Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Obama’s History Lesson [Mark Steyn]
National Review ^ | 3/17/2012 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 03/18/2012 6:40:10 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross

Our lesson for today comes from George and Ira Gershwin:

       They all laughed at Christopher Columbus

       When he said the world was round

       They all laughed when Edison recorded sound

       They all laughed at Wilbur and his brother

       When they said that man could fly

       They told Marconi wireless was a phony . . .

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers sang it in the film Shall We Dance? (1937). Seventy-five years on, the president revived it to tap dance around his rising gas prices and falling approval numbers. Delivering his big speech on energy at Prince George’s Community College, he insisted the American economy will be going gangbusters again just as soon as we start running it on algae and windmills. He noted that, as with Wilbur and his brother, there were those inclined to titter:

Let me tell you something. If some of these folks were around when Columbus set sail — [Laughter] — the must have been founding members of the Flat Earth Society. [Laughter.] They would not have believed that the world was round. [Applause.] We’ve heard these folks in the past. They probably would have agreed with one of the pioneers of the radio who said, “Television won’t last. It’s a flash in the pan.” [Laughter.] One of Henry Ford’s advisers was quoted as saying, “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a fad.” [Laughter.]

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Political Humor/Cartoons; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: flatearthersspeech; historylesson; marksteyn; obama; obamanism; steyn
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-36 next last
Future generations will laugh at us for taking him seriously.
1 posted on 03/18/2012 6:40:12 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Servant of the Cross
I increasingly believe that the 20th century and early 21st century will be seen in the far future as analogous to the European Witch Craze of the late Medieval/Early Modern period.

People thought that witches poisoned livestock and caused storms. As a result, many people were burned or thrown into ponds. It was a dark time of ignorance.

Today, people think Supply and Demand is a myth, they think redistribution of wealth works, they think Fairness can be achieved, they think judging people by the color of their skin will help diminish racism, and they think that elitists actually care about people other than themselves.

Eventually, humanity will snap out of this period of madness.

2 posted on 03/18/2012 6:53:37 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy ("And the public gets what the public wants" -- The Jam)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Servant of the Cross

Nobody will be laughing when America is reduced to a third-world tyranny.

“Losing my freedom was not the change I hoped for.”


3 posted on 03/18/2012 6:54:02 AM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy
Communism and the socialist impulse is harder to kill than Dracula.

Especially after raising a few generations of innumerate ninnies, who don't know addition from multiplication and who can never understand compound interest, or why debt-based economies always fail in the end.

These morons will scream and shout and DEMAND socialist tyranny when the time comes.


4 posted on 03/18/2012 6:57:55 AM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Travis McGee

[ Nobody will be laughing when America is reduced to a third-world tyranny.

“Losing my freedom was not the change I hoped for.” ]

Someday simular events as depicted in the book “the Moon is a Harsh Mistress” will occur and the free people living on the moon will have the last laugh....


5 posted on 03/18/2012 6:58:43 AM PDT by GraceG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Travis McGee
“Losing my freedom was not the change I hoped for.”


6 posted on 03/18/2012 6:59:29 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Servant of the Cross

It’s interesting, as lately I’ve been watching a lot of the films on 1930’s Germany on The Military Channel- during Hitler’s rise to power. In history, there is always a remnant of folks who try to warn of the danger of someone like Hitler - or Obama.

In Germany, those folks were outnumbered. I pray we aren’t, but I find myself thinking how horrible it must have been to have been one of those Germans in the late 30’s who knew good and well what Germany was doing to itself - and yet be powerless to stop it.

I hope history won’t judge Americans of our era the way it judges Germans of the 1930s.


7 posted on 03/18/2012 7:08:30 AM PDT by C. Edmund Wright
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Comment #8 Removed by Moderator

To: Servant of the Cross
Future generations will laugh at us for taking him seriously.

How many Germans laugh at those who put Hitler into power? No, they will curse at us for taking him seriously.

9 posted on 03/18/2012 7:16:27 AM PDT by Mygirlsmom (Who you gonna believe on the economy? Obama or your own lying wallet?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy
"I increasingly believe that the 20th century and early 21st century will be seen in the far future as analogous to the European Witch Craze.... People thought that witches poisoned livestock and caused storms. ... It was a dark time of ignorance.

Today some people think that man caused global warming is killing livestock and causing storms and many will be freezing or sweltering in darkened homes, standing in line for $6 gasoline and see their jobs vanish as a result of such ignorance.

10 posted on 03/18/2012 7:20:01 AM PDT by The Great RJ ("The problem with socialism is that pretty soon you run out of other people's money" M. Thatcher)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Servant of the Cross

In 1492, it was well known that the Earth was round.


11 posted on 03/18/2012 7:24:09 AM PDT by thesharkboy (poet, know it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy
Today, people think Supply and Demand is a myth, they think redistribution of wealth works, they think Fairness can be achieved, they think judging people by the color of their skin will help diminish racism, and they think that elitists actually care about people other than themselves.

And that's not the half of it. I'd retire to Bedlam, but there's no use; we're already there.

12 posted on 03/18/2012 7:30:37 AM PDT by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: thesharkboy
In 1492, it was well known that the Earth was round.

and also that Pi(e) are round.

13 posted on 03/18/2012 7:33:55 AM PDT by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Don Corleone

And yet, the expression “pi are squared” survives.


14 posted on 03/18/2012 7:43:57 AM PDT by TruthShallSetYouFree (How bad would an Obama II administration be, without the constraints of re-election?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Servant of the Cross
Typical of Obama.

He is [always] ignorant of what he is talking about. How many bright accomplished learned people do we have in this country? And this piece of garbage winds up being the President? This really is an ‘idiotochracy’.

Whenever he goes into any meeting, with the WH staff, with foreign leaders, with the military, he is ALWAYS the least qualified guy in the room to be there. What is he? Who is he? What has he ever done of any significance at all. I wouldn't hire him to work in my warehouse, much less as a lawyer. Has anyone seen any proof whatsoever of his much vaunted education and degrees? No! No one has. We are simply ‘told’ that he has this degree and that degree and we are ‘told’ to take it on faith. He doesn't even understand on a basic level, what America is or how an American government works. He thought, and maybe still thinks, that he was elected President of Kenya or Venezuela. The man is an idiot.

In every speech I can think of since he was elected and many before he was elected, all he does is criticize everything and everyone in America. He seems to ‘love’ billionaires Soros and Buffet and he loves anything Islamic, but no one or nothing else American.

He has criticized gun owners, Christians, American workers, millionaires, and the list goes on and on. He is just a bitter, negative person, uncouth, gauche, inexperienced and unqualified for his position, with an axe to grind against America.

It is hard to imagine that this is the best America could do. Forget future generations, the world is laughing now. Russia, China, Europe, the M.E. view him as a joke. And, he is.

The world is laughing now, but I am not laughing with them.

15 posted on 03/18/2012 7:47:51 AM PDT by 240B (he is doing everything he said he wouldn't and not doing what he said he would)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Servant of the Cross
How nice. The President of the United States is now mocking concerned and peaceful Americans (notice, I didn't write "fellow" Americans) through lies and conjuring up cheap laughs from a sycophantic audience of ignorant, immature students.

I find this ominous. Somehow or other, this totally radical and unacceptable behavior from the President reminds me of another demagogue who used to inflame the radicals, revolutionaries, and brawlers in Munich beer halls almost 90 years ago. That didn't turn out well for that country, either. Ominously enough, it was just prior to total economic collapse, too.

Who says history doesn't repeat itself?

16 posted on 03/18/2012 8:00:06 AM PDT by Gritty (Obama's populism's so crude it channels not Teddy Roosevelt so much as Hugo Chavez-C.Krauthammer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: JLS

Steyn ping!


17 posted on 03/18/2012 8:01:16 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows (You can't have Ingsoc without an Emmanuel Goldstein.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: C. Edmund Wright
In Germany, those folks were outnumbered.

One of the greatest cons of the socialists is to trick the people into believing that 'everyone' believes like they do. But we have two things they didn't have then: the Internet and the Tea Party.

The Tea Party showed people that there were millions of others who felt like they did -- that the government spending was out of control, that they didn't want the health care bill, that Cap and Trade was a scam, that the economy was drowning in too much government control and regulations.

We may never know what a great service to this country was done by the patriots in the Tea Party.

18 posted on 03/18/2012 8:18:26 AM PDT by sportutegrl (There is no such thing as leftover bacon.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: TruthShallSetYouFree
And yet, the expression “pi are squared” survives.

And, pi is irrational and the circle is always broken. There has to be a discontinuity where DumBO can fall in and never be heard from.

19 posted on 03/18/2012 8:47:05 AM PDT by depressed in 06 (6 November, 2012, the day our embarrassment is sent back to Kenya.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Servant of the Cross

Actually whom they all laughed at was Nicola Tesla....

Thomas Edison was just a thief.. Snidely Whiplash in the flesh..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhC_JJwlep0


20 posted on 03/18/2012 11:27:46 AM PDT by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-36 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson