Who said conservatives aren’t willing to give the pResident credit?
From MJ, commenting at Car in’s Voice of the Resistance Blog:
What no one seems to be picking up, is that it is very hard to be handed an economy at a massive low, and keep it there. By default, its almost impossible to have things get worse, and he’s managed it.
He deserves a break. Fucking up this badly is hard!
That is a sentiment that I can second. And he can’t say no one is giving him credit.
Taxes, Stupidity, and Death 
More foolish blather. I’d give anything to go back to 2008, elect John McCain and then see what excuses you come up with for his inability to improve things.
Then again, McCain might have died by now and then we know Sarah Palin, the answer lady, would have applied her genius to fixing everything.
Laughable.
Foolish how? Its apparent to anyone paying attention that King Putt doesn’t have a clue, and would rather die than admit it, choosing instead to let his spokesliar Jay “Bagdad Bob” Carney-clown utter foolishness about unemployment benefits stimulating the economy.
No, Obama’s been the captain of the ship of state for three years now, and he keeps steering for every iceberg he can find. What amazes me is how the worst victims of this economy keep clinging to the man who’s only plan is to take from someone else and share with them, rather than making it possible for those most harmed to do for themselves again. They are being made slaves, and they cling tighter to the slavemasters.
While there is A LOT the grumpy old guy gets wrong, I’m pretty certain he wouldn’t be banging on the class warfare drum, threatening businesses with crippling regulations, talking about how the owners aren’t “paying their fair share”, offering meaningless tax incentives that don’t incentivise anything, and signalling that he will raise taxes (and the cost of doing business) the first opportunity that he gets.
MJ gets it right, Rutherford. Obama’s had to work to keep this economy chained down, and his actions have been deliberate.
Obama thought he could turn our country into a socialist paradise while the chips were down and no one would notice. That the economy would come roaring back and the democrats would have everything they ever dreamed of.
What occurred, though, shows the reality of those redistributive, anti-business policies. we’ve skipped over the time where they slowly drag the economy into the abyss over decades, and fallen right into the chasm.
The problem with this theory is that history shows us that under a socialist system the economy never comes back roaring or otherwise.
It only gets better in the puerile minds of the self proclaimed elite who don’t have to live by the rules they promulgate for us proles.
The problem with capitalism is capitalists the problem with socialism is there are no socialists.
I absolutely love the last line of FX’s analysis. I think that has something to do with human nature.
Here is a fine exegesis of the nature of the beast and probably where I got the idea in the first place.
FX, thanks for the Jonah Goldberg article. A great read and perhaps just enough to make me re-think government’s role in the economy. By the way, and this is probably the ultimate compliment, I think your twist on the Willi Schlamm quote (via Buckley) did him one better. The problem with socialism is not socialism. As an ideal, it SOUNDS quite appealing but you can’t implement socialism is you can’t find any true socialists … and humans, by nature, can’t be socialists.
“is” should have been “if” 😦
No, socialism does not sound appealing.
Socialism is government deciding for me who gets to dine on my labor. There is NOTHING appealing about that.
That’s because you’re a selfish human being. 🙂 Like the rest of us. Like the folks who occupy government.
The notion that no one starves and no one goes without a roof over their head IS appealing on its face. The trick is to use people’s natural instincts toward achieving that end and capitalism, ideally, can do that.
Go to Hell.
Just because I don’t want Government being generous with with my money doesn’t mean that I don’t share with others. Why is it so damn hard for you to understand that it should be ME who decides who I share the fruits of my labor with? Get your godamn hand out of my pocket!
Rutherford writes “and humans, by nature, can’t be socialists”.
Well apparently Obama and the rest of the progressives just refuse to accept this reality.
So if socialism goes against human nature, it is therefore a unnatural contrivance and is actually anti-human in its nature?
Troy, I don’t think “progressives” nor Obama consider themselves socialists just as FDR didn’t think himself a socialist when Social Security was implemented.
The fundamental question we are wrestling with right now is how much can government improve the lot of its citizens and when has it gone too far?
That’s because FDR was a fascist not a socialist.
Now that’s funny, I always thought Hitler was the fascist. Another example of indoctrination from that awful liberal public education I received. 🙂
Whether they feel they are ‘socialists’ or not this is the road down which they travel.
They presume that it is they, solely, that possess the wisdom to allocate resources based on their presumption of their own intellectual superiority. The Fatal Conceit. In the socialist world view it is all about the Plan and when the Plan contradicts reality it is reality that must yield.( a paraphrase of Kevin Williamson, NR managing editor and primary writer at the Exchequer blog at NRO)
The only way socialism can be implemented is through mass mental and physical coercion as was tied in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Communist China, Castroite Cuba, Kamer Rouge Cambodia and the Juche hell on earth that is the DPRK. Millions have died and been impoverished trying to re-orient the populations of these God forsaken populations in order to make them compatible with the Grand vision of these “enlghtened visionaries”. Also it collapses under it’s internal paradoxes as the ruling elite exempt themselves from
As a practical matter because socialism so dehumanizes actual humans in order to re-cast them in a way top better serve the whims of the self selected it is clearly one of the most anti-human philosophies ever contemplated. By definition It kills human initiative and tacitly indentures the most productive members of society to whims of least productive members of society.
This is no better illustrated than in formerly Great Britain where the indolent and indigent riot because their benefactors have finally squeaked “No more”. They are taxed into oblivion by an extortionate government on behalf of an ungrateful underclass and are blasted by a statist media that it is they not the rioters who are at fault. The taxpayer, you know the ones who ostensibly pay the bills, are treated as second class citizens in a “therapeutic society”(thanks Dr Hanson) where need is proclaimed as the highest form of virtue and citizenship(paraphrase of Rand).
FX, Word.
Now, Rutherford already acknowledges this. Yet he continues to defend the redistributive liberal agenda; even claims it as proof of his compassion and beneficence.
“That’s because you’re a selfish human being. Like the rest of us. Like the folks who occupy government.” -Rutherford
Sarcastic or not, I hear from many Rutherfords out there that like him continue to advocate liberalism as the only path to achieve “social justice.”
I still can’t get my head around “why” that is.
Now that’s funny, I always thought Hitler was the fascist. Another example of indoctrination from that awful liberal public education I received. 🙂
Don’t feel bad R you are just a victim.
Seriously though I am on a mission to help people understand that socialism is one of the most misused terms in the language.
If you look at FDR under the strict lens of the terms on hand he was clearly more a fascist than anything else. To play with your Hitler analogy.
FDR:
believed in the capital markets controlling production.
was willing to employ the nations youth in nationalistic public works projects.
was willing to shun founding documents to get what he wanted.
As for policy during the war,those cannot rightly be seen as socialist.
Rutherford, you should really read this:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/274492/new-britannia-mark-steyn?page=1
I was reminded of the answer given when I asked the first attorney I worked for “Why don’t you offer free consultations?”
“Because people don’t value what they don’t pay for.”
You live near Chicago now. if you don’t believe me, you could always visit the projects.
If you like the article. you’ll love the book.
I’m almost through with it and it is stunning how prescient it is. Steyn anticipated much of what is going on and nails it to the wall.
Even though the presidential Pretender is galloping down the campaign trail (at taxpayer expense), it is notable that all of his campaign speeches center around the failure of Congress, the opposite party, “rich Americans” and the world in general, all of whom have failed to to lift America out of its current doldrums. Even more notable is any bragging about his own achievements – oops, hard to toot one’s own horn when there have been no accomplishments, eh?