AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

@Foxfyre,

About the Boskin piece: Seems Warren Buffet, also, feels poorly about future economic prospects in relation to Obamanomics. In his letter to stockholders (Berkshire Hathaway) he expressed grave misgivings about the economic future that included the phrase "for the foreseeable future" representing the approximate length of this downturn. Wall street has properly viewed Obama's package as anti-business, which simply means that Obama's projected tax revenues on the rich will have to be reduced which means...

JM

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

Quote:

I would PAY to participate in an on line forum in which all or most members had the ability and inclination to critically analyze both sides of an issue and discuss it on its own merits without needing to demonize anybody. If you ever run across one, would you promise to let me know about it?

Is this refrain sung to the melody of the Beach Boy's "Wouldn't it be Nice?"
Yes, I can't help feel that if we ever encountered such a forum all members would be predisposed to gathering information first before bringing any opinions to bear (or is it bare?) and then, given new info, a malleable mind. A human curiosity for discovery in the DNA as it were. Just think it could be a clearing house for relevant info towards problem resolution! Smile

JM

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

I would PAY to participate in an on line forum in which all or most members had the ability and inclination to critically analyze both sides of an issue and discuss it on its own merits without needing to demonize anybody.

Then why do you engage in demonizing? Here you're demonizing Democrats and anyone who would work with Democrats:

Foxfyre wrote:

I had great hopes for Michael Steele--he has been terrific on the talk show circuit and is a gifted commentator. But as we have been seeing so much of among the GOP leadership, he seems to operate under the delusion that if he just plays nice with the Democrats and is reasonable and concilitary, they will reciprocate. They won't They never have.

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@JamesMorrison,

Buffett's own performance in the market over the past few years is no example of an economic genius -- he's lost 67% of his worth in bad investments. If he's going to predict the future and bolster his own credibility, he'd better take off the Swami turban and step away from his clouded crystal ball considering that worse than average example of personal economic performance.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
- Leo Tolstoy

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@Lightwizard,

LW, Good point; what I saw was the Warren Buffett lost 55% within the past 52 weeks. My performance was much better; doesn't make me a financial genius, but at least I minimized our losses which best the average based on the DOW, Nasdaq and S&P.

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@cicerone imposter,

Our son bought MCD at $44 in late 2007; he must be the real genius; he's still about 12% ahead. LOL

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@Lightwizard,

Who knows? Buffett was the darling of some on the left and has been oft quoted when he supported some of President Obama's economic plans, but he and other big names among the rich in the public eye--Gates, Trump, Pickens et al--have all chimed in on this and that over the years. Every one of them have been critical of President Bush and/or John McCain and/or the GOP on various issues from time to time and ditto the Democrats. None of them are blindly partisan and, while none of them got where they are without learning a thing or two, every one of those guys puts their pants on one leg at a time like everybody else and ALL of us who have anything invested have lost ground in the current market. (Of course my meager investments wouldn't keep any of them going for even a day.) But no, there is no crystal ball, and there is a universal truth in Matthew 5:45 that advises us that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. That is true of blessings and that is true of economic hard times.

When they criticize President Obama or anybody else, however, right or wrong it's a safe bet they have some rationale other than pure ideology for doing so. And I believe that every one of them are now on the record that the President needs to address the banking system and stablilize that before anything can be expected to improve. It is not helping to continue to blame President Bush and therefore President Obama can't be blamed for it. It can. He's got the reins and the bully pulpit and he is the one who needs to be providing the leadership.

If he doesn't know how, he jolly well better put his own ideology on the back burner, draft some folks who do know how, and get out of their way and let them do it.

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@cicerone imposter,

We moved the family living trust into low yield, safer investments including Schwab money market and little stock. We're down about 15%. The house in Orange County, however, has taken a 40% hit, but, to be truthful, was way over valued by Zillow and other sources up to two years ago.

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@Foxfyre,

I think Obama is being more pragmatic than ideological. Of course, there's an ideology at the base of any statesman's actions, but the retro-cons are barking up the wrong tree. I know it will be emotionally painful if opposition to the recovery plans turn out to be pessimistic soothsayers. Bush ran the country from the gut, like a fish, and a twelve year old fish at that. His gut feelings and "messages from above" suffered from the worse case of future shock. Now after the explosion and the smoke starts to clear, I agree than Obama needs to delegate in a far superior manner than Bush. I think he's on that road. I personally hope he succeeds. This attitude in Washington of it's not good enough to win, others must fail, is a retro-con philosophy and the head of that nail in the coffin is Rush.

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@Lightwizard,

Naw. You assign way too much power to Rush. If Rush had any power, Bill Clinton never would have been elected - twice - John McCain would never have been the GOP nominee in the last election, and Barack Obama would not be President now. The Democrats have done their homework and know how polarizing a figure Rush is--people either love him or hate him--there's little middle ground there--and he has hugely high negatives.

Apparently, Raul Emmanuel, James Carville, and Paul Begala have teamed up to make as much hay out of the "Rush is the head of the GOP" thing as possible and make sure it is high on the list of talking points. Even Paul Begala's brother--there's no bad blood between them but they're on opposite sides of the political spectrum--last night on VanSustern affirmed that the Obama P.R. team is intentionally distorting what Rush said about "wanting Obama to fail". That is not what Rush said but it sounds so much better for P.R. purposes than saying what Rush did say which was that if Obama pushes a far left socialist agenda, he (Rush) wants that to fail.

I suspect they have probably gotten most of the mileage they can get out of that now, and further tacking in that direction is likely to backfire on them. I bet they are already boosting Rush's ratings that have slipped a bit in recent years since he has so much good competition on the radio now, but he's still No. 1 and highly marketable. Virtually all stations that feature him are No. 1 in their markets.

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@Foxfyre,

I agree the administration is making a mistake putting any focus on Rush -- let the retro-cons make that mistake.

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@Lightwizard,

Please define retro-con. (We're having a hell of a time keeping all the various terms straight on this thread.) Smile

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@Foxfyre,

I thought I did when I admitted it was an oxymoron.

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@Foxfyre,

Such as MAC. LOL

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@Lightwizard,

Lightwizard wrote:

I thought I did when I admitted it was an oxymoron.

Oh I saw that but since I wasn't sure what you meant by 'retro-con' in the first place, the oxymoron part didn't really compute either. Not important though.

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@Foxfyre,

Retro as in involving, relating to, or reminiscent of things past.
Con as conservative.

Oxymoron -- they're both the same.

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With the suspicion that every news source in the country turns to the Drudge Report first thing in the morning to find out what the news of the day is likely to be--he seems to be way out in front on a lot of it--I found this last night:

Quote:

CHAVEZ CALLS ON OBAMA TO FOLLOW PATH OF SOCIALISM
Fri Mar 06 2009 17:13:48 ET

Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday called upon US President Barack Obama to follow the path to socialism, which he termed as the "only" way out of the global recession. "Come with us, align yourself, come with us on the road to socialism. This is the only path. Imagine a socialist revolution in the United States," Chavez told a group of workers in the southern Venezuelan state of Bolivar.

The controversial Venezuelan leader, who taunted the United States as a source of capitalistic evil under former president George W Bush, added that the United States needs a leader who can take it to a "higher" destiny and bring it out of "the sad role that it has been given, as a murderous, attacking power that is hated all around the world."

Chavez said that people are calling Obama a "socialist" for the measures of state intervention he is taking to counter the crisis, so it would not be too far-fetched to suggest that he might join the project of "21st century socialism" that the Venezuelan leader is heading.

"Nothing is impossible. Who would have thought in the 1980s that the Soviet Union would disappear? No one," he said.

"That murderous, genocidal empire has to end, and some day there has to come a leader ... who interprets the best of a people who also include human beings who suffer, endure, weep and laugh," the outspoken Chavez said.

Developing...
http://www.drudgereport.com/flashco.htm

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HOW SHALL WE SAVE OUR CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC?

The solution is not to repeatedly sound alarms and repeatedly give the reasons for those alarms. The solution is to impeach President Obama. He is continually transferring wealth from those who earned it to those who have not earned it.

Nowhere in the Constitution has the President, the Congress, or the Judiciary been granted the power to make such wealth transfers. Any of them who make those transfers violate the “supreme law of the land,” and their “oath or affirmation to support this Constitution”"Article VI. They are exercising “the powers not delegated to the United States” and are thereby violating the Constitution"Amendment X. They are committing treason against the United States by “adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort”"Article III. Section 3.

We have to convince those in the House of Representatives, who do not violate their oaths to support the Constitution, to make a motion to impeach President Obama. Failure to take this necessary first step will guarantee the transformation of our country from a Constitutional Republic to a dictatorship.

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@Foxfyre,

The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.
-Mark Twain

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@Lightwizard,

Lightwizard wrote:

Retro as in involving, relating to, or reminiscent of things past.
Con as conservative.

Oxymoron -- they're both the same.

Ah okay. Understood.

It is true that all conservatism, including Modern American Conservatism (i.e. classical liberalism) does more often than not base policy on historical understandings.

Do you think wise or unwise to learn from the past, to analyze what was effective and not effective in policies already tried, to objectively assess what of our history is pertinent, what has been distorted, what is real and what is romanticized, what the unintended consequences have been, what the unexpected benefits were?

Or is it wise or unwise to blindly follow a popular leader and just ignore historical perspective while hoping or trusting that he knows what he is doing?

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."--Thomas Sowell.

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AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

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