Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Election Thoughts

What do we conclude from Hillary Clinton's 10-point win in Pennsylvania?

I don't think it matters which one wins, Obama or Clinton -- they're both Dead Democrats Walking. Neither can beat McCain. Clinton carries more baggage than a Greyhound bus. Obama, if he won the nomination, would be the furthest left-wing candidate for a major party in history.

More is coming out about Obama's terrorist friends, William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. They remain anti-American to this day; four decades of experience have failed to dent their radical premises. Dohrn is the only prominent voice who expressed approval of the Charles Manson murders. These are the people Obama chooses to hang around.

The more I watch Obama, the less I think of his intelligence. This is not something the MSM talk about at all. I suspect his vapidity and lack of substance come from a slow mind. The way he got rattled and incoherent in his last debate is more evidence. The guy is not sharp.

Obama makes Clinton look experienced, competent and of sound judgment. So Obama has accomplished something remarkable in his life after all.

I base my thoughts about Obama's hopelessness on what we have seen in Presidential elections since 1972. One big X factor could prove me wrong: have the American voters changed significantly? Is there a new "paradigm"? We keep hearing about these new voters, the Millennial Generation, who are always reported as the most altruist-statist-collectivist (and therefore, I would add, stupid) generation in history. These young Americans, we are told, are not afraid of the government, unlike those cynical older generations.

I wonder if liberal reporters are not projecting their premises on the Millennials. They see young people, who are typically idealistic, and think, "If they're idealistic, then they must be liberals, because right-wingers are selfish and immoral."

Leftists have always hoped to change human nature and form people who act as selfless cogs in the state machine. In the USSR they strove to create homo sovieticus. In the Millennials, they hope they have found the novo homo americanus.

But. But... maybe they have succeeded in creating voters so lacking in independence and pride that they will go along with the mob at the orders of a dictator. Young people are voting for Obama over Clinton, for whatever that's worth.

Of course, this election is complicated by the Republicans electing a big government candidate, John McCain. It's still too early to decide -- I intend to wait at least until Labor Day -- however, at the moment I think the candidate who would accomplish the least amount of damage to American freedom would be Hillary Clinton. It would not be for lack of trying on her part, but that she is so widely hated that she would have little support for any big sweeping changes. And the Republicans in Congress would be energized to fight her every step of the way.

UPDATE: Jackie and Dunlap discuss the Pennsylvania primary. Too funny to miss.

6 comments:

Mike said...

The problem I see with your theory on Hillary is the same problem with the plan to build Jurassic Park. It doesn't matter how much control you have over the dinosaurs, because there is still a fair-to-decent chance they can find a way to do a lot of damage just by thrashing about and doing what they do. Extrapolating that to real life, I think the election of Hillary would make America so much more the laughingstock of the world that rogue nations such as Iran and Syria would just start openly killing Americans on the street, wherever they happened to encounter them. Instead of fearing a society-ending reprisal at the hands of a McCain, the barbarians know that Hillary will try to "reason" with them, and they can laugh all the harder. As much as you think Hillary will be opposed, and you're certainly right that she will be, I suggest that her power to destroy America will be only partially blunted at best.

Anonymous said...

I can say there is one accurately reported thing with the millennials: the stupid. Actually, to be more precise, their problem is ignorance - ignorance of history specifically on a scale I haven't seen in their elders.

But I think their influence may yet be overblown - you see, they aren't much for voter turnout either.

I'm with you on Hilary, Myrhaf. On the other hand, I fear those presidential powers which aren't directly checked by congress, such as appointment of judges and the cabinet. (and the Fed)

But the other thing about Hilary is that she will bring less confusion to politics. If we are to move to statism either way, let there at least be less confusion about what is to blame for the resultant misery.

That philosophical confusion is what got America into this mess in the first place - say what you will about how far America has fallen, but we still only elect crypto-socialists and crypto-fascists. Remove the confusion, and you're almost halfway there.

As for the war, I'm not concerned about that in this election as all three candidates will do roughly the same thing (yes, really!). But again, the Dems will be properly blamed for their actions while McCain will only obfuscate the problem like Bush has.

Myrhaf said...

Inspector, I can find nothing in your analysis to argue with. Which kind of scares me.

Seriously, you nailed it, especially on the war.

Anonymous said...

Actually, to be more precise, their problem is ignorance - ignorance of history specifically on a scale I haven't seen in their elders.

I usually see that ignorance being shown and exploited by Christians who go around claiming that America is a Christian nation while pretending that the years of *actual* Christian hegemony known as the Dark and Middle Ages didn't happen.

Which is not to say that there isn't a lot of overlap between believers in Christ and believers in Obama.

Elisheva Hannah Levin said...

Billary scares me.

Obama scares me even more.

And I'm not exactly thrilled with McCain.

I guess I'll be doing another write-in vote this November.

About the young people: Most of them I know are fairly wary of the government and although not cynical, they are aware that they have been lied to with impunity.

These are kids in the late teens, early twenties. They all remember the Clinton years. And not fondly.

They are not a representative sample, I am sure. But they do give me hope.

Anonymous said...

Myrhaf?

Haha, thanks?

;-)

On the serious side, however:

Most young folk I have met are aware only of the fact that they are being taken advantage of and that something badly needs to be done about it. However, for the most part they are clueless when it comes to what is responsible for it. For the most part, the only idea they have for a solution is an acceleration of the same statism which caused the problems in the first place. They have been taught nothing else. They hate and distrust the government, also, but attribute its failure to "work" to corruption rather than fundamentally flawed premises.

Ayn Rand said it decades ago in "For The New Intellectual:"

"Everybody seems to agree that civilization is facing a crisis, but nobody cares to define its nature, to discover its cause and to assume the responsibility of formulating a solution."

And it holds true today. It's just that the pace and desperation are accelerating.