way of looking at it. Children are gullible. We were negligent.””
Curtis
I’ll stick with gullible. We had people on the case. Supposedly bright people. And they were fed the argument that only one world view was unacceptable for America because it possessed a diety. And they bought (and still buy) the absurd premise hook line and sinker.
but when he makes millions a year, it’s nbfd.
I just hope that shovel wears out soon.
Instead of debating with liberals the absurd proposition that “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money” take them up on it.
The Republican’s and conservatives should “pull an Alinsky” on them.
‘Demand’ that they live up to their own proposals.
Obama reportedly made $5 million last year, @ 5% interest that’s $250k a year, which given his campaign promises is quite ironic. According to Obama, anything beyond $250k makes him one of the ‘rich’, so ask him if he’s going to donate to charity anything he earns above and beyond $250k…after all, hasn’t he made ‘enough’ money? He can even take action ‘unilaterally’…
Ask Al Gore, the Clinton’s, Barnie Frank, Pelosi, Gates, Buffett and Hollywood, Oprah and Letterman and all the rest, if they agree with Obama…
If they do, ask them what charities they’ll be contributing all of their income to from now on? Make em walk the talk, tell em it’s time to put up or shut up.
If they don’t agree, confront Obama with the disagreement. Ask him if they’re greedy, since they haven’t made ‘enough’, but all of them make well over $250k a year.
Ask him if he meant that only businessmen making over $250k are greedy…
Of course they’re hypocrites, expose it.
anyone besides me realize how desperate and nutter they are willing to be to close the deals they need to close? manipulating puerto rico to choose independence and a economy much like other island nations ore statehood. they are going to be a state. then letting convicts vote. at this point i wouldn’t put past them deciding the best way to solve the Mexico border problem is to make it a state.
OlderandWheezer: When I become Grand Poobah of the planet, I will ban automatic pin-setters in bowling alleys and make all who think bowling is dumb set the pins manually, like in the old days. And, you better be prepared to show your papers, too!
@Artfldgr
anyone besides me realize how desperate and nutter they are willing to be to close the deals they need to close? manipulating puerto rico to choose independence and a economy much like other island nations ore statehood. they are going to be a state. then letting convicts vote. at this point i wouldn’t put past them deciding the best way to solve the Mexico border problem is to make it a state.
I think they have reached the last few moves to achieve their goals; whether or not they understand it or not. We are too far into the chess game to go back and unmake moves.
You have written of divers cult creators and “intellectuals” such as Harmon, yet, the secular mind cannot fathom how such a widespread conspiracy, over a great length of time, can be feasible; and, it cannot as long as the spiritual nature of the conspiracy is denied. To speak of this with any understanding is to acknowledge that fallen higher powers have been putting these steps into place for millenia using willing humans: some directly complicit, others isolated and unknowing, yet still adding one more brick in the wall.
So, Obama may be but a few quick steps from his goal – or is it Soros? Yet, what of the final goal of the fallen powers: how far are they from their goal? Remember: their goal is Jerusalem; the U.S is a mere way stop on the way to that victory. What will the destruction of the U.S accomplish for the fallen ones: Lucifer and his nephilim?
Andrew_M_Garland,
Another parallel to France: Versailles. Louis not only ruled top down; he also physically moved local rulers away from their land so he could keep an eye on them. It’s like the modern wagyu beef social circuit of DC.
Inspiration: “That famous mock-up poster of Obama as the creepy socialist Joker never seemed more apt.”
Result: http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/enemies_foreign_domestic/why_so_socialist.php
He should have just come right out and said, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” The effect is the same, but at least the Marx quote is stylistically stronger.
“Barack will never allow you…..” Huh? Barak will never allow me, what? What Michelle? What is her problem? Does she think this dude’s a king or something?
Well, it’s true I am now no longer uninvolved and unengaged. Is this because Barak is not allowing me to otherwise? Perhaps, indirectly. Because of this clown I definitely am more informed, and engaged. This must frighten her, as I am finally on to what the Democratic party is about. And this here gal has left for good.
grain of salt alert…
but sometimes its enough
http://www.nationalenquirer.com/obama_cheating_scandal_vera_baker_video_/celebrity/68589
PRESIDENT OBAMA has been caught in a shocking cheating scandal after being caught in a Washington, DC Hotel with a former campaign aide, sources say.
And now, a hush-hush security video that shows everything could topple both Obama’s presidency and marriage to Michelle!
A confidential investigation has learned that Obama first became close to gorgeous 35 year-old VERA BAKER in 2004 when she worked tirelessly to get him elected to the US Senate, raising millions in campaign contributions.
the thing is catching fire..
we can hope that if falls apart..
njartist49 – thanks for the comments. though i dont think they are ‘after israel’. i also dont think they mean her good will either. she is a tool to them and been a good tool if you think about it.
history does repeat, but as Aslan said, not the same way. the rise of despots can fail, though i would guess that we sometimes dont know thats what it was and what i almost could be.
they are making incredible bad will… depending on forces, its possible to end up like indonesia.
indonesia was about to become a soviet state. a honey pot game through complicated channels had set up the states leaders to be paranoid enough. why it failed was that china decided that it didnt like the idea that the soviets would have such a place, and so they jumped the soviet plan and went in and assasinated a bunch of generals and their families.
one general survived, his daughter did not (and i am not sure who else if any. i am still learning).
the response was to mobilize the army, pull out lists of communists, and wholesale go through the country arresting some, slaughtering others.
when it was over. indonesia was a free republic, russia had no more real grip on her, and china i guess pulled back and went about things by other means.
thats what makes things like this so ‘not good’. not just from an ends of the idiots thing, but from the fact that obama and the others think they are safe away from potentials of greater things.
but as they go forward, other countries are also doing things. and those countries are not following exactly the same idea they are more fascist…
over time that will fade… marx is wrong, capitalism will follow the failed attempt at socialism.
the real history would be that the good will of the capitalists and their desire to bring such to everyong will have them trade freedom for what they think is that end. thats where marx would end it, but i say it goes on, and what it does is it rediscovers capitalism through community and hardship.
regardless of whether they succeed, at best its temporary. their seat in a high part of the hill could have been maintained for a 1000 years without the game they are playing. at best it will give them advantage for a few decades.
where i stalins daughter now? wisconsin. yes she is a cheeshead. the dynastic despots tend to only hold things for a life time or two (or three at most).
rather than stand in merit for as long as they are good.. and then step a bit aside (not fall to the bottom), they opt for an all or nothing pull, that destroys the very thing that they are taking.
what good is their copious kingly wealth if there is nothing to buy? when you cant go about the cities or go about the cities and enjoy them?
and worse.. eventually france repeats..
they think they can repeat X and then not have to deal with Y because they will stop history…
even if we didnt know history it would repeat, we just wouldnt know it
Fearful that America’s Supreme Court will soon strike down Chicago’s handgun ban, frustrated by the Illinois legislature’s rejection of his anti-gun agenda, and repudiated by American courts and legislatures over his plan to sue federally licensed manufacturers and dealers of firearms for third-party crimes, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (D) is showing contempt for his own country’s and state’s institutions, by seeking a foreign entity to enforce his anti-gun agenda against the American people. This week, Daley called for “redress against the gun industry” in the World Court, in The Hague, Netherlands. Forgetting or not caring who his constituents are, Daley blurted “This is coming from international mayors. They’re saying, ‘We’re tired of your guns, America.'”
Daley’s global gun control fantasy received the endorsement of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (D), whose enthusiasm for international law is apparently matched by his novel interpretation of the United States Constitution. “I love the Second Amendment,” Nutter recently said, but “I have a First Amendment right not to be shot.” Nutter’s utterly ignorant statement proves that in our country, you can be elected to public office while knowing remarkably little about the Bill of Rights. …
I’ve been thinking a lot, lately, about the young trolls we read on so many sites. Several clues make it easy enough to know that they are young, and one of those is the things that they don’t know, or know in only a formulaic sort of second hand way. The Libel media said that President Bush’s tax cuts only applied to tax payers with incomes over $250,000. Most of us don’t make that much, but we got tax cuts, anyway. If you are one of those very enthusiastic college juniors, you were not paying taxes, seven years ago, so you just believe what you were told.
Another thread avers that Laura Welch avoided manslaughter charges for running a red light and killing someone when she was seventeen, by using political pull. Anyone who lived in Texas then, as I did, either knew the Welches, or has come to know someone who did. What political pull? My friends tell me that Miss Welch was a very nice school librarian, who certainly did not have anything about her to suggest that she was a future first lady.
Or take the case of her future husband, George W Bush, who went into the National Guard just out of college. I am four years younger, and I could have got into the Guard, even though it had become somewhat harder since young Lt bush joined up. Anyone who was alive in Texas in those days remembers that a one-term Congressman from Houston might have had some kind of influence, if he were a Democrat. We all remember quite well how the Democrats ran that sort of thing until as recently as twenty years ago. The elder Bush was a Republican.
Or, how about this? If you remember Howdy Doody, you also remember typing class. One look at the photocopy of the fake memo about Lt Bush, and you knew that it could not have come from an Air Force officer. It was perfect, the way professional secretaries and computer word processors could make it, not what an officer, who had a secretary to type for him, could produce.
Election judges and clerks are the most ordinary of the ordinary, like me. In 2000, we knew quite well that election officials in majority-Democrat precincts did not turn away Black voters. Furthermore, many of us had used punch card ballots, and the idea of a dimpled chad was, at first, a mystery, then, a joke.
These are very simple and concrete examples of the mundane sort of general knowledge that contradicts, and in some cases gives the lie to, the ‘expertise’ of our would-be ruling class. We know when we are well off. We know when we are well or poorly governed. We know when someone is lying to us.
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Obama is an “intellectual” only insofar as his life’s associations and labors haven’t involved, you know, work and productivity, but merely gabbing and embracing faddish faculty notions.
That is, there is scant evidence–none that I can identify, but I’m conceding that I can’t know everything, unlike intellectuals–that he is truly well above average in intelligence.
Cordially…
Do liberals ‘believe’ anything, other than the non-existence of objective truth?
I submit that they ‘believe’ whatever is momentarily convenient.
Now, let’s lay off Michelle Obama. I found her call to students to shirk the lucrative private sector and join her in public service to be inspirational. I especially found it moving because her idea of a public service job paid her a cool three hundred thousand smackers a year. At a salary like that my public spirit would be boundless.
Coincidentally, the job did not exist until her husband got to the senate, during his term she brought in a couple of million government bucks, and the job was not filled when she resigned. Coincidence, of course.
The list of “if this were Bush the msm would be screaming” is now almost infinite but if someone had created a very rewarding job for Laura Bush under similar circumstances it would be a major issue. Oddly enough, despite him being a greedy and grasping rightwinger, I don’t see Bush as arranging anything like this or Laura Bush taking it.
Doing well by doing good, eh?
You guys are suffering from ‘Obama Derangement Syndrome’. (Just as well you chose your enemies carefully 😉 ).
He might not be the greatest president, but you can read too much into one unremarkable statement.
There *is* more to life than money, and a lot of people should realise that at a certain point they’ve made enough money, there are other things in life. That’s a completely uncontroversial statement.
There *is* more to life than money, and a lot of people should realise that at a certain point they’ve made enough money, there are other things in life. That’s a completely uncontroversial statement.
If that’s what he was saying, sure, no problem. Unfortunately, he means something altogether different. I don’t see what people are saying here as ‘Obama Derangement Syndrome’. They are simply making valid points regarding the danger of a President implying that judgement can be made as to what is fairly earned or what is deserved. Why should the State care about this at all unless there is an issue of legality?
Would Obama cap his friend Oprah’s earnings? Or anyone else who adds to his political kitty? His statements are odd and do not reflect the American way of life, especially as it relates to liberty, particularly in earning a living.
How about those who had “made enough” in the beginning of 2007? Suppose they just stopped earning because they had made enough – where do you suppose they put their “enough” … in mattress or a wall safe? Or do you think they might have invested in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, 401(k)s? And if they did, did these people still have “enough” a year and a half later?
If Steve Jobs ever ever really decides that $5M is enough, the will stop inventing new products, move into his $5M home, and just enjoy his kids. Unfortunately, that will mean no iPod, iPad, iPhone, and Apple will die, like it did the last time they got rid of him. Does this ever occur to our economically challenged leadership?
If some random person wins the lottery, they do nothing productive. The money is spent on luxury toys. If Jobs has a few extra millions, he starts PIXAR. Our country functions economically because a small number of very creative people move us forward. They need wealth to do it. Stop that process, and we will all regret it. If you think unemployment is bad now, just watch what happens if you eliminate individual wealth.
Obama’s comment is just the sort of thing one would expect from a crypto-fascist and communist.
Trained in the “Das Capital” school of economics, Obama does not know that the wealth of productive people is used to fund innovation, create jobs, and create credit (the legitimate kind, not fraudulent bubbles), and much more. I have already written an open letter to the POTUS asking that he and his very rich friends be prepared to donate all monies above 250K/year to charity or to retiring the national debt. I’m not holding my breath waiting for a reply. The nomenklatura are above such things, you know!
Obama: “I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” (April 28, 2010)
Lincoln: “I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.” (March 6, 1860)
Read Romans 1:18-32… If you don’t have your own Bible, you can see it online at BibleGateway dot com.
If we don’t fall on our knees and beg for the LORD to forgie us and heal our nation and give us wise leaders who love America, we’re doomed…
We may already be past the tipping point…
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Actually I just read the ’embellishment’ as a statement of individual fact. There is a point at which ‘you’ve made enough money’ just like there’s a point at which ‘you’ve eaten enough’. If you’ve made such a statement it doesn’t mean you are saying the gov’ts job is to police the snack machine so the guy whose already eaten three snickers bars is stopped from buying another one.
The context of Obama’s speech seems to imply that this is the meaning he meant. More to the point we are already a year into Obama’s first term. This sort of silliness might have made sense back when Obama was relatively new but we now have actual actions to give us context to every ambigious phrase that you want to dig up. The search for secret motives behind every phrase here says more about the motives of the blogger than Obama.
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@ Boonton 12:10 pm. This sort of silliness might have made sense back when Obama was relatively new but we now have actual actions to give us context to every ambigious phrase that you want to dig up. We sure do.
So the policies to date are top marginal tax brackets that are dramtically lower than our post WWII average even under only Republican Presidents and some slight fiddling with top level bonuses for firms that would have been 100% bankrupt sans taxpayer aid. This is Obama deciding when we’ve made enough money?
If this is your idea of socialism or communism it hasn’t lived up to the hype.
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