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Listening to a Liar: Part II (Thomas Sowell)
Townhall.com ^ | September 10, 2009 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 09/10/2009 7:21:43 PM PDT by jazusamo

"Hubris-laden charlatans" was the way a recent e-mail from a reader characterized the Obama administration. That phrase seems especially appropriate for the Charlatan-in-Chief, Barack Obama, whose speech to a joint session of Congress was both a masterpiece of rhetoric and a shameless fraud.

To tell us, with a straight face, that he can insure millions more people without adding to the already skyrocketing deficit, is world-class chutzpa and an insult to anyone's intelligence. To do so after an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office has already showed this to be impossible reveals the depths of moral bankruptcy behind the glittering words.

Did we really need CBO experts to tell us that there is no free lunch? Some people probably did and the true believers in the Obama cult may still believe the President, instead of believing either common sense or budget experts.

Even those who can believe that Obama can conjure up the money through eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse" should ask themselves where he is going to conjure up the additional doctors, nurses, and hospitals needed to take care of millions more patients.

If he can't pull off that miracle, then government-run medical care in the United States can be expected to produce what government-run medical care in Canada, Britain, and other countries has produced-- delays of weeks or months to get many treatments, not to mention arbitrary rationing decisions by bureaucrats.

Obama can deny it in words but what matters are deeds-- and no one's words have been more repeatedly the direct opposite of his deeds-- whether talking about how his election campaign would be financed, how he would not rush legislation through Congress, or how his administration was not going to go after CIA agents for their past efforts to extract information from captured terrorists.

President Obama has also declared emphatically that he will not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations-- while telling the Israelis where they can and cannot build settlements and telling the Hondurans whom they should and should not choose to be their president.

One of the secrets of being a glib talker is not getting hung up over whether what you are saying is true, and instead giving your full attention to what is required by the audience and the circumstances of the moment, without letting facts get in your way and cramp your style. Obama has mastered that art.

Con men understand that their job is not to use facts to convince skeptics but to use words to help the gullible to believe what they want to believe. No message has been more welcomed by the gullible, in countries around the world, than the promise of something for nothing. That is the core of Barack Obama's medical care plan.

President Obama tells us that he will impose various mandates on insurance companies but will not interfere with our free choice between being insured by these companies or by the government. But if he can drive up the cost of private insurance with mandates and subsidize government insurance with the taxpayers' money, how long do you think it will be before we have the "single payer" system has he has advocated in the past?

Mandates by politicians are what have driven up the cost of insurance already. Politicians love to play Santa Claus and leave it to others to raise prices to cover the inevitable costs.

Politicians have driven privately owned municipal transit systems out of business in many cities, by simply imposing costs and restricting the fare increases needed to cover those costs. The federal government can drive out private insurance the same way that local politicians have driven out private municipal transit and replaced it with government-run transit systems.

Barack Obama's insistence that various dangerous policies are not in the legislation he proposes sounds good but means nothing. Unbridled power is a blank check, no matter what its rationale may be. No law gave the President of the United States the power to fire the head of General Motors, but TARP money did.

When there are "advisory" panels on what treatments to approve and the White House's existing medical advisor has complained of Americans' "over-utilization" of medical care, what does it take to connect the dots?


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Front Page News; Government
KEYWORDS: 111th; agenda; bho44; bhofascism; bhohealthcare; bholies; bhospeech; bhotyranny; communism; demlies; democrats; fascism; frontpage; healthcarespeech; liar; marxism; obama; obamacare; obamatruthfile; socializedmedicine; sowell; thomassowell; tsbo; youlie
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Dr. Sowell is pre-affirmative action. He was magna cum laude at Harvard in the late fifties. I’ve got 23 of his books and each is a revelation. He’s the smartest man in America, by long odds, a genius, in fact. I think his best book is Knowledge and Decisions. The only other man who comes close is Robert Conquest, the prominent Sovietologist who wrote Reflections on a Ravaged Century & The Dragons of Expectation.


21 posted on 09/10/2009 8:33:38 PM PDT by donaldo
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To: jazusamo

BTTT


22 posted on 09/10/2009 8:33:57 PM PDT by WOBBLY BOB (ACORN:American Corruption for Obama Right Now)
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To: loveliberty2

>> we always must keep in mind that words are only the vehicles used to transport ideas,

The acceptance of the agenda by so many Americans is, to me, more disturbing than the agenda itself and the one who evangelizes it.


23 posted on 09/10/2009 8:41:48 PM PDT by Gene Eric
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To: WOBBLY BOB

This is no different than any other Communist explaining the failures of Communism by saying “it’s never been true Communism”. Obama is no different from any other red.


24 posted on 09/10/2009 8:44:45 PM PDT by JMS
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To: jazusamo

This is RACIST!

Who is this Thomas Sowell? Dick Cheney’s hunting buddy?


25 posted on 09/10/2009 8:50:15 PM PDT by Uncle Miltie (Which was the lie, 0bummer: 47 or 30 million uninsured?)
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To: jazusamo
One of the secrets of being a glib talker is not getting hung up over whether what you are saying is true, and instead giving your full attention to what is required by the audience and the circumstances of the moment, without letting facts get in your way and cramp your style. Obama has mastered that art.

Con men understand that their job is not to use facts to convince skeptics but to use words to help the gullible to believe what they want to believe. No message has been more welcomed by the gullible, in countries around the world, than the promise of something for nothing. That is the core of Barack Obama's medical care plan.

If only Thomas Sowell could have been our first black president. Sigh.

26 posted on 09/10/2009 8:52:09 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("A cultural problem cannot be solved with a political solution." -- Selwyn Duke)
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To: Uncle Miltie

Heh, Heh, Heh!

I guess he could be, I know they agree on a lot of things.


27 posted on 09/10/2009 8:54:49 PM PDT by jazusamo (But there really is no free lunch, except in the world of political rhetoric,.: Thomas Sowell)
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To: Running On Empty

Marking


28 posted on 09/10/2009 9:03:06 PM PDT by Running On Empty ((The three sorriest words:"It's too late"))
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To: Windflier

Great tagline!


29 posted on 09/10/2009 9:06:11 PM PDT by stephenjohnbanker (Pray for, and support our troops(heroes) !! And vote out the RINO's!!)
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To: donaldo

Sowell is a brilliant man, and a GOOD man.


30 posted on 09/10/2009 9:08:33 PM PDT by stephenjohnbanker (Pray for, and support our troops(heroes) !! And vote out the RINO's!!)
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To: pissant

Obama can be better known by what he does—not what he says. He doesn’t care about health. He is desperate for the government option because it allows total control over every aspect of our lives, including money now paid to insurance companies and pharmacies. He will not stop until he figures out a way to get everyone dependent on government for everything.


31 posted on 09/10/2009 9:16:32 PM PDT by charlie72
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To: stephenjohnbanker
Great tagline!

And it's true, too!

Thanks

32 posted on 09/10/2009 9:16:44 PM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: jazusamo
THis was a great point:
Barack Obama's insistence that various dangerous policies are not in the legislation he proposes sounds good but means nothing. Unbridled power is a blank check, no matter what its rationale may be. No law gave the President of the United States the power to fire the head of General Motors, but TARP money did.
I'm sure if we had said "TARP will allow Obama to fire the president of GM", Obama would have called us liars.
33 posted on 09/10/2009 9:19:23 PM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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To: rockinqsranch
He's almost 80 years old!

I had no idea!!

34 posted on 09/10/2009 9:25:34 PM PDT by my_pointy_head_is_sharp
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To: Albion Wilde

Interesting to see all the racists here on Free Republic heaping praise on Thomas Sowell. Oh, I forgot..., once a black man becomes a conservative he’s no longer black. You can only be a racist if you dislike the politics of someone who’s a Democrat or a Communist (not that there’s any difference these days)....


35 posted on 09/10/2009 9:28:43 PM PDT by freebilly ( No wonder all the left has a boner for Obama.... There's "Cialis" in "SoCIALISt")
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To: jazusamo

Even Wilson shouted it....liar liar liar


36 posted on 09/10/2009 9:29:56 PM PDT by shield (A wise man's heart is at his RIGHT hand;but a fool's heart at his LEFT. Ecc 10:2)
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To: jazusamo
Even those who can believe that Obama can conjure up the money through eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse" should ask themselves where he is going to conjure up the additional doctors, nurses, and hospitals needed to take care of millions more patients.

They drink the Kool-Aid every day. They will have no problem taking the pain pill when Obama tells them to. If they don't like it they can always blame Bush.

37 posted on 09/10/2009 9:41:03 PM PDT by eggman (Obama's Spread the Wealth will work just as well as Spread the Liabilities (sub-prime mortgages))
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To: Windflier

Last week Rush was on vacation. One of his guest hosts was Walter E. Williams. He had a telephone call in from Dr. Sowell...it was one of the finest radio hours I have ever listened to.


38 posted on 09/10/2009 9:44:58 PM PDT by Tainan (Cogito, ergo conservatus)
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To: jazusamo

“con man” good description of Zero


39 posted on 09/10/2009 10:16:38 PM PDT by dervish (I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself)
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To: Tainan
Last week Rush was on vacation. One of his guest hosts was Walter E. Williams. He had a telephone call in from Dr. Sowell...it was one of the finest radio hours I have ever listened to.

Darn, I missed it!

I love when those two get together. When I've heard them together before, I've dropped everything I was doing and paid full attention, it's so good.

Oh well. Next time.

40 posted on 09/10/2009 10:32:57 PM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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