@Foxfyre,
Re G. Will's JWR essay:
This is scary but of no surprise to MAC's or anyone paying attention to President Obama's present behavior or past rhetoric. Those so attentive remember the present Admin denying South Carolina's request to use stimulus funds to be fiscally responsible by paying down debt, which would result in financial savings down the road for the state. As we have mentioned in the past the MAC antennae became erect after hearing Obama's question to the representative American worker/entrepreneur, Joe the Plumber: "Don't you think we should share the wealth?" At the time neither participant in that conversation was wealthy or powerful. Joe Had plans to become so and merely wanted the Feds to stay neutral regarding his "happiness" which he intended to provide by his own labor and intelligence.
Obama has become powerful and feels that the Federal government can better plan and regulate American society at a Macro level than individual Americans can at a personal level. Presently there seem a growing number of individuals that would take President Obama to task on his socialistic goals both on a personal and national level of care. At issue is really whether Americans will truly be allowed to pursue "happiness" via their own lawful designs. If not, then Americans will have some "life" but little in the way of "liberty".
Candidate and President Obama, like the former Obama, "has a gift". We find a quote from D. Henninger's April 30th 2009 Column:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124105013014171063.html
Quote:…Early in the campaign, in January 2007, a New York Times reporter wrote a story about Mr. Obama's time as president of the Harvard Law Review. It was there, the reporter noted, "he first became a political sensation."
Here's why: "Mr. Obama cast himself as an eager listener, sometimes giving warring classmates the impression that he agreed with all of them at once." Also: "People had a way of hearing what they wanted in Mr. Obama's words."
Harvard Law Prof. Charles Ogletree told how Mr. Obama spoke on one contentious issue at the law school, and each side thought he was endorsing their view. Mr. Ogletree said: "Everyone was nodding, Oh, he agrees with me."
This is, of course, what Politicians do while on the campaign trail however, honesty and clarity is what is demanded of those that wish to become good national leaders:
Quote:Al Gore's former chief of staff Ron Klain, also of Harvard Law, reflects on the Obama sensation: "The interesting caveat is that is a style of leadership more effective running a law review than running a country."
It is not hard to make the case that Obama, or any president, is still on the campaign while in the four years of what he hopes to become the first term of two. But, we have increasing evidence, by way of a demonstrated inability to control his own party and a constant longing to satisfy radical Democratic elements then often reversing those decisions when it is apparent that they were not entirely well thought out, (Memos, Photos, closing Gitmo, etc) that Obama either does not understand that his first responsibility is to the overall safety and economic well being of the nation or just does not know how to accomplish this goal via leadership skills.
To many this dichotomy is too kind. They would point out, as G. Will has in this scathing column, that Obama wants to scrap the American way of life and, indeed, the American Dream of self advancement and increased wealth for the European model of personal compliance to mediocrity and dependence on the state. This begs the question: “Does Obama realize who the Europeans (and others all over the world) have depended on for, not only economic success, but their very security since circa 1914?”
Finally, we are to believe that Obama has it all figured out (again we see subjective interpretation of Obama’s carefully espoused general and gauzy views) but again and again history teaches differently regarding ever increasing state control in both personal and economic matters. Recent examples point to the failings of the Soviet model and the poor record of the Europeans Re economic productivity. But a very recent testimony by a Chinese champion of economic liberalism points to the very claim that the State provides the best wisdom as fallacious because, as it turns out, the State Administration as Decider in Chief via all its experts still tends to distill down to a few or even a one man decision machine. Here are some thoughts from Zhao Ziyang’s memoirs. Zhao was Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party (can you say ‘Top Dog’?) During the Tiananmen Square thingy. Zhao championed economic liberalization under “soft authoritarianism” (not exactly sharing the wealth, which assumes private ownership, but a more socialistic Distribute the Wealth"assuming the state owns the wealth then doles it out-- perhaps a distinction with little difference):
Quote:“…Zhao was initially a supporter of "soft authoritarianism." But he understood the importance of economic reforms, which he implemented as a leader in Guangdong and then Sichuan province. His policies, which included giving land rights to farmers and lifting state production quotas, were so immediately successful that a popular description became, "If you want to eat, look for [Zhao] Ziyang." Zhao also opened up the eastern coastal region to trade and development.
Only after his house arrest did Zhao conclude that a truly free economy also requires political liberalization, particularly a free press and independent judiciary. "If a country wishes to modernize, not only should it implement a market economy, it must also adopt a parliamentary democracy as its political system," he wrote in his memoirs.
This represented a shift in his thinking. "I once believed that people were masters of their own affairs," he wrote, "not in the parliamentary democracies of the developed nations in the West, but only in the Soviet and socialist nations' systems with a people's congress . . . This, in fact, is not the case. The democratic systems of our socialist nations are all just superficial; they are not systems in which the people are in charge, but rather are ruled by a few or even a single person."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124234178868121273.html
Here we have wisdom straight from the horse’s mouth: Communism and Socialism ends up being tyranny and is just as corrosive to freedom as any system that does so honestly, whether ruled by Monarchs, Czars, Ceasars, Hitlers, or just Saddam Husseins.
JM
