Posted on 05/04/2009 6:42:07 AM PDT by Tolik
Who will Lend?
1) We’ve going to spend over $3.5 trillion next year, run up an annual debt of $1.7 trillion, and are on schedule to add another $9 trillion to reach an aggregate debt of $20 trillion in eight years. The Obama administration and the Congress spend days on end fighting over how to spread and spend the borrowed money. But still, no one ties the additional expenditures to additional revenues. Can the President say, “We will borrow $.6 trillion from the Chinese, $.4 from the Japanese, $.2 trillion from the Europeans, and $.5 from American bond holders” in order finance this year’s budget”? Will someone simply give us a blueprint of where and how the $1.7 trillion is to be raised— x amount of loans for each new y federal agency?
Waterboarding or No Brains?
2) I’ve raised this example twice now. But, really, how is waterboarding a known detained terrorist like Khalid Sheik Mohammed (who confessed to cutting off Daniel Pearl’s head [with two knives after the first went dull], and to planning the 9/11 mass murder) at Guantanamo considered a war crime, while blowing up with a Predator drone suspected terrorists (and all those, including women and children, in their general vicinity) not?
The latter victims were not given habeas corpus, and Miranda rights, and there is a greater doubt about their guilt from 10,000 feet than is the case with the much studied psychopath KSM in Guantanamo. Most suspects would prefer to be water-boarded than vaporized? Ditto the Somali pirates, whose heads were blown off during their apparent attempts at negotiating extortion, again a bit more drastic than waterboarding. Would a future President Sanford or Giuliani be right to bring charges against those in the Obama administration who green lighted assassinations of suspected terrorists—something akin to the Phoenix program in Vietnam?
All About Abortion and Affirmative Action
3) Given the fact that Barack Obama voted against both Justices Alito and Roberts, (and wanted to filibuster Alito) would he object should Republicans en masse simply say no to his new liberal Supreme Court judicial nominee? As I recall Obama’s comments, he simply confessed two things: one, the two nominees were qualified; two, their politics made them too unsympathetic to his own political agenda, so they should be rejected.
Remember Obama’s assessment of Alito that had nothing to do with the law and everything to do with politics (“He’s a smart guy, there’s no indication that he is not a man of good character. But, when you look at his record, what is clear is that when it comes to his understanding of the Constitution, he consistently sides on behalf of the powerful against the powerless.”), and Roberts (“In those 5 percent of hard cases, the constitutional text will not be directly on point. The language of the statute will not be perfectly clear. Legal process alone will not lead you to a rule of decision. In those circumstances, your decisions about whether affirmative action is an appropriate response to the history of discrimination in this country or whether a general right of privacy encompasses a more specific right of women to control their reproductive decisions or whether the commerce clause empowers Congress to speak on those issues of broad national concern that may be only tangentially related to what is easily defined as interstate commerce, whether a person who is disabled has the right to be accommodated so they can work alongside those who are nondisabled — in those difficult cases, the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge’s heart.”)
War, No War, Sorta War?
4) What exactly is the current status of the war on terror?
(1) Obama has so demonized the Bush administration (despite 8 years of successful homeland security and freedom from 9/11-like attack), and so rejected its very protocols, that he even has changed the very nomenclature of the fight: terrorism is now “man-caused disasters”, enemy combatants at Guantanamo are “detainees”, “Overseas Contingency Operations” mean the “war on terror”; OR
(2) Nothing has changed: renditions, wiretaps, email intercepts, Predator attacks, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue and Guantanamo is still open; he’s simply Bush III, pacifying his leftwing base with apologies abroad and euphemism at home; OR
(3) He has no idea of what he’s doing, and sort of makes it up as he goes, screaming “Bush did it” now, and then ordering “Follow what Bush did”. He simply assumes that whatever he does and whoever dies in the ongoing conflict, the media most certainly is not going to scream, as it did the last eight years, “murder” and “shredding the Constitution.” The days of movies, plays, and novels slurring the President are over.
Brave New World of Federal Recipients, Federal Workers, and Non-taxpayers
5) Given that the 1964 LBJ landslide quickly led to Nixon, the 1976 New Carterism led to Reagan, and the 1992 Clintonism was followed by GWB, Obama must know that his gargantuan spending and borrowing and regulation will lead to mega-taxes which will lead eventually, as is always the case, to stagflagation: low growth, high unemployment, high inflation, and high interest. He must know that near-trillion dollar experiments like cap-and-trade and socialized health care will not create new productive potential, only tens of thousands of new regulators that will hamper economic growth, and he must know that on social issues his base will drive him on for gay marriage, an end to ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, abortion on demand, more, not less, affirmative action, veritable open borders, and abroad UN/EU transnationalism—and that eventually all that will provoke a furious backlash?
He knows that, and that is why in the first 100 Days, he hoped to so scare us into ”Bush did it” and “Great Depression” that the panic allowed him to rush through $1.7 trillion deficits, federal take-overs of finance and manufacturing, national health care programs, cap-and-trade, and new federal bureaucracies—and the result will be a vast new constituency of those who work for the ever larger government, of those who receive vast new entitlements, and those who are excused from income taxes (for a while)—coupled with the popular rhetoric that “they” who made out like bandits, who did not pay their fair share, who go to Vegas and party at the Super Bowl, who are unpatriotic in avoiding taxes must make long overdue atonement for their past greed.
So we are in a race—a race to get the dependent constituents permanently in place and institutionalized before the proverbial (fill in the blanks) hits the fans. If he succeeds, we will end up like a Greece, France, or Belgium— weekly strikes by government workers and unions, rampant cynicism as everyone seeks to land the federal job for base salary and taxes and benefits, and then moonlights to get untaxed cash and barter for necessary goods and services, all coupled with a culture of blame at various foreign and domestic “thems” who make us so unhappy.
Final thought: without the Old US who will be blamed? Who will keep the global sea-lanes open?Who will buy the world’s exports? Who will deal with Milosevic, Saddam, the Taliban, and the other global nuts and psychopaths? Who will attract the world’s more daring and desperate?
So we end with a whimper, after all?
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/
NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
Pajamasmedia: http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/
VDH gets it. What we are seeing is the end of the US as the world’s lone superpower and a long arc of decline as we descend into a third world country with a declining standard of living.
The annoying thing is they are so out of touch with reality that they will never acknowledge their part in the destruction of the best society that humanity has ever produced.
Interestingly, while Obama blames the economic mess on Bush, the fact that Obama is POTUS might also be blamed on Bush (with a lot of help from the hapless and corrupt Republicans).
The military will be pulled in to an ever-shrinking cordon around washdc (for now that city does not deserve full name with capitalization (fevered swamp works as a name for it)) to protect our owners.
As the military shrinks the perimeter will become tighter. “Assets” will be pulled in closer. Our current owners will remain protected, for the foreseeable future, thought.
Prepare now for an opressive and messed up country. I will not contribite one dime in taxes to these people, scaling down everything.
I can't imagine how it will be turned back. The left has now almost achieved its 50 year dream of Utopia, all power to the elite rulers and s*it to the peons, hope they like it!!
If we have to endure 4 yrs of BO, or even 8 yrs, we will always be able to pick up the pieces. Many Americans don't believe this because our children have been robbed of their history by the hate America left. But, in truth, we have collapsed many times. And always, ALWAYS, came back stronger and better.
The first Constitution failed within a decade. The new nation created by the second one fell apart in 1861. The Great Depression destroyed vast amounts of wealth. In WWII we were forced to fight a two front war against enemies who really did want to destroy us and killed as many of us they could get their hands on. Our political elite in the 1970’s lost the Vietnam War and preached the gospel of better alive on your knees than dead fighting for freedom against Soviet Communism. And although many died and suffered greatly, in the end we prevailed.
We have faced worse threats than this self loathing huckster who wants to bury our economy, destroy our culture and punish as many white people as possible for the accident of his birth and the emptiness of his upbringing.
We have a nasty enemy on our hands, I'll grant you that. But look into his eyes. It's all false pride and anger. Frankly, he may destroy himself before he takes us out. That is the real race IMO!
"Given that the 1964 LBJ landslide quickly led to Nixon, the 1976 New Carterism led to Reagan, and the 1992 Clintonism was followed by GWB, Obama must know that his gargantuan spending and borrowing and regulation will lead to mega-taxes which will lead eventually, as is always the case, to stagflagation: low growth, high unemployment, high inflation, and high interest. He must know that near-trillion dollar experiments like cap-and-trade and socialized health care will not create new productive potential, only tens of thousands of new regulators that will hamper economic growth..."
That assumes that Barry is rational, sane, and informed. If he is in a borderline state of grandiose fantasy, delusion, and dissociation brought on by childhood abandonment and its accompanying Adult Children of Dysfunctional Parents Syndrome, his thinking would not be logical, rational, or sane. What seems to be going on is a symbiosis in delusion between the Stockholm Syndrome/Münchausen by Proxy adoring followers, induced by their victimology and his grandiose fantasies and messianic posturing. These must have started at an early age as he told his classmates at the private school he attended in Hawaii that his father (who abandoned him) was an "African Prince." And then that bit about how he "has a gift." Any alarm bells going off yet?
Dr. Krauthammer should recognize the borderline, narcissistic fantasies and delusions, the victimology and bizarre Stockholm Syndrome/Münchausen by Proxy coupling that sends deluded followers looking for a messiah or cult leader promising utopia and flimflam shortcuts to solve perennial problems. If Barry was marketing a creative visualization DVD or magical Mood Ring on Oprah to these vulnerable followers, he could retire now.
These kinds of fantasies and irrational delusions are characteristic of cults.
Complete with its own Ponzi scheme. It's not the first time vulnerable and confused Americans have fallen for this type of con. What's needed is exit counseling and cult deprogramming. But people need to ask why so many Americans are spiritually and emotionally vulnerable to this in their psychology, not just neurotic liberals. It happened during the 1960s and 1970s.
It is not the media’s fault. American voters elected this turd. Anyone with a brain could see how wrong he’d be to run this country. Sometimes, suckers want to be suckered.
Your points are well taken, but in prior economic meltdowns and times of division, the unique American character was still present in our DNA. Now, it has been largely stamped out by welfare and public education. Getting out of this hole will be a lot harder than in the past. Especially since so many people think the sickness is actually the cure.
Maybe I'm missing something and your assessment of the dilution of our national character is correct....but I think the very struggles we are going to face because of the economic meltdown, the failure of socialistic remedies to solve it, and the utter disrespect this man and his gang have for our country will, in the end, trigger a restoration of individual initiative and push back that will restore constitutional government and free enterprise.
That is not to say that you are wrong in thinking the spine of the people has been weakened. Of course it has. almost 100 yrs of progressivism has taken it's toll. But I think Newtons Law will prevail in the end..........the tougher the push the harder the push back.
Asking the questions you won’t hear from the White House press corp, ever. Good stuff.
Good article. Thank you, for posting it.
... America is not mentioned in the last days/end times ... in the Holy Bible.
Could it be because, America is no longer a power worth mentioning? or simply gone?
We better get our heads up ... our prayers up; or this will happen, sooner rather than later ..
God help America, turn us back to You and Your Son, Jesus Christ. Have mercy on Your people. Forgive us our sins and they are many, we are, but dust. Thank You, that You hear our prayers. Help us to return to You. Without You, we can do nothing. In the name of Jesus Christ, let us pray. Amen.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
T S Eliot.
A poem I remember from high school. Good Stuff.
Your optimistic view is beautiful to behold, and I hope and pray that you are right. I certainly try to infuse my children with true American character. Hopefully, adversity will lead to a renaissance of that character, rather than its dissolution. But every great nation someday falls...
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
I see from your profile page that you are a Roman Catholic, as am I. So I am sure you share with me the belief that Despair is a grievous sin.
However, you are right to point out that every great nation falls. But I sincerely believe this is not that moment for America.
We are both fathers and have seen the miracle of God's love for us by his great gift of children. And as conservatives we are humbled at our good fortune to be born is this blessed place called America at this time in history. And I know, repeat know, that there are millions of like minded people in this country who feel as we do.
And these men and women will not go quietly into that dark night of slavery and destruction.
And while Obama may bring great turmoil upon us. And our children and grandchildren may suffer greatly because of it. In the end, if it is God's will,we will restore the Republic of our ancestors.
We could do worse than echo that Priest at Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941, "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition"
You know, I’ve been pretty good about catching VDH’s threads here at FreeRepublic, but his is too important a voice to trust to chance. Please add me to your ping list.
Thanks!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.