Ego and Mouth

Ego and Mouth

by Thomas Sowell

(reposted from here)

“After the big gamble on subprime mortgages that led to the current financial crisis, is there going to be an even bigger gamble, by putting the fate of a nation in the hands of a man whose only qualifications are ego and mouth?

Barack Obama has the kind of cocksure confidence that can only be achieved by not achieving anything else.

Anyone who has actually had to take responsibility for consequences by running any kind of enterprise– whether economic or academic, or even just managing a sports team– is likely at some point to be chastened by either the setbacks brought on by his own mistakes or by seeing his successes followed by negative consequences that he never anticipated.

The kind of self-righteous self-confidence that has become Obama’s trademark is usually found in sophomores in Ivy League colleges– very bright and articulate students, utterly untempered by experience in real world.

The signs of Barack Obama’s self-centered immaturity are painfully obvious, though ignored by true believers who have poured their hopes into him, and by the media who just want the symbolism and the ideology that Obama represents.

The triumphal tour of world capitals and photo-op meetings with world leaders by someone who, after all, was still merely a candidate, is just one sign of this self-centered immaturity.

“This is our time!” he proclaimed. And “I will change the world.” But ultimately this election is not about him, but about the fate of this nation, at a time of both domestic and international peril, with a major financial crisis still unresolved and a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon.

For someone who has actually accomplished nothing to blithely talk about taking away what has been earned by those who have accomplished something, and give it to whomever he chooses in the name of “spreading the wealth,” is the kind of casual arrogance that has led to many economic catastrophes in many countries.

The equally casual ease with which Barack Obama has talked about appointing judges on the basis of their empathies with various segments of the population makes a mockery of the very concept of law.

After this man has wrecked the economy and destroyed constitutional law with his judicial appointments, what can he do for an encore? He can cripple the military and gamble America’s future on his ability to sit down with enemy nations and talk them out of causing trouble.

Senator Obama’s running mate, Senator Joe Biden, has for years shown the same easy-way-out mindset. Senator Biden has for decades opposed strengthening our military forces. In 1991, Biden urged relying on sanctions to get Saddam Hussein’s troops out of Kuwait, instead of military force, despite the demonstrated futility of sanctions as a means of undoing an invasion.

People who think Governor Sarah Palin didn’t handle some “gotcha” questions well in a couple of interviews show no interest in how she compares to the Democrats’ Vice Presidential candidate, Senator Biden.

Joe Biden is much more of the kind of politician the mainstream media like. Not only is he a liberal’s liberal, he answers questions far more glibly than Governor Palin– grossly inaccurately in many cases, but glibly.

Moreover, this is a long-standing pattern with Biden. When he was running for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination back in 1987, someone in the audience asked him what law school he attended and how well he did.

Flashing his special phony smile, Biden said, “I think I have a much higher IQ than you do.” He added, “I went to law school on a full academic scholarship” and “ended up in the top half” of the class.

But Biden did not have a full academic scholarship. Newsweek reported: “He went on a half scholarship based on need. He didn’t finish in the ‘top half’ of his class. He was 76th out of 85.”

Add to Obama and Biden House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and you have all the ingredients for a historic meltdown. Let us not forget that the Roman Empire did decline and fall, blighting the lives of millions for centuries.”

– reposted by Julian

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A Perfect Storm

A Perfect Storm

by Thomas Sowell

(reposted from original source link here)

“Some elections are routine, some are important and some are historic. If Senator John McCain wins this election, it will probably go down in history as routine. But if Senator Barack Obama wins, it is more likely to be historic– and catastrophic.

Once the election is over, the glittering generalities of rhetoric and style will mean nothing. Everything will depend on performance in facing huge challenges, domestic and foreign.

Performance is where Barack Obama has nothing to show for his political career, either in Illinois or in Washington.

Policies that he proposes under the banner of “change” are almost all policies that have been tried repeatedly in other countries– and failed repeatedly in other countries.

Politicians telling businesses how to operate? That’s been tried in countries around the world, especially during the second half of the 20th century. It has failed so often and so badly that even socialist and communist governments were freeing up their markets by the end of the century.

The economies of China and India began their take-off into high rates of growth when they got rid of precisely the kinds of policies that Obama is advocating for the United States under the magic mantra of “change.”

Putting restrictions on international trade in order to save jobs at home? That was tried here with the Hawley-Smoot tariff during the Great Depression.

Unemployment was 9 percent when that tariff was passed to save jobs, but unemployment went up instead of down, and reached 25 percent before the decade was over.

Higher taxes to “spread the well around,” as Obama puts it? The idea of redistributing wealth has turned into the reality of redistributing poverty, in countries where wealth has fled and the production of new wealth has been stifled by a lack of incentives.

Economic disasters, however, may pale by comparison with the catastrophe of Iran with nuclear weapons. Glib rhetoric about Iran being “a small country,” as Obama called it, will be a bitter irony for Americans who will have to live in the shadow of a nuclear threat that cannot be deterred, as that of the Soviet Union could be, by the threat of a nuclear counter-attack.

Suicidal fanatics cannot be deterred. If they are willing to die and we are not, then we are at their mercy– and they have no mercy. Moreover, once they get nuclear weapons, that is a situation which cannot be reversed, either in this generation or in generations to come.

Is this the legacy we wish to leave our children and grandchildren, by voting on the basis of style and symbolism, rather than substance?

If Barack Obama thinks that such a catastrophe can be avoided by sitting down and talking with the leaders of Iran, then he is repeating a fallacy that helped bring on World War II.

In a nuclear age, one country does not have to send troops to occupy another country in order to conquer it. A country is conquered if another country can dictate who rules it, as the Mongols once did with Russia, and as Osama bin Laden tried to do when he threatened retaliation against places in the United States that voted for George W. Bush. But he didn’t have nuclear weapons to back up that threat– yet.

America has never been a conquered country, so it may be very hard for most Americans even to conceive what that can mean. After France was conquered in 1940, it was reduced to turning over some of its own innocent citizens to the Nazis to kill, just because those citizens were Jewish.

Do you think our leaders wouldn’t do that? Not even if the alternative was to see New York and Los Angeles go up in mushroom clouds? If I were Jewish, I wouldn’t bet my life on that.

What the Middle East fanatics want is not just our resources or even our lives, but our humiliation first, in whatever sadistic ways they can think of. Their lust for humiliation has already been repeatedly demonstrated in their videotaped beheadings that find such an eager market in the Middle East.

None of this can be prevented by glib talk, but only by character, courage and decisive actions– none of which Barack Obama has ever demonstrated.”

– reposted by Julian

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On the Road to a New Court . . .

As the election approaches there is certainly no shortage of issues to distinguish the candidates, however one area which gets an unfortunately small amount of attention is the future President’s potential appointees to the federal courts.

Front and center to a President’s nominee selection process rests on the question of judicial philosophy. McCain has said he will appoint “strict constructionists” who would follow in the Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas mold. These judges attempt to interpret the Constitution in accord with its original meaning and context. The argument for this constitutional reading is that if we in fact live in a democracy only democratically elected officials can change our laws.

By contrast Obama has stated he would appoint judges like Steven Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who can be described as adherents to the “Active Liberty” interpretation of the Constitution. Under this view Judges take it upon themselves to go beyond the original intent of the Constitution. This view point supported cases such as Roe v. Wade, and Miranda v. Arizona. The argument in favor of this review standard is that courts require the authority to override democratic rule in the areas deemed important by the Court, even though not addressed explicitly by the Constitution.

Here are links from the dueling view points, Justices Scalia and Breyer over the question of judicial philosophy

As you think about how the Constitution should be interpreted, consider the following cases:

Boumediene v. Bush, 5-4 decision addressing the War on Terror: The Court ruled that alleged terrorists have a Constitutional right of access to domestic courts. This ruling overrode the Congresses’ specific denial of domestic court access to alleged terrorists. In my own research and reading of the opinion I have not found one prior instance in this nation’s history where warring alien enemies of this nation had access to our domestic courts.

Kennedy v. Louisiana, 5-4 decision addressing the Death penalty. The Court ruled that child rape did not qualify as a crime warranting the death penalty under the “evolving standard of decency”. This opinion overrode Louisiana’s democratic decision to permit the execution of a child rapist and the history of the American death penalty which allowed State to execute far far less horrid offenses.

Gonzales v. Carhart, 5-4 decision addressing the ban of a particular partial birth abortion ban. The Court upheld a state law prohibiting a particular form of partial birth abortion. The ruling affirmed the right of state’s to democratically pass laws on the termination of late term fetal life

Kelo v. City of New London, 5-4 decision addressing the reach of Eminent Domain. In this opinion the Court ruled that the Takings Clause permitted government’s to seize homes and other forms of private property for any “public purpose” despite the 5th Amendment’s much more restrictive language.

– Ignacio

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Which political party has more merit?

I got the following comment on the photo of Obama dressed as Che Guevara…

“I’m not even sure what this means. I’m guessing it’s a swipe at Obama by likening him to Saddam Hussein. Or likening him to a Cuban Communist? What I’m unclear about is why?

I appreciate that everyone is entitled to their opinion. And if you don’t like his policies, fine. But why go there of all places? Can’t you say I do not support a woman’s right to choose? Or I don’t believe in global warming? Or I support more deregulation of the banking industry? Or I don’t like raising taxes on the super wealthy? Or even I don’t think gays should be allowed to marry? Or I don’t support funding public education? Or how about I do not support health care for everyone?

Why is it people feel the need to go there? It reminds me of when Saxby Chambliss portrayed Max Cleland as unpatriotic.

Let go of the ignorance. Let go of inciting hate and fear. Promote your policies on their merit, unless you are afraid they have no merit.”

—-

Below was my answer to her…

Thank you for posting.

What I did is point out unfavorable policies by likening Obama to a historical figure who shared the same policies. It’s very effective cause it’s 1) humorous, and 2) able to show the direct effect of policies held by Obama.

Kinda like how Lefties love to say McCain is Bush.

But let me answer your questions, since you asked so nicely…

1) I don’t believe women have the right to choose. A baby is a separate human life. A baby in the womb is like a person in your house. You can kill the baby, but you can’t kill the person. Why? Because we like to confuse ourselves as to when a baby is “alive” out of convenience. Now, I know a woman’s life is sometimes made more difficult by pregnancy, which is why I would be open to some sort of 1-3 abortion limit per person. Above that, you don’t deserve a uterus.

2) I don’t believe in global warming being only caused by man. I believe it’s more of a cyclical occurrence that history proves quicker than man-made global warming. And when you ask developing countries in Africa to spend money on solar technology that is hundreds of times more expensive than fossil fuels at the moment… that’s just wrong.

3) I support appropriate deregulation in the banking industry. Remember… Fannie Mae collapsed because democrats like Clinton and Carter forced them to buy up bad loans. And when they couldn’t be repaid, they blamed the republicans for lack of regulation. What? Did the Democrats want the Republicans to regulate Fannie Mae and tell them what the Democrats were doing was wrong and destined to fail?

4) I don’t like raising taxes on the super wealthy. There is NO government/economic problem that can be fixed by taxing the wealthy more. That process digs us deeper into a hole… and fills the hole with water.

5) I think people in the gay community should be allowed to join legally in a union exactly like marriage. Just don’t call it marriage. Marriage is a religious word, with religious origins, and has nothing to do with government or policy. Gay people are just as deserving as straight people in every other respect.

6) I don’t support increasing funding the public education system that’s in place now… that was created by Democrats who have soley ruled public education in all major cities. And have done so to disastrous, miserable failures. I would much rather talk to teachers … who aren’t in unions… to find the solution on the education system. Democrats screwed up royally here.

7) I want everyone to have health care, but government funded universal health care is unattainable… and unsustainable. For example… medical technology in Canada is stuck in the 1970s… because their government can’t fund for advances in medicine like the free market can.

People go where I went all the time, Smartandfemale. I thank you for reading and commenting… but you have to be a little more light-hearted on this. Have a sense of humor. What i posted, and been done hundreds of times by Democrats. Obama himself incites fear in his ads. Don’t come to me with your righteousness.

You have no rule on morality.

Is this merit enough for you?

Please come back, since you’d like to debate on merit.

– Julian

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Finally! The Real Obama.

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Voting Democrat? Why? You don’t like your grandchildren?

It’s been proven throughout time. Socialist economic policies, though they sound nice at the time, are horrible plans that stiffle our free market economy, lead to stagnation and eventually cause economic failure. Take two examples from good ol’ FDR’s administration…

Fannie Mae: Created in 1938 under FDR. It helped at the time. And that’s probably the truth with most socialist policies. They’re great to aid the government in helping it’s citizens for the short time it’s needed. But short-sighted democrats want to hold on to these policies and establish them. The result? The horrible economic mess we’re in now. Come on. I want to argue with you on it.

Social Security: So we’re paying into a program that isn’t going to have money for us when we retire, as promised, cause it will be bankrupt? Thus: Take our money… don’t give it back? Awesome.

And the keystone? The point to this post? These were social initiatives enacted by a socialist president voted into office by our grandparents.

– Bread lines existed in communist Russia. We haven’t had bread lines in The States in decades.

– Unemployment in Europe is double what it is in The States.

– Want to get an operation in Canada? Get in line. The waiting list is 16-months long, on average.

Let’s not do the same thing to our grandchildren. Spreading the wealth leads to a welfare state. A bunch of lazy citizens waiting for a handout.

– Julian

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Negative Advertising

From Townhall.com – October 14, 2008 … (source link)

Negative Advertising

by Thomas Sowell

“One of the oldest phenomena of American elections– criticism of one’s opponent– has in recent times been stigmatized by much of the media as “negative advertising.”

Is this because the criticism has gotten more vicious or more personal? You might think so, if you were totally ignorant of history, as so many of the graduates of even our elite universities are.

Although Grover Cleveland was elected President twice, he had to overcome a major scandal that he had fathered a child out of wedlock, which was considered more of a disgrace then than today. Even giants like Lincoln and Jefferson were called names that neither McCain nor Obama has been called.

Why then is “negative advertising” such a big deal these days? The dirty little secret is this: Liberal candidates have needed to escape their past and pretend that they are not liberals, because so many voters have had it with liberals.

In 1988, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts called himself a “technocrat,” a pragmatic solver of problems, despite a classic liberal track record of big spending, big taxes, and policies that were anti-business and pro-criminal.

When the truth about what he actually did as governor was brought out during the Presidential election campaign, the media were duly shocked– not by Dukakis’ record, but by the Republicans’ exposing his record.

John Kerry, with a very similar ultra-liberal record, topped off by inflammatory and unsubstantiated attacks on American military men in Vietnam, disdained the whole process of labeling as something unworthy. And the mainstream media closed ranks around him as well, deploring those who labeled Kerry a liberal.

Barack Obama is much smoother. Instead of issuing explicit denials, he gives speeches that sound so moderate, so nuanced and so lofty that even some conservative Republicans go for them. How could anyone believe that such a man is the very opposite of what he claims to be– unless they check out the record of what he has actually done?

In words, Obama is a uniter instead of a divider. In deeds, he has spent years promoting polarization. That is what a “community organizer” does, creating a sense of grievance, envy and resentment, in order to mobilize political action to get more of the taxpayers’ money or to force banks to lend to people they don’t consider good risks, as the community organizing group ACORN did.

After Barack Obama moved beyond the role of a community organizer, he promoted the same polarization in his other roles.

That is what he did when he spent the money of the Woods Fund bankrolling programs to spread the politics of grievance and resentment into the schools. That is what he did when he spent the taxpayers’ money bankrolling the grievance and resentment ideology of Michael Pfleger.

When Barack Obama donated $20,000 to Jeremiah Wright, does anyone imagine that he was unaware that Wright was the epitome of grievance, envy and resentment hype? Or were Wright’s sermons too subtle for Obama to pick up that message?

How subtle is “Goddamn America!”?

Yet those in the media who deplore “negative advertising” regard it as unseemly to dig up ugly facts instead of sticking to the beautiful rhetoric of an election year. The oft-repeated mantra is that we should trick to the “real issues.”

What are called “the real issues” are election-year talking points, while the actual track record of the candidates is treated as a distraction– and somehow an unworthy distraction.

Does anyone in real life put more faith in what people say than in what they do? A few gullible people do– and they often get deceived and defrauded big time.

Barack Obama has carried election-year makeovers to a new high, presenting himself a uniter of people, someone reaching across the partisan divide and the racial divide– after decades of promoting polarization in each of his successive roles and each of his choices of political allies.

Yet the media treat exposing a fraudulent election-year image as far worse than letting someone acquire the powers of the highest office in the land through sheer deception.”

– Link posted by Julian

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Hype: The Obama Effect

Visit www.hypemovie.com

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Economy has hit a wall. Who do you trust now? Who got it right?

The economy has a wall, it is in a state called liquidity trap. The Fed dropped the Federal Funds Rate yet again, and has done everything it can in the short run. Banks are not loaning any money and companies cant get loans. What do we do now? Who can we trust? Trust McCain he got it right. He said, “We need to hire people to dig a hole, and then get some more workers to come in later and fill that whole up.” What he is referring to is if people get more income there will be more consumption and consumer confidence, thus stimulating the economy. In the Obama plan raising capital gain taxes, and taxing more the small businesses will just cripple our economy more than it is now, and reduce investor confidence.  These are the 4 steps needed to be taken to get out of this recession:

1. reduce the growth of government spending,
2. reduce marginal tax rates on income from labor and capital,
3. reduce government regulation of the economy,
4. control the money supply to reduce inflation.

Obama’s economic plan is quite the opposite of what we need right now, i know its scary to think what could happen.

Stay Tuned for more

If you have any questions please feel free to ask.

-Javier

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“10 Things You Need to Know About Senator Obama’s Tax Proposals”

– Julian

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