If Obama is elected tomorrow, then for the first time in history America will have a president who loves America less than the President of France loves America. I do not write this in jest; I'm serious. Here is the highlight from President Sarkozy's speech to Congress:
America did not tell the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who—with their hands, their intelligence and their heart—built the greatest nation in the world: "Come, and everything will be given to you." She said: "Come, and the only limits to what you'll be able to achieve will be your own courage and your own talent." America embodies this extraordinary ability to grant each and every person a second chance.
Here, both the humblest and most illustrious citizens alike know that nothing is owed to them and that everything has to be earned. That's what constitutes the moral value of America. America did not teach men the idea of freedom; she taught them how to practice it.
On Friday Obama said electing him would "fundamentally transform" America. I believe the transformation he has in mind will be the death of the individualism that Sarkozy believes is the "moral value of America." Obama wants to destroy the remnants of individualism and turn American into France.
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I watched CSNY/Deja Vu over the weekend. This is a documentary of their tour in 2006 to protest the war in Iraq. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young used to be smug, insufferable, moronic hippies. Now they are smug, insufferable, moronic, fat old hippies. Anyone who goes to any rock star for politics deserves what he gets, and this goes double for hippie rock stars. I knew the politics in this movies would be bad, but I was hoping for some good music. There is none. The songs are cut short to make way for more idiocy.
Not once in the entire film does anyone make a case against the war. Rational argumentation is ignored. Instead we get emotion. We are shown a group of veterans that needs to get together and hug and cry. (My liberal sister, watching with me, said they need to "man up.") We are shown a mother who lost her son in Iraq. She says the war is "just wrong" and then she cries a lot. This is not a film meant to persuade its opponents; it is emotion for those who agree to wallow in. A complete waste of time.
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We hear a lot of talk about how blacks will riot if Obama loses. Do I detect wishful thinking among the liberals who make these predictions? Is this another form of intimidation? Hey, white people -- vote for Obama or else!
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Do you remember one of the first things Clinton did as president? It was to throw out his promise to cut taxes. That promise was always a lie. Clinton never had any intention of cutting any tax, but he felt he had to lie about it to win the election.
Is there any doubt Obama's promise of cutting taxes is another lie meant to win an election? Already the Democrats are signaling it's a lie by throwing out different numbers of how much a taxpayer will have to make before he gets taxed-- $250,000, $200,000, $120,000. The top figure is pure fiction meant to win the election. The other figures are meant to confuse and to ease people into the reality that their taxes will be raised when Obama is election.
Sometime around mid-November, I would guess, one of Obama's economists will announce that the deficit is even greater than anyone had suspected -- damn that Bush and those careless Republicans! -- and the tax threshold will just have to be lowered. Everyone will be called to sacrifice.
If Obama is serious about spending and redistributing wealth -- and what else are Democrats serious about? -- then he will have to raise taxes, I believe, on the upper middle and middle middle class.
One option is to start at, say, $60,000 a year, gradually increasing the percentage of the tax increase as you go up from there. Then inflate the hell out of the currency so that your average clerk in a grocery store makes $60,000 a year. Thus you achieve your goal of making everyone in America work a little bit more for the state. The destruction of wealth will be ghastly, but if they cared about the destruction of wealth, they would not be Democrats.
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All of the items in this post have been attacks on the left -- and yet, I kind of hope Obama wins tomorrow. Why? Clarity.
Obama has attacked the virtue of selfishness. It is clear that he opposes the philosophy of Ayn Rand. As his big government policies fail, many Americans will put two and two together, if they still teach putting two and two together in public schools.
Plus, an Obama presidency will provide limitless content for this blog.
7 comments:
Myrhaf,
I agree with your last point. Clarity of alignment of government purpose and policy will be beneficial to "The Case For Free Markets." An Obama presidency will at least allow us to easily identify statism as the cause of the forthcoming pain.
And no more confusion about Republican policy failures equating to "free market failures"!!
In the long-run, the ousting of the Republicans, and the ease with which criticism can then be leveled at the Democrats, may result in a faster turnaround. A humorously hopeful diagram of this prediction is in one of my blog posts:
http://deexma.blogspot.com/2008/10/sad-2008-presidential-candidates.html
Maybe it's just my current pessimism in this election season, but I'm already beginning to think that prediction is overly hopeful. It rests on three assumptions which may be overly optimistic:
1) There are enough fiscal conservatives around who can make a correctly principled stance against the Democrat's policies.
2) There are enough people in America who hear those arguments, appreciate their logic, and demand that their political leaders enact them.
3) The massive entrenched special interests which will develop under Obama do not deliver an insurmountable, death-lock voting constituency to the Democrats. Teacher's union members already favor Democrats. I don't want to imagine what a unionized healthcare industry will give them.
It's a tough prediction. McCain might give us a slower erosion of Capitalism--which could give us more time to turn things around. Or the shock of 'The Magnitude of Suck' under Obama might be what is needed to wake people from their apathetic acceptance of more statism.
Like you said though, we sure will have an infinite amount of material to work with under Obama. I'm just hoping there are enough people out there to hear us!
Thanks again for another great post!
- Justin
Thanks, Justin. I predict McCain wins a squeaker.
Has a major politician ever used Rand as a polemical attack on self-interest before? This in and of itself might be a significant event. Harry Binswanger once wrote that before Ayn Rand could be accepted she would have to be popular enough to be condemned. In essence it is better for her to be widely condemned for her ideas than for her to be completely ignored. The fact that Obama has used the phraseology he has suggests that he (and his speech writers) associate selfishness with her. That is a good thing for the culture.
So what you're hoping for is:
"Obama hates Rand."
"Rand is the opposite of Obama."
"Obama is misery."
"Rand is prosperity."
Interesting. This situation (nightmare BHO + potential backlash vs less nightmarish JMC + potential blaming of Capitalism) would be intriguing to watch if it wasn't for real. I guess we're about to be taught a lesson in real life game theory?
L-C
Do I detect wishful thinking among the liberals who make these predictions? Is this another form of intimidation? Hey, white people -- vote for Obama or else!
Oh HELL yes.
Collectivism has been endemic to blacks for a long time, and not entirely without reason. But the idea of usurping and corrupting black culture to weld blacks into an insular mass of people ready to be used as a weapon via the threat of riot, has really gained traction since the riots in Los Angeles and other cities demonstrated what could be done with such a weapon. They've been refining this weapon since then, to the great detriment of blacks all over the country.
I don't doubt for a moment that they are poised to test this weapon again if McCain pulls off the victory. Fortunately, I don't think that's going to happen.
"But the idea of usurping and corrupting black culture to weld blacks into an insular mass of people ready to be used as a weapon via the threat of riot, has really gained traction since the riots in Los Angeles and other cities demonstrated what could be done with such a weapon."
This is an excellent point, one I have not seen other Objectivists make. The Left has preached collectivism to blacks and hispanics for so long that they have effectively killed any individual elements in either culture, and both cultures desperately need an individualist dynamic. The tragedy is that the only people other than Objectivists who are opposing Leftist multiculturalism are the racialists/race realists. And they are genuine racists who argue for the inferiority of non-whites and non-Asians (although they dislike Asians for other reasons). They're a small minority in American culture but I wonder if they might not grow in size under an Obama presidency. On a positive not in this area, I am pleased to see more black Objectivists in the last few years. It would be a great thing if blacks would draw inspiration from Ayn Rand instead of Martin Luther King or Malcolm X.
I hope he really is as wonderfully ignorant and mediocre as some predict he will be. I hope congress can keep him at bay. I hope that the nation does learn from his term that government influence has always been the problem.
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