Sadly, frighteningly, it seems to be both. One does not exclude the other. The “non-sense” is the received word of Progressivism. It determines their views of history, economics, foreign policy, domestic issues and current events. The underlying, all-encompassing theme is: America is evil, has always been evil and will continue to be evil until we, the Progressives, change America into our vision of what it should be.

You know, Charles Krauthammer has written a series of articles recently where he basically says that Obama never wanted to deal with things like GM, AIG, etc., but was forced to because of the circumstances. Krauthammer thinks all of that was a mistake that will ultimately hinder Obama’s real goals: Cap/Trade and Health Care Reform.

I sure hope Krauthammer is right on this.

I think the magnificent Kraut’s hammer is missing the nail head by a smidgen. Obama’s strategy is to pass, pass, pass and take, take, take before the nation has a chance to wake up from its utopian fantasies. Obama has hit the national consciousness like a whirlwind. It looks to me like he intends to do everything possible in this period of chaos and flux before reality sets in and regret hinders his path. Speed is of the essence.

There must be priorities, to be sure. Nationalized healthcare, once enacted, would be difficult to erase. New constituencies are created, new bureaucracies built and it can be added to over time, program by program, without much opposition. Just get a bill, any bill, passed, could be what he’s thinking. Moral credit can be taken, as in, “We brought healthcare to all our people.” The MSM would be full of tales of poor folks saved by Obama’s national healthcare program.

Cap and Trade is a tax and taxes are never easily rescinded. Politicians crave money for pork and stubbornly cling to the source: taxes. To avoid and mitigate the tax, corporations will curry favor from Obama. More power will be his and the power, unlike the relatively limited trio of banks, insurance companies and the auto industry, will cut across the spectrum of our economy. At a certain point, which has already been reached by Wal-Mart, corporations will begin to try to “game” the new dynamic and they will be in his pocket.

Imagine that, suddenly 1/6 is no longer taxable…

anyone but me realize that the state does not tax itself, so each sector (not business, but sector) it grabs takes billions of revenue away from the tax base?

Obama admitted this when he discussed limiting the charitable tax deduction for high earners; he said that if they really wanted to make a charitable deduction, they would continue to do so anyway. No recognition that many charitable donations would not exist if there were no tax incentive.

In a democrat’s mind, taxes are their birthright (take as en example, Barney Frank’s discussion of a bill to begin spending the return payments of stimulus money before they can be returned to the taxpayer).

basically they roll everything they own into a living trust, and a living trust is not a person. is it?

For an interesting undercover look at Canada’s awful health care system, here’s a link to a video at Big Hollywood:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/scrowder/2009/07/13/must-see-undercover-expose-of-socialized-healthcare/

I think you are right about Obama being influenced by his South Side experience. Unfortunately, because of his academic, theoretical programming and, I think, his own narcissistic personality, he is unable to see the fallacy in all the grand schemes. He just doesn’t understand how people work and what makes a good life. He also caught on to the idea that if you feed people’s grievances, you can gain power and acclaim. He justifies his own feelings of superiority by creating an imaginary “just” world, yet he is too damned lazy to deal with the nitty gritty details. He wants to create a force of health care workers, but he wouldn’t touch a bed pan himself. Nor will he acknowledge that the health care workers and all the bureaucrats who boss them around will be paid by people he wouldn’t sit down to dinner with. He and his will continue with $100/lb beef and congratulate themselves on their discriminating palate.

We don’t have an either/or situation with Obama. We have a self-reinforcing both.

I think that is courting disaster.

I agree with what you said. I just think that when people say “freedom is not free” they are talking about military sacrifice for freedom. That is how I have interpreted it anyway.

That person twisted it into a comment on taxes that seemed very much like, “Do it or you are a bad person.” Reminds me of Jar Jar Biden’s comment about how paying taxes is “patriotic.”

“Meesa thinks you should pay taxes. Meesa thinks you no patriotic unless you PAY.”