9.5% unemployment AFTER the President assured us that the Stimulus Bill was necessary to keep unemployment from going above 8%.

Well, President Obama got his Stimulus Bill.

And, we got 9.5% unemployment – and climbing.

Is there any surprise? The American public voted for a man whose entire executive experience consisted of running the snack fund at the Harvard Law teacher’s lounge. A 22 year old Army sergeant has more leadership and executive experience.

I’d like to see the President prove himself with something simple, like bringing the unemployment rate down to a more manageable rate BEFORE I sign on to something as signficant as an overhaul of our nation’s health care.

“My contention is that even given that as their goal the excessively centralize version of “healthcare” that they propose works better in theory than in practice.”

Yeah, I think we do agree except I don’t believe they even think it ‘works better’ in theory. As working better is not the actual goal. Its just part of the rhetoric package.

http://wizbangblog.com/content/2009/07/30/michigans-disastrous-economy-isenglers-fault.php

http://wizbangblog.com/content/2009/07/30/teaching-paul-krugman.php

The goal is not to help the poor. The goal is government control in order to push forced equality.

I dont know if we’re really in disagreement here. I fully accept that their agenda is that of “government control in order to push forced equality,” with, I would add, much “help the poor” rhetoric alongside. My contention is that even given that as their goal the excessively centralize version of “healthcare” that they propose works better in theory than in practice. A more practical approach, even one seeking power to enforce equality, would have been able to more critically review one’s assumptions about the nature of the U.S. economy and culture (and about the nature of people in general), and to have amended one’s assumptions based upon the factual observations.

Actually, I think we could well be lucky that Obama-Pelosi-Reid are so “tone deaf,” as I think it will be the undoing of their project. Their idealized image of European social-democracy simply does not function as they think it will, and given that the US is such an individualistic society with a high level of fluidity between classes, the people are simply not buying it.

For those who say missile defense will never work… this is the 19th success after 23 firings.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1203370/Pictured-U-S-missile-defence-test-hailed-success-North-Korea-tensions-rise.html

note that the US as of this election is no longer the free country she was, nor will she ever be again.

As a form of anti-leftist “agit-prop,” it makes its point; but as an objective source of information, I have to take issue with the map.

The map is practically awash with countries labelled either “Communist,” “Socialist,” “past-Communist,” or “Islamic.” The only countries left unlabeled are Botswana, Cameroon, Gabon, Togo, Benin, South Korea, and Papua New Guinea. The United States is lumped in as a “Communist” country, along with such countries as Japan, Germany, Brazil, Chile, Sweden, and Norway. Countries with a “Moderate to Strong Socialist influence” include Canada, France, the UK, and Argentina. Then there is the category listed as “Communist/Narco-communist Insurgency” which includes Mexico, Colombia, Peru (OK , so far!), Puerto Rico (??!!), Spain (??), Bangladesh, Greece (??) and the Philipines.

So, apparently, according to the map, the US (along with Germany and Japan) is now more socialized than Canada, France, the UK, and Argentina. (Is the US now “Communist” just because Obama is in power? If so, wouldn’t conservative-led Germany, Canada, and France now be out of the Communist/Socialist orbit??)

What concerns me about this is that words have meanings. Back in the 1960s, and still today among the left, there are those who label anything they disagree with “fascist.” But, “Fascism”, like “Communism,” has a specific meaning, as anyone who has experienced life (or read about life) in Nazi Germany, or Mussolini’s Italy could tell you. Merely being angry with the policies of (say) Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan, does not make the US “fascist.” During the ’60s, people used to march with placards that read “Nixon,” with the “x” in the shape of a swastika. The irony of this is that the very fact that these people were free to protest using those placards showed that American was clearly not a fascist country, notwithstanding occasionally erroneous (even authoritarian) policies of any given administration.

My parents fled a real Communist dictatorship in Cuba, and from their experiences and my studies, I know what “Communism” really is. The fact that Obama (and Pelosi and Reid, and a large portion of today’s Democrats) is heavily influenced by Marxist and socialist ideas does not make this country Communist. For example, in truly Communist Cuba, one would not dare, as we do here, speak out in protest against the president and his party. (Although, as the experince of Chavez in Venezuela has shown, its important, even in a democratic republic, to be vigilant against abuses of power. We do neeed to be vigilant here in the US, too.)

I oppose Obama, and I oppose the efforts to socialize the health care system that the Obama-Pelosi-Reid trio want to enact. I oppose a large chunk of their leftist agenda, beyond health care. But the way to successfully oppose them is by factually taking apart their agenda, an agenda that is largely out of sync with the needs of this society or its ideals.

I dont think it helps our effort to ignore true differences between, say, a European social-democratic system (like, say, in Sweden), and that of an actual Communist dictatorship (as in present day Cuba, or in the former USSR). I don’t think the more economically socialized system of many European countries is good for the US, as I feel that the more free-market oriented system works better for such an individualistic society as ours, but neither do I think that that European model is equivalent to the brutal totalitarianism of Soviet Marxist-Leninism. There is a difference. There are many things I can say about Obama, a lot of them negative, but I’m not ready to turn him into a Castro, a Mao, or a Breznev just yet.

“Its as if they have greater loyalty to the theories found in a book (or in the latest issue of The Nation magazine), or in the airy ideals one may have gotten in a college study group, than to the reality “on the ground.””

I think part of the problem it appears in conflict (hence a theory vs result point) is you buy their arguments in favor on face value.

The goal is not to help the poor. The goal is government control in order to push forced equality.

We could just cover the remaining people who not have some time of coverage (extending it to middle class people who loose coverage).

It’s just not the real goal.

Part of the problem with 90% of the media being run by democrats is they tend to discount these arguments as silly. When 90% of people are on the same ‘side’ they can create social pressure / take all the air out of the room for other views. They think democrat proposals are pragmatic / common sense while criticism of the left are right wing parania / mccarthism. Sorta, the Obama going to Wrights church for years means nothing but that McCain speaking at a questionable preacher’s church once was a valid story.. kind of phenom. So, we can’t really discuss the Left’s goals.