The President is Missing

Only an ignoranus would vote for Obama in 2012... it is un-American to support Obama.

The word used to describe anyone that votes for Obama in 2012 is ignoranus

Laying out his deficit-reduction plan last week, President Barack Obama once again tried to be a liberal without sounding like a socialist. For all his oratorical gifts, he’s not done so well at this.

Ever since Obama started Joe the Plumber’s fifteen minutes by telling him that “when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” Republicans have successfully promoted the perception that Obama’s brand of progressivism has produced an agenda that leaves Americans vulnerable to the tyranny of tax agents, bureaucrats, and foreign lenders.

But now Obama has found a response to those attacks.

Winding down his remarks at George Washington University, he pulled off a neat rhetorical trick. Obama upended the idea that liberty comes from self-­reliance, making the case that liberty is not constrained by community but a by-product of it.


“We believe that in order to preserve our own freedoms and pursue our own happiness,” he said, “we can’t just think about ourselves.” It’s an argument that (at least to these ears) has an echo of another liberal hero: Jonathan Franzen.

Talking to the Guardian last fall, Franzen asked, “What is it in the national character that’s making us such a problem state?” His answer: “A childish notion of freedom.”

The more adult idea, per Franzen’s Freedom, is that freedom is not what’s gained in the absence of obligations to others but instead found within relationships.

The book warns that freedom for freedom’s sake can make for a grim existence.

In Obama’s logic, gutting Medicare shifts the burden of health costs not just to seniors but also to their families, who will be forced to sacrifice elsewhere in order to pitch in.

Likewise, shortchanging education shortchanges the bootstrapping entrepreneur with jobs to fill.

Freedom, in other words, costs money, some of which will have to come from higher taxes.

Of course, such nuance is more successful in fiction than in national affairs. But at least our writer-president has found the language to get the idea across.

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/franzen-obama-freedom-2011-4/

Quote:

“We believe that in order to preserve our own freedoms and pursue our own happiness,” he said, “we can’t just think about ourselves.” It’s an argument that (at least to these ears) has an echo of another liberal hero: Jonathan Franzen.

I don't think anyone is suggesting it is original as a concept.

What is somewhat original is the way it is being used. Will people understand the costs to them of some of the cost-cutting measures being proposed?

It will be interesting to see how it works for Mr. Obama.

Bloomberg recently talked about how his partner reminds him that the bottom line is something along the lines of "my job. my house". They get it.

Instead of rational approaches to serious, but solvable problems we get rhetoric suggesting class warfare and continued delusion.

What does he want me to do? Does he expect me to not challenge his points?

Could somebody really be that immature and/or stupid?

"The President was born here. I'm a friend of Donald Trump's, he's a New York icon, but I think the Republicans are making a terrible mistake in making [birther-ism] a big issue.

We have immigration, we have the deficit, we have the economy. Those are the things the public cares about.

My girlfriend always says it's about housing and jobs: my house, my job. That's what the public cares about, and if the Republican party doesn't start addressing that, they will lose and they deserve to.

[The back-and-forth between Democrats and the GOP] is good theater, but the country can no longer afford this."

—Speaking out against Donald Trump's birther campaign, Michael Bloomberg sounds sensible on Fox News Sunday today.