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.

Victor Davis Hanson


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# posted by Roger Fraley @ 8:24 AM
Comments:
Victor Davis Hanson is a wretched partisan hack and complete idiot. Besides his attacks on Obama policies, which are hackneyed and mostly wrong, he usually follows a fairly straightforward, stupid formula:
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.
# posted by Anonymous Andrew : 2:40 PM
 
Well, he is a historian of the ancient times and it's always a good idea to write about what you actually know. You should consider such a plan.
# posted by Blogger Roger Fraley : 8:01 AM
 
Ok, let's give it a shot:

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?
# posted by Anonymous Andrew : 9:05 AM
 
I say the greatest good is to let the people have freedom--some will rise (make record profits) and some will fall (what dog food are we having tonight, Dad?). We can't ensure equality of outcome but the important thing is to ensure equality of opportunity through maximizing individual choices by not closing doors to anyone who is willing to do the work to enter.
# posted by Blogger Roger Fraley : 5:41 PM
 
Yeah, because there's so much equality in our current (and proposed) economic system right now. I was just going to gush about how great trickle down economics and quantitative easing were, and how they really leveled the playing field for everybody.

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!
# posted by Anonymous Andrew : 8:40 AM
 
Except that I feel you are being sarcastic, congratulations on learning an important lesson. Our system rewards hard work and learning a needed skill. I hope you'll keep that in mind. The government, on the other hand, seems to do the opposite.
# posted by Blogger Roger Fraley : 7:48 AM
 
You're looking at this in a very black and white sort of way. And I disagree that removing government from the system is the way to fix this. I think that the current system is riddled with inequality and corruption. We just saw 40% of the world's wealth destroyed by the criminality of the hard working people you admire so much. And the government, whose job it is to enforce the rule of law, hasn't done anything to rectify that. There are many reasons for this, none of which being that the people on Wall Street are innocent. I'd call that an extremely unfair system. And Democrats and Republicans alike are both unwilling to do anything about it. So find me somebody in the GOP or Tea Party that's willing to fix the pervasive corruption and fraud in the system, and then I'll start taking Victor Davis Hanson seriously.
# posted by Anonymous Andrew : 9:07 AM
 
We're fixing the corruption as we see it by voting the worst offenders out of office. If you don't want the corrupt wall street types to prevail, don't do business with them. That government governs best which governs least. Who said that?
# posted by Blogger Roger Fraley : 11:25 AM
 
I don't care who said it. And that's not what's happening. A government which hasn't done anything to prosecute Wall Street criminality, restore investor confidence or right the injustices to thousands of homeowners, pensioners, etc. is not "governing best". that's stupid.
# posted by Anonymous Andrew : 2:18 PM
 
You speak with the unsullied enthusiasm of the ignorant. Revenge on Wall Street is a dish best served with cold cuts.
# posted by Blogger Roger Fraley : 9:35 AM
 
It's not ignorant. I honestly don't care about stupid meaningless platitudes. It was deregulation, not over-regulation, that caused the crisis we're still in, and will most likely be in for a long while. The evidence is there. Snarkily dismissing it and quoting stupid out-of-context sayings doesn't change that fact. And I have no idea what this "cold cuts" business even means.
# posted by Anonymous Andrew : 11:11 AM
 
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