Thursday, July 08, 2010

Change

Obama, Nov 2007:
“I don't want to pit Red America against Blue America, I want to be the President of the United States of America ... In this election — in this moment — let us reach for what we know is possible. A nation healed. A world repaired. An America that believes again.”
Obama this week [on Republicans]:
“They figured, ‘If we just keep on saying no to everything, and nothing gets done, then somehow people will forget who got us into this mess in the first place, and we’ll get more votes in November.’”


“So their prescription for every challenge is pretty much the same — and I don’t think I’m exaggerating here —basically: cut taxes for the wealthy, cut rules for corporations, and cut working folks loose to fend for themselves. Basically, their attitude is: You’re on your own.”
Combine that with the constant drumbeat of "Blame Bush", "Blame Republicans" and his disdain and ridicule of the Tea Party movement...

Pants.  On.   Fire.

On the other hand, that very last sentence is worth talking about, because there is a grain of truth in it.  The Republicans have given at least lip service to the idea that we're certainly supposed to be closer to "on our own" than dependent on the Government.

Ideally, nobody would be dependent on the government for their livlihood.  Family, Friends, Church Groups, Communities ... these would help people out in times of need.  That's the way it worked for a long time.   And while there were tragic stories back then, there are at least as many today, AND we're throwing huge piles of money at the problem... and the more we throw at it, the more we "need", and the more people become dependent on the Government.

So-called "liberals" don't get this.  We just have to help, and "we" means "The Government".  And if you don't want "The Government" to do it, then it is assumed that YOU don't want to do it and you don't want anybody else to do it and you're greedy and mean, etc.

Putting aside my normal objection to Progressives stealing the word "liberal" from the Classical Liberals who are now called "Conservative" (for wanting to conserve Classical Liberalsim ... neat trick, that language swap was) I observe the following ....

Liberals are very liberal with other people's money, and then they want to take credit for giving other people's money to people "in need".

This works out well for them, because they get people "in need" thanking them instead of the people whose money is being given, and in the end due to human nature ... they get more people "in need" to crusade for.

So our problem is this equation:

when Dependents + Liberals = 51% of the vote.... it's all over.

In the mean time (if we have any left), I again draw your attention to the magnitude of the problem.  Especially when we talk about mandatory spending, or the non-discretionary budget (which is seldom talked about when talking about annual budget deficits.  Typically anymore they only talk about discretionary spending, the stuff to the right of the white line).  Never mind the Obama angle, this is where we've been headed since the 1930's.  This is what we've got.  Question is, do we REALIZE the magnitude of the problem?

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