Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Thought of the Day
When Barack Obama won the election in 2008, he was quite right that the old system needed fixing. America’s debt, its poorly educated youth, its imbalances in trade, its counterproductive tax system, its out-of-control annual spending, its culture of entitlement and subsidies, all in perfect-storm fashion were starting to coalesce and weaken America from within and the perception of America abroad. The statesmanlike thing to do — in the manner of a once-naïve Harry Truman, who woke up to the threat of Soviet-inspired global Communism, or of a Bill Clinton, who finally addressed some of the contradictions of the welfare state and deficit spending — would have been to overhaul the tax system, recalibrate Social Security and Medicare, cut spending, lecture the citizenry on personal responsibility, and address the therapeutic curriculum in our failing schools. With a 70 percent approval rating and supermajorities in both houses of Congress, Obama could have done almost anything throughout 2009.
Instead, he chose the path of Jimmy Carter and the pre-1995 Bill Clinton — even more redistributive state programs, more stifling regulations, more petulant talk about “them,” more class warfare, more debt, and more failed big government.
Labels: Victor Davis Hanson quote
1) write some anecdote about Ancient Rome or Greece.
2) Compare said anecdote with topical issue in American politics.
3) Come to the lazy, illogical conclusion that the answer is more military force, more troops, more ships, more bombs.
Electricity will always travel along the path of least resistance, so obviously the analog for American Politics is to kick poor people out of their homes, make sure old people remain on their steady diet of dog food for the next 50 years, but make sure all those Wall Street folk make record profits in the meantime.
Is that good?
But you're right, it's not because a system designed to keep the majority of wealth with a minority of people is being perpetuated by both sides of the aisle; it's because poor people are lazy and don't work hard enough!
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