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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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1 posted on 09/10/2009 7:21:43 PM PDT by jazusamo
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To: abigail2; Amalie; American Quilter; arthurus; awelliott; Bahbah; bamahead; Battle Axe; ...
*PING*
Thomas Sowell

Photobucket

Recent columns
Listening to a Liar
Suicide of the West?
The Great Escape

Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Thomas Sowell ping list…

2 posted on 09/10/2009 7:24:16 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: jazusamo

Obama makes Algore and Lurch seem like truthtellers, by comparison.


3 posted on 09/10/2009 7:25:58 PM PDT by pissant (THE Conservative party: www.falconparty.com)
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To: jazusamo

Spread the word. He lies.


4 posted on 09/10/2009 7:26:15 PM PDT by secret garden (In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell)
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To: jazusamo
Obama says Sowell is a racist .... oh, wait...
5 posted on 09/10/2009 7:28:33 PM PDT by maine-iac7 ("He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help" Lincoln)
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To: jazusamo

A little common sense goes a long ways, especially regarding natural born sneaks, cheats and lairs in and out of Government! The best deterrence to ignorance and pop-culture is a good dose classical common sense.


6 posted on 09/10/2009 7:31:27 PM PDT by ntmxx (I am not so sure about this misdirection!)
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To: jazusamo

Thanks for the ping jaz. Dr. Sowell making sense of it all again. Looking forward to the next installments of “Listening to a Liar”.


7 posted on 09/10/2009 7:37:56 PM PDT by rockinqsranch (Dems, Libs, Socialists...Call 'em What you Will, They ALL have Fairies Living In Their Trees.)
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To: rockinqsranch

Dr. Sowell for President in 2012.


8 posted on 09/10/2009 7:42:51 PM PDT by mfish13
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
One of the secrets of being a glib talker is not getting hung up over whether what you are saying is true
ROTFLMAO
9 posted on 09/10/2009 7:43:18 PM PDT by Milhous (Confusion to our enemies.)
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To: mfish13

He’s almost 80 years old!

I think he’s doing a fine job contributing to the cause as he is.


10 posted on 09/10/2009 7:46:21 PM PDT by rockinqsranch (Dems, Libs, Socialists...Call 'em What you Will, They ALL have Fairies Living In Their Trees.)
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To: rockinqsranch

I’d like to see him write III and IV, this is so appropriate after last night.


11 posted on 09/10/2009 7:49:20 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: jazusamo

I LOVE this man! If only he would run for President.


12 posted on 09/10/2009 7:50:43 PM PDT by gidget7 (Duncan Hunter-Valley Forge Republican!)
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To: rockinqsranch

Really? I have seen him on FOX a few times, he doesn’t look even close!


13 posted on 09/10/2009 7:52:22 PM PDT by gidget7 (Duncan Hunter-Valley Forge Republican!)
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To: gidget7

He sure doesn’t look his age, born 6-30-30.


14 posted on 09/10/2009 7:55:00 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: gidget7

He’s too smart to want to!


15 posted on 09/10/2009 7:55:22 PM PDT by Fudd Fan (Pres__dent yo-mama, YOU LIE!)
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To: secret garden
“The Truman Show” was a movie...”The Hussein Show” is becoming a nuisance...not only a LIAR...but a consistent constant LIAR...FO BO!
16 posted on 09/10/2009 8:01:47 PM PDT by ldish (Looking forward to Independence Day)
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To: maine-iac7
Obama says Sowell is a racist .... oh, wait...

Why not? My moonbat brother did it to me.

17 posted on 09/10/2009 8:09:53 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
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.

LOL - that my friend is what's called "speaking truth to power"...

Thanks for the ping jaz.

18 posted on 09/10/2009 8:12:27 PM PDT by GOPJ (ACORN offers pimps help on how to hide child sex slaves. It's your tax dollars at work...)
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To: jazusamo
He sure doesn’t look his age, born 6-30-30.

Hmm... he's two months younger than my dad, but infinitely wiser. Two black men, growing up in the same America, yet they wound up at opposite ends of the awareness scale.

Sorry Dad.

19 posted on 09/10/2009 8:13:01 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
Sowell: "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."

As posted on another thread earlier, we always must keep in mind that words are only the vehicles used to transport ideas, and they can be used to camouflage those ideas (the cargo) as well.

If the object is to move a significant portion of the U. S. economy from private control to public control, and the words are carefully chosen to disguise the idea (the cargo) as being "reforming health care," then enough gullible people who, for one reason or another, believe health care needs "reforming," will be like an audience at an illusionist's show, they will never see the chicanery before them.

In this case, the illusionist's performance is not about health care. It is about moving forward an agenda for bypassing the Constitution which, by the President's own words, has been being attempted for several decades without success--an agenda for accumulating more power in Washington.

The forces behind him chose what they believed to be a person gifted with words to move their ideas forward. Whether or not American citizens allow it is yet to be seen.

20 posted on 09/10/2009 8:30:20 PM PDT by loveliberty2
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