Victor Davis Hanson, on Wednesday’s Hugh Hewitt show, asked a pointed question: is an Obama Presidency and a Pelosi/Reid-controlled House and Senate simply a natural progression?
It made me think: perhaps it really is. Perhaps this nation’s path is that it has to, as it has in its history, hit the real rock bottom before it can begin to functionally recuperate and succeed once more.
Those who will vote for Barack Hussein Obama, I believe, are doing so for two reasons:
1. The Idealogues: those who simply trundle the true Leftist/Socialist dogma and have consumed the Kool Air because they either truly like it or have been trained to like it;
2. The Uninformed Bulk: the greater mass of persons who simply are “Bush-ed Out” so to speak, know little if anything about politics, aren’t necessarily “bad” people but have this niggling little pique in their Brain Housing Groups saying: “just vote for somebody else in the opposite camp.”
So when I posit that perhaps this nation has to encounter a precipitously rocky and treacherous bottom, I’m also subjecting myself to those results. I thought: if I go there on the blog, it can’t be in a vacuum; I’ll have to “own” all the resulting potentially horrendous consequences. So do I even want to broach this unpleasant topic?
I do.
It further resulted in a comment on TexasFred’s blog that I reprint here, prompted by Fred’s examining of McCain’s indicating, in the recent debate, that he advocates the United States government’s purchase of bad mortgages — a stunningly horrendous idea in my opinion. I responded:
I think what we’re seeing is the result of the alleged “wide open spaces” in money. And it’s been building for years. The original purpose of “stock,” for example, was to allow a business to raise capital so that it might expand, build a new office, a warehouse, etc. But now, the procession of markets and investments are such that a great deal of control is proffered to and a great deal of “wealth” acquired by persons and companies who DO nothing, who BUILD nothing, who PROVIDE nothing. THEIR stock in trade, shall we say, is AIR. It is emotions. It is feelings, and predictions and guessing and then either hoping something falls precipitously and tanks or something soars. They do nothing, they stand to make money by creating NOTHING. They ARE in fact air, literally empty suits. And we are beginning to pay the price for people who do, contribute NOTHING but are excellent forecasters and manipulators.
John McCain “buying” bad mortgages makes the United States of America a new landlord. And you know what a landlord does: it sets the rules. The more of a whore you are, the more you suck from the government nipple the more now — and definitely in the future — the government will be DECIDING on HOW you utilize or interact with your shelter because, after all, it’s NOT yours. It belongs to the government. THEY hold the note and, more and more, the government has an agenda to hold and it is a SOCIAL agenda with YOU as the SUBJECT. And I DON’T mean “as opposed to predicate.”
You couple this, with an Obama presidency and a Demorat House and Senate, and in the not too distant future you really WILL get some of these possibilities: a complete fleecing of the American taxpayer to the point where taxpayers simply won’t put ANY discretionary spending back INTO play, and/or (likely both) societal constrictions and freedoms removed by a new government which pushes some factions of Americans, who have a history of perspective and DON’T have Historical Alzheimers (that is to say, they remember that things DON’T have to be as they might be, with even more occluded freedoms, who have a sense and a knowledge of where this nation has been and what it was like to live in it then, with true freedoms, fewer restrictions, a sense of an unbridled future) to the point where they believe the only venue left for repair is some form of insurrection, to possibly include violence.
You cannot stand to continuously pit the Producers of this nation against the Takers, and expect that terrible results will not eventually occur.
THIS JUST IN:
WASHINGTON — Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system, according to government officials.
Your thoughts?
BZ
10 09 08
BZ:
You are not far off at all. However, to be honest, I don’t believe a McCain presidency would be that much different than an Obama one. Their agreements in the last debates showed me that. I think the only difference would be that McCain would be more militarily aggressive. Frankly, these candidates are both full of shit!
BOTH of them are moving our country towards straight up communism!!!!! I don’t see how you could vote for McCain given that he is advocating this buying up mortgages. Doesn’t that sound like communism to you? Like the government owning properties and doling them out to those who ‘need’ them.
Obama is preaching that same nonsense. I am so incensed at both of these jerks! I feel that neither of them have the ability to adequately run our country, particularly in matters of the economy.
Now, your analysis of what happens with stocks was also spot on. After painstakingly trying my patience looking up naked short selling and credit derivatives and all of that, I am inclined to believe that these assholes were trading on Wallstreet with imaginary money.
If we went back to the gold standard at least we could say our money was tied to something of value. But as things stand, our money is starting to look worthless to me. It seems as though our entire current financial system is based upon selling debt. That doesn’t sound like anything of intrinsic worth to me.
Notice how the commodities futures are up as well.
When government intervenes in the markets to this extent, we might as well go ahead and put the sickle on our flag because that is what we are headed towards.
In this instance, I refer you and anyone else who is interested to the Cato Institute website. They have excellent analysis of what is going on and they also suggested a Plan B to the bailout. Too bad no one listened to them!
I’ll still vote for McCain/Palin, as Palin is a rising star and I trust SCOTUS appointments from McCain MUCH more than I trust any appointment from an Obama presidency.
BZ
No matter who wins, no matter what happens it’s going to be another great adventure.
If you have positioned yourself correctly, you’ll have no problems.
If you haven’t, if you’ve live over your limit, living off your credit your fucked.
Is This A Natural Progression? Yes it is, it’s meant to get rid of the dirt and the bullshit, only this time Liberals and Conservatives have decided to reward the dirt and the bullshit. This should have been a time to clean house not rearrange it.
New World Order……………it’s on its way like it or not. George H. W. Bush told us about this and how he favored this direction, well here it is.
mahndisa said “Frankly, these candidates are both full of shit!”
Nuff said about that.
I still have to mark McCain/Palin because I am a white racist redneck hick (Just getting that out of the way)… Oh and because I think Obama would nominate FAR LEFT Judges to SCOTUS… other than that there is NO difference between them.
Heavy sigh.
BZ
We can deal with McCain later…we won the amnesty situation thru emails and calls…WE (and SARAH) can keep him straight after he’s elected. (Please, God…PULLLEEEZE?)
I’m counting on his ‘lying’ to get in…appealing to centrists and hoping they actually believe him. I”M HOPING! I mean, if Obama can lie as much as HE lies, why can’t McCain promise socialism-lite to us?
Next time mcCain talks about buying up mortgages and things, check out Sarah’s face. Something changes behind her smile, I swear!! like “WHAA?? We’ll fix THAT!”
WE NEED TO DEFEAT OBAMA…you are so right….great post, BZ.
I thought VDH was absolutely amazing on Hewitt yesterday, by the way. Just AMAZING> Don’t liberals listen to him? Or SOwell? WHAT are they thinking?
Who’d pick BIll Maher for real information?
The Left.
Lets see here the govt took over retirement from the private sector with Social Security. They took over old folks healthcare with Medicare. They took over caring for the needy (and lazy) with Welfare. Now they want to take ove r the banking system? They have done such a stellar job with everything else they took over why give them the chance?
They should really focus on legalizing all the illegal drugs (pot, coke, heroin, meth) taking that market over. With the govt in control of it that should end that problem.
WMD: hey, good point. Let’s let government do everything. We’d all, then, receive the caring, considerate, compassionate, efficient, thrifty, courageous, honest work that one normally encounters at your local DMV, as I am wont to say.
BZ
BZ, you are right on. It is a natural progression it seems, however I am holding on to the hope that people will go to the polls for McCain/Palin anyway. I am just not ready to endure living under socialism.
My fear is that no matter who wins there will be civil war, the division in America is that bad, and whoever wins in a civil war, democracy usually loses.
shoprat
I am beginning to think that splitting the US up may be the best way to actually save it, in the future. The US is heading a LONG LONG way from where the founding fathers aimed it. Maybe it would be best to chop off the northeast and west coasts and let them learn what their socialist ways are doing to them first hand with NO HELP from the heartland to bolster their give away coffers.
If you think the last civil war was gruesome the next one will make the one in the 1860s look like a football game.
HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY, WMD, I live on the west coast, just waitaminnit!!
BZ
We might let you emigrate. Ask pretty please with gunpowder
WMD_Maker
I could agree to that, provided the people get to choose which country they live in, and “purple states” are divided by counties. Won’t happen though.
In Ill which would probably be a purple state the down staters would gladly lop Chicagoo off. NY the upstaters with the posible exception of those on Lake Ontario again would gladly dump NYC. PA would love to give Phili to NJ.
Ohio is just too F’d up to care.
But yes the “borderline” states would be a mess just like they were in the 1860s.Its just the borderline this time would be much more mixed philosophically that geographically.
I can’t claim to be an expert on things, but my background is having grown up in a socialist family that adhered to scientific socialism. They hated communists, fascists, social democrats, had a nasty split with the UK socialists, didn’t support the 1917 revolution, and generally thought that you had to understand and support capitalism to let it do its good works so that socialism could appear. If you couldn’t understand capitalism then you can’t understand socialism, and they let you know that… I still think their conclusions are wrongly based on a delimited set of ideas that have little correlation with human nature, but I cannot fault them on methodology. From that I got to examine all the other forms of socialism and anarcho-syndicalism that you care to name.
One thing these two candidates proved to me is that they don’t know socialism.
Of course they don’t understand capitalism *either*.
Which is absolutely horrifying.
You can’t ‘reform’ a system you don’t understand.
These two bozos are Clueless and Clueless 2 – The Sequel.
If you can’t even define what the system is, then you really can’t go about trying to ‘fix it’ and make it ‘fair’. Both of those running want an economy that reflects their ideas of what ‘fairness’ is, not how the system operates. They both want a system that models their ideas of what a ‘good system is’ not ‘can the system we have go there?’
If you don’t know what you got, you jolly well can’t say that it is either bad or good, fair or unfair, in needing of reform or not. These guys don’t have a clue… if they can’t even figure out basic capitalism then how are they supposed to make the complex system that has been tinkered with ‘more fair’?
You can strip it down to get to a fairer system that is easier to understand by everyone… but that requires removing large sections of government from the equation, not adding in more. This is not ‘progression’ but wishful thinking that leads to disaster. Change is not progress even if you call it ‘Progressivism’.
I would really like for McCain to be way more conservative, but I don’t see that we have any choice but to vote for him, so I’m with you, BZ. Sarah Palin is extremely conservative, but what I think is happening here is that McCain is playing to the moderates because he believes they are the only ones who can win him this election. I think by doing that he’s making a mistake because he isn’t getting tough enough for fear of turning off the moderates.
I am no longer sure BZ what the natural progression is. I know my mother is freaking because she lived through the depression and I heard all the stories from my Grandmother when she was alive and my mom. My mom talks about having spagetti and ketchup for dinner and cardboard in her shoes to cover the holes because there was not money. About how my grandma let a family friend live in the London Apartment in the basement of the house they she saved money to have built for – she let my what was to be my step-grandfather live there for free. She worked nights in downtown Chicago cleaning bathrooms and offices to get some money – she worked nights so my Aunt and Mom had to take care of themselves in the evening until she came home.
Nothing on Christmas……………..
I don’t know. Things are different now. Now people bitch because they cannot buy that damn video game they wanted or the Tivo or X-Box. People have no grounding – money is their god.
If it happens this society here would kill each other unlike my grandmothers generation that stood strong and worked when they could and survived to produce one of the greatest generations that ever lived.
I just do not know. There are no easy answers or solutions BZ.
Has anyone heard of any Muslim Countries that are in Dire Straits?
HMMMMMMMMMMM…..didn’t think so.
That’s OK, we need to spend our time on who Obama or McCain associated with.That’s what important to, “Joe Six-Pack”.
How stupid can people be?
“Has anyone heard of any Muslim Countries that are in Dire Straits?”
How much more in dire straights do you need to be than living in mud huts with dirt floors, tribal govt, chasing goats for livelyhood, food and sexual gratification?
WMD,
Dubai is a mud hut?
Like I said, how stupid can people be?
I’m not abandoning my principles this time around. I won’t vote McCain. I’ll vote for Barr. It doesn’t matter because Republicans win in my area no matter what.
We conservatives are losing. Our party is just a group of socialists. I don’t plan on voting for any incumbents either.
Don’t know about ya’ll but I have this sudden urge to gather up some bags of cash, some more weapons and ammo, and perhaps a decent garden!
Dubai in the area they are building is an exception the rest of the country is pretty much a mud hut, so is Pakistan, afghanistan, iran, iraq, even saudi arabia. And they are all now bitching about the price of oil dropping like a rock.
DUE TO RECENT BUDGET CUTS,
AND THE RISING COST OF ELECTRICITY, GAS AND OIL,
THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL HAS BEEN TURNED OFF.
WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.
it will be that way in 2009 if the Communist Obama wins!
Ranando, Muslim countries in Dire Straights…
Kenya,Somalia, Iraq, Iran to name a few, Iraq was in dire straights before we got there, and Iran apart from what the media shows is suffering far worse than any slum in our nation.
But I did like that “Lights have been turned off” quip LMAO
Look folks the real reason the markets are crashing is because the markets don’t like change, they don’t like the leader of the free world being a tax and spend socialist, and BOTH the candidates have those tendencies. The foreign money is flocking out of the country and with it, confidence and THAT is the real reason for the crash.
I believe we will recover, but I like our chances a lot more if McCain is at the helm, I can’t stand the thought of Pelosi, Reaid and Obama being the top 3.
10 10 08
evilfurby said…
I’m not abandoning my principles this time around. I won’t vote McCain. I’ll vote for Barr. It doesn’t matter because Republicans win in my area no matter what.
I am tending to agree with you EF. I wonder why more fiscal conservatives aren’t going to vote for him. His voting record was consistent when he was a Rep and his rhetoric is anti big government. My fear of McCain is that he will increase the size of government and as AJ pointed out, I am not certain that he has an understanding of economics to ‘save’ the American people as he claims. After all, he voted forthe bailout package and I cannot think of any true fiscal conservative that would support that. When big government can call the shots and determine who gets bailed out and who fails, that is extreme intervention of the worst sort. I think that if McCain had rejected a bailout plan of any sort and adhered to free market principles, he would get those who are likely going to vote for Barr.
Should the government regulate banks?
“I sincerely believe… that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” – Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816.
Remember that it was Jefferson who brought us the National Bank and it was Andrew Jackson that vetoed it on very, very good grounds. Things like the concentration of power and the powerful bending legislators to their will.
Ranando: Yes, there are a number of Muslim countries not doing particularly well but no one notices and, moreover, no once cares. The primary Muslim country whose economy is in the tank would be Iran. Iran is quite possibly one of THE most conflicted Middle Eastern countries extant. Ruled by the Mullahs with a wicked President Ahmadinnerjacket, it’s also a good part secular, but no one wants to admit it and its secularism is being driven into the ground, resulting in huge economic issues. They sit on massive reserves of oil but can’t adequately pull it from the ground. Their distribution system for oil and most any other commodity is terrible.
Other Muslim countries in poor economic straits would include Syrian, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon — most any Muslim country NOT running a Western economic model.
Mahndisa, NS and EF: unless there is a nationwide groundswell for one “alternative” candidate, and there is not, in my opinion, a vote for anyone other than McCain, IF one opposes Obama, translates to nothing more THAN a vote FOR Obama.
Like it or not, we are still in the thrall of a two party system. That’s not to say we can’t do more to either create a third viable party or find true Conservative candidates but, at this precise point in time, an “alternative” vote on principle equates to a vote for Obama.
Therefore, is Obama is not far from your preferred philosophy, then so be it; vote as you must and as you will.
If Obama is FAR from your philosophy and he becomes President and, furthermore, you didn’t vote for McCain, then you have little to say about the state of the nation under an Obama Presidency as you ASSISTED him in his endeavor.
I personally cannot succor that route.
BZ
If Obama is FAR from your philosophy and he becomes President and, furthermore, you didn’t vote for McCain, then you have little to say about the state of the nation under an Obama Presidency as you ASSISTED him in his endeavor.
The old saying, “If you don’t vote than you have NO right to complain”, is pure bullshit.
If people vote for either of these candidates and their candidate ends up being a desaster for our country, than that person was part of the desaster and, IMO, has NO right to complain.
As Carlin said, “I on the other hand didn’t vote for either, I was not part of the desaster and there-fore I have every right to complain”.
I agree……………
I will not be voting for either Obama or McCain. I will do a write-in or vote for another candidate, I will not be part of the problem.
What I find funny is after being called just about every name in the book, many are now following agreeing with me, go figure. I don’t change who I support on a daily bases, I stuck with my feelings for the past year or so.
Another great post, as always.
Ranando: dude, c’mon, you know I don’t “name call.” All I know is this, and this is reality: you stay away, you vote for someone else, your single vote simply equates to a vote FOR Obama because it COULD have been a vote for McCain/Palin.
There’s a chance that Obama/Biden could theoretically win. My guess is that proposition wouldn’t yield your personal ideal situation. My further guess is that that combination would tank this nation more than we can possibly imagine. And, boy, can I imagine a LOT.
I know you run a great and important business. I can’t find many if any situations where an Obama presidency would make it easier for you to operate. I could be wrong.
Under an Obama presidency I can’t imagine much more than utter disarray. And complaints. And when those complaints distill down to “I don’t like Obama,” then, quite frankly, I disabuse myself of considering prior sympathies other than those of the opposite camp.
BZ
BZ,
You’re the man and you know I’m not talking about you when it comes to name calling, I don’t give a shit about thoses calling the names.
That’s not you, it never has been. You’re a good man and a great American.
You’re an up-right guy and you have one of the only decent blogs around.
At least you let us speak, agree with or not.
Wow, Ranando, what a compliment. I am honored. I can only hope that, no matter the outcome, you find your business successful and profitable. I don’t wish bad things on anyone in this nation; I only wish to find my country whole and in one positive piece come January 20th of next year.
BZ