Has Obama done any irreversible damage so far?
I saw the above question in the comments section of a post at Althouse, and I believe the answer is “yes.”
But the reason I say this may surprise you. It’s not any one action or decision, or even several. It’s not even whether health care reform, if passed, can be reversed. It’s not the terrible precedent set by using reconciliation for a bill that is unpopular, not a budget or deficit measure, and has no bipartisan support. It’s not even Obama’s foreign policy, that insults our allies and emboldens dictators and fails to scare Iran in the least, although all of the above matter very much and they are all very bad.
I think the worst damage Obama has done is that, until now, America has always been a solid and somewhat predictable commodity, both domestically and internationally. There have been many fluctuations, of course. Presidents came and presidents went. Some were Republicans and some Democrats, some conservative and some liberal. But there remained a certain commonality and dependability that Americans and the rest of the world—our allies and our enemies—could depend on.
Allies would remain allies, and when the chips were down we would defend them. Enemies would remain enemies, even if we sometimes got closer to them and sometimes backed away from contact. We would get into debt, but not too much. Our economy was solid. And so on and so forth. But Obama has become a loose cannon, and American is suddenly not the rock it used to be. And I wonder if we ever again will be regarded in the same way.
Your observation brings to mind another loose cannon as president who severely damaged the world around him, Jimmy Carter. His weakness set the stage for our ongoing radical Islamic problem.
Neo’s point is valid but Obama damages us in a more insidious direct fashion. At the end of the day what constrains both foriegn and domestic policy is money. Nothing new, that goes back thousands of years.
Obama is removing future options by burning up our capital actively managing the private sector’s participation in the economy and racing through our credit by ramping up the deficit. Nials Fergusan recently discussed the rapid decline of past societies when a tipping point is reached, triggering a black swan moment.
That is danger Obama creates, a negative feedback loop that denies a future America room to move.
That “America is suddenly not the rock” may in the long term not be a bad thing. Our “friends” have been way too complacent for decades. We save their bacon without seeking much in return.
I hope that when (not if, when) control of the Ship of State is recovered by the proper captaincy, that we do not fall back into our old ways. It seems increasingly probable that we simply will not be able to financially afford to. Defeat the enemies, always, and I include the present Administration in that. But friendship is a two-way street, and the big picture is our ‘friends’ are running out of our money, an end of surrogacy.
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Clinton was on his way to becoming Carter II when he was saved from his own stupidity by a Republican Congress. He would have been as much a disaster, domestic and foreign, had the Democrats not lost the Congress in 1994. We are now experiencing Carter III. As with Carter I and Carter II, Carter III disheartens our friends and en-heartens our enemies. And, on a similar vein, he disheartens the Democrats and en-heartens the Republicans. Carters I, II and III are cut from the same cloth. The next Democrat candidates for president will be clones of Carter I and eventually one of them will be attractive and memory of Democrat misrule will have faded, so we will have to deal with Carter IV. In the meantime, we have to do what we can to recapture our heritage and undo, to the extent we can, the welfare state. I think the world is waking up to the real possibility that Democrats are isolationists and don’t give a damn for the rest of the world. Nor do they care for anything but their own power.
Ann Coulter noted that bith Democrats and Republicans run for president as conservatives but that, while Republicans sometimes lie, Democrats always lie and immediately move to govern from the left. Joan Rivers joked that every time Jimmy Carter told a lie he grew another tooth. Clinton had problems with the meaning of the word “is”. With Obama I can’t remember when he ever told the truth.
Tom says, “the big picture is our ‘friends’ are running out of our money. . . .”
Yes. Well. As Margaret Thatcher famously said, “The problem with socialism is that, eventually, you run out of other people’s money.”
The worst legacy of Obama is not Health Care, Foreign Policy, or Domestic Spending. It is bringing the Chicago Way of politics to the national stage.
Trust on elected officials and the justice system is heading lower and lower, towards the levels of a third world nation. Once this trust has eroded, society sinks because that thin blue line that separates a government of laws from a government of favored people is no longer there. Obama is trying to obliterate this line with the full backing of the Democratic party and the MSM. This is the true, never-go-back legacy of this President.
Pablo, in my opinion hits the nail on the head. Domestic and foreign policy disaster, we’ve been there before with Carter. Everyone acts like these times are horrible. I recommend that those who are old enough, revisit in their memories and the Carter years of high unemployment, inflation, bracket creep, loss of respect by our allies and adversaries. Carter’s coddling of dictators, i.e. kissing of Brezhnev’s cheek at a summit meeting, etc.
No, Obama and the Congress now presiding are the most blatantly and openly corrupt since the era after the civil war. Obama’s damage is in the erosion of trust in the government. His crass politicization of, everything. His intolerance of any dissent or difference of opinion and the “I won” entitlement attitude he and his cohorts have brought to the forefront national stage. His attempt to grow government exponentially and his ruinous debt.
We will be a while ridding our nation of the stink from this administration and Congress.
Did you all see this Telgraph op piece by Con Coughlin (via Real Clear Politics, Friday)?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/concoughlin/7373408/Falkland-Islands-The-Special-Relationship-is-now-starting-to-seem-very-one-sided.html
Obama has managed to take us from the shared heritage of the Magna Carta to tit-for-tat thinking that ignores our base philosophy. The comments are interesting, as they range from American apologies for Obama to who sacrificed most in WWI. Because he has no core, he seeks to deprive us of ours. We simply can’t let him succeed. My ancestors go back to pre-revolution times. They cleared land, built farms, fought a terrible civil war, helped set up county school systems, and served on election boards. Today, the descendents continue on contributing to the communities in which they live. Who the hell does this man think he is?
I think the worst damage Obama has done is that, until now, America has always been a solid and somewhat predictable commodity, both domestically and internationally.
Yes, and that damage is not just to America but to the world.
Since the end of WWII America has been the rock, the solid source of prosperity and strength that the world depended on for stability.
That’s not an ideal situation and the US was not perfect either, but it was workable, even remarkable, when looked at from the long vantage of history.
I doubt things will return to that equilibrium after Obama departs and we are poorer and less safe for that.
In line with pablo’s comment on trust, the other terrible legacy from Obama is that America was already crazy polarized and now it’s worse.
It’s hard to see how we find our way back when the guy who said he was going to heal the country and got half the country to believe him turned out to be an incompetent ideologue who set new records for broken promises and cynicism.
And what happens to the young people who voted 2:1 for Obama? I can’t entirely blame them. That’s the time for idealism and Obama strip-mined their idealism. We’ve got some rebuilding to do and we need our youth to be involved.
That’s going to be an angry generation when they realize that not only did Obama betray their hopes for a better world, but he will have saddled them with dire financial burdens.
I do blame young people. Idealism doesn’t mean stupidity, and anyone with a modicum of critical thinking skills saw Obama for exactly what he is from Day One. I don’t think I’m smarter than all those commentators, but I didn’t buy his empty promises and hollow rhetoric for one moment.
Of course, it didn’t help that the Democrats candidates consisted of two radicals with no executive experience and minimal experience in elected office and quite possibly the sleaziest person ever to run for President. Of course, it helped even less that the Republican side was just as weak (I sat out the Republican primary because I couldn’t bring myself to vote for any of them). 2008 brought us probably the worst slate of candidates for President in the history of the Republic, and the worst one won.
The young people of this country were naive and foolish, far more than should be expected of _adults_ supposedly educated in the greatest country in the world. Their willingness to ignore the obvious and cling to pipe dreams with no basis in reality has cost this country dearly. They have no one to blame but themselves, because if it was obvious to me that Obama was a pathetic and petty incompetent, it should have been obvious to enough people to send him back to his Marxist clique in Chi-town.
Next time, they should consider whether the candidate selling “hope and change” has ever accomplished anything constructive in his entire life, which Obama most certainly has not. Being President, as they used to say when Jesse Jackson was running, is not an entry-level job. Well, we’ve got an entry-level president who’s never held an honest job nor created anything of value in his entire coddled, radicalism-saturated life, and the young people who bought his rhetorical garbage are definitely to blame, as is the hopelessl
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The Bamster has done great damage. If health care passes it will be irreversible.
However, he has also done us a great favor by unmasking the radical socialists among us.
We will probably slide into the abyss. At least now it is with open eyes. The problem is not Obama, but the 40%-ish of our countrymen who are communists, and those who do not support and defend the constitution.
Good post, Neo, and I also agree with Pablo and Huxley. The worst damage is to the younger generations witnessing a debasing of the Office of the President — and therefore a debasing of the principles of our founding — unlike ANYTHING in our lifetimes, certainly, and possibly ever in our nation’s tender history. This will haunt us and erode our national character irrevocably.
The dear young, in particular, were thrilled thinking they were electing our own Mandela. God help us all, he acts more like a Mugabe every day.
Obama is doing exactly what he said he was going to to and getting exactly what he wants.
He told our trading partners that America will no longer be the engine of global growth, that we will no longer import and consume as we have in the past. He told our allies that they need to do more of the heavy lifting, that America will not always be the global cop.
The result will be a sharp decline in our standard of living, higher unemployment and slow European style growth. Big social programs that require dramatic cuts in defense spending (the point no one seems to get about health care costs – he will manage the costs by cutting defense, thats part of the goal with big public health care) are his aim and hes doing slowly getting there.
I don’t think that a Republican winning an election does anything to halt the march of leftism.
Democrats and Republicans are united to form the Misandry Party.
Irreversible for at least two generations, perhaps a bit longer:
There will no longer be an opening for a person of African descent to reach a high political executive office; the “brand” has become unfairly tainted by incompetence and misplaced expectance.
As a result, the nation will lose the benfits of perhaps several talented and prodictive persons, as we have lost and are losing with the special classifications assigned to women.
The biggest damage done by Obama is the notion that it is OK for a President to flat out lie to the American people. He goes way beyond spin and marketing and just says things that are patently not true.
The dumb asses who elected Obama and this Congress are experiencing the consequences of their actions, along with the rest of the world.
How’s that hopenchange working out for you?
None of it is a surprise. We were all warned about BO’s lack of accomplishment. His terrorist “friends”. His America hating “Pastor”. His connections to ACORN…and on and on and on. This guys is functioning as expected.
It’ll be very interesting when he declares a state of emergency and tries to take over. Think it won’t happen? Think again.
When the government becomes corrupt, it is but a short time till the people become corrupt, because that’s the only way to deal with a corrupt government. You see it over & over in socialist countries, and you will see it here.
ConceptJunkie, I cannot agree more about the foolishness of our young people.
The problem is that their foolishness is by design.
The schools across this country are funded by even more foolish taxpayers. California is required by statute to spend half its budget on education, defined as the failed unionized school system.
Those schools, after thirteen or more years of “instruction” fail even to teach reading and writing, much less American history and civics. What did Rush say last week — a majority of students could not name when the War of 1812 took place, much less who participated and why. Talk about failure of critical thinking!
Until we take back government education, all is certain to get worse.
Good comments on this thread, especially pablo panadero, ConceptJunkie, Carol191, and sean.
Yes, I think much of what he’s doing is irrevocable. In the past our wealth and military strength could compensate for a poor President and bring us back to some sort of equilibrium. But now, with our ballooning deficits, we don’t have the margin to pull out of this tailspin without the wings coming off.
An “angry generation” without an understanding of or appreciation for our founding principles. Now that’s scary.
We will know more about this after November. If we are witnessing the beginning of the Third Great Awakening, there is hope for a reversal of course.
Obama’s legacy is both a blessing and a curse. He, along with his radicals-in-power in Congress, will have made nearly all citizens true cynics with regard to government. No longer will they believe that politicians will be anything but lying, power-greedy, corruptocrats.
Due to his role-modeling, few other than lying, power-greedy corruptocrats will be attracted to politics. Brainless bureaucrats will work for the corruptocrats, and red-tape and abuse by government will become the norm. Thus, the value-on-the-dollar of our tax money used by government will decrease immensely and we will be taxed more and more and get less and less.
The blessing of this is that it will produce an equal and opposite reaction towards virtue and honor, and in a number of generations, the nation will right itself to slough off the bondage of tyranny…wait…maybe that’s happening now!
Reasoner:
I hope your conclusion is right, but much of what you said goes back to pablo panadero’s point. Increased cynicism towards government leads to a Third World kind of mentality, and Third World populations are not noted for virtue and honor, but rather corruption and laziness.
America’s Founders were certainly under no illusion regarding the venality and power-hunger of those who would govern. They created a government of laws and not of men, whose power was strictly circumscribed. America succeeded largely because the people respected the government and the government respected the people.
But turn the government into a kleptocracy, and all that trust and respect goes down the drain. It’s hard for me to see how it can be recovered.
Obama has done much harm to the USA, as did Carter and Clinton. Much of that harm, IMHO, is that we’re no longer either a dependable ally or opponent. What does Obama’s vision of America stand for, does he know?
One issue that Obama might in fact be helping is defining America’s role in our world? Are we to be the world’s policeman or fireman or what? Or, should we go back to being safely behind the two oceans; is that even possible today? It’s also obvious that the UN is not capable of providing help to troubled spots, whether Haiti, Chile, or lawless areas like AfPak, Syria, Iran, or anywhere else. So, is it our place to step in or to stand back? The issue is in defining our role, the Cold War is gone, Al Qaeda is a wraith spirit, and we don’t seem to know what to do except flex our military or not. For example, do we need 11-carrier battlegroups, a 12-division army, how do we provide for the country’s future and its security?
However, Obama has no sense of what it means to be an American nor to lead. His ideology drives him to demand compliance because he is president and he wants to change us forever. So, hopefully Obama will discovery he will in fact fail to change this country to his Statist dream, and his concept of positive Constitutional Governmental Rights is not enabled. It will take a strong willed next American President to return the country to something like what we were before. Maybe in doing so, the Socialist Left will melt away like the Wicked Witch.
Good post CoceptJunkie and many others.
As for the US recovering, the USA recovered from the Civil War, the extermination of a generation of leaders that came with it, and robber baron era, and grew stronger from the Great Depression. Tough times will make us wiser, just as easy times led to Obama. As for the health care law, it is 2,700 pages of gobbledygook that no one understands or has read and few want, even if passed it will prove so unworkable that it will be largely ignored and eventually repealed, as has happened to other stupid social engineering legislation,e.g. aid to dependent children (repealed by the much bashed Clintion) or prohibition.
Remember we are not like the other so called “democracies” which are really party aristocracies. The public has very little control what their “representatives” do. We can change things here. Look at Massachusetts, do you think any other state will blindly vote Democratic?
The best thing we can do to restore the US as “the rock, the solid source of prosperity and strength that the world depended on for stability” as Huxley wrote is exactly what we are doing. Rising up in revolt against Obmessiah and his minions and in the process show the world what the real US is made of. We are not the passive push overs the elitist thought we would be, the boys and girls of ’76 would be proud of us.
In fact we are lucky, very lucky with regard to Obama in one respect. He is OBLIVIOUSLY a complete screw up. Even he acknowledges that he can forget about a second term.
BTW it is rather unfair to compare him to Jimmy Carter. Carter made an issue of human rights, Obama makes an issue of denying human rights, remember his Cairo speech proclaiming no nation has the right to impose democracy on another, his address to the Islamic Republic of Iran rather than the people of Iran like Bush, his effort to penalize Honduras for not allowing a leftist dictator to destroy democracy in that country. Our generally acknowledged worst president, Buchanan, was never against democracy like Obama, just lousy at preserving the union. Obama is truly unique in his worthlessness. I wonder why only a few people so far have proclaimed the worst president in US history? He obvious deserves the title.
Obama and the Dem Congress are doing great harm to the country but it might still be reversible if we get a new Congress, if HC reform isn’t passed, if cap & trade fails to pass in the Senate, and if amnesty isn’t granted to millions of illegals. Lots of ifs. Lots of harm being done to children in schools with progressive indoctrination. It’s time for parents to be outraged.
I came here from Instapundit. I, too, am a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in Virginia, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I’ve found myself slowly but surely leaving the fold and becoming something else. I’ve always considered myself a liberal but now, that’d have to be a classic liberal, AKA independent conservative, i.e., social liberal, fiscal conservative. I’m also Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel. Does that make me a neocon? I just don’t know and have a hard time with labels and the idea of being pigeonholed.
Back in 2007, I liked the idea of Obama running for president. That changed in January, 2008, when I started to learn more about Obama and the alarm bells went off in my head. I supported Hillary during the 2008 campaign. When she dropped out in June of that year, I went to McCain’s HQ to meet John McCain, questioned him on some issues, and became a supporter. Yes, I knew he was a member of American Friends of Bilderberg and that his policy positions were similar to Obama’s but I thought he mightn’t be as bad. Progressive Pubs aren’t quite as bad as progressive Dems.
Now, I’d be happy to vote for a conservative but not a right-wing religious conservative who’s into intelligent design. I love Sarah Palin but would have a hard time supporting her for president, even though she’s a great supporter of Israel.
If we don’t want Obama to have a lasting negative impact on this wonderful country, we’re going to have to all try as hard as we can to ensure that the Dems lose control of Congress and the WH. With the right leadership, we can revive our industrial base and become more energy independent. We could build thorium-based reactors, for example. There are endless possibilities with good leadership.
All Obama seems to be interested in is managing our decline and help us to decline as China gets stronger. Things just don’t have to be this way.
Evaluate our situation in light of past examples,
and despair. Consider the unprecedented effects
of the Web to convey information, and Hi-Tech
to create new wealth, and see a narrow window
of opportunity to reform our politics and rekindle
our economy; Here and now, you, me, and the
fellow behind the tree: Lead, follow, or get the
Hell out of the way.
Huxley, agree with your comments vis-avis the young who voted for Obama. They are now learning that elections have consequences. There is a sort of peotic justice that the young, most of whom voted for the Pretender-in-Chief, will be the ones paying for his policies long after guys my age are dead and gone.
Koblog, your comments about public education are right on the money, but don’t forget college, too. I’ve taught high school and college science, and the PC rot is equally bad in both. If you have school-aged children, and can afford to do so, please consider enrolling them in a private school, or home-schooling them.
The government in the long-past days of my youth, while often incompetent, was without question on the side of America and her citizens. With the current administration, we are witnessing the first post-American president, a man who is definiantly un-American and proud of it.
Sign those petitions for impeachment, folks, and let’s get this fraud out of office as soon as possible, before it is too late!
Happy Instalanche, Neo!
This post also got linked at Grouchy Conservative Pundits via the Instapundit link. Some good comments there, too.
Pete read what RubinReports says is happening in the fourth grade. The anti-American indoctrination begins young these days.
What petition for impeachment? If I knew there was one I would have signed it.
I figure by October more than a few Republicans will be promising impeachment. Hopefully by January of next year enough Democrats will acknowledge that Obama has to go. At least Biden is not anti-American, strange maybe, and has a tendency to channel British politicians, but not anti-American.
It is almost as if we went to sleep and awakened in another country. Where did these people come from in such great numbers? Why do they know nothing of civics, or economics, or of the foundational principles of our country? Why are they so willing to lie, extort, steal and slander — bankrupting generations to come just so they can implement policies which are proven failures? Why can’t they feel shame? Science fiction has no stories of pod people even half as frightening— or as absurd.
You can’t even have a discussion with these people because there is no mutual basis from which to start. Explaining the Constitution or the reasons the Founders thought of government as a necessary evil in certain clearly proscribed areas is like trying to explain string theory to a monkey. Their teachers have left the ground fallow and nothing will grow there now that it has been salted by other influences.
I will say this much for Hillary and some of the other Democrats. They knew that their objections to Guantanimo, or claims of blood for oil etc… were insincere. Those were just the Frankenstein monsters they were using to scare the rubes. Well now the monster they created is in the White House. Obama was ignorant enough, and unsophisticated enough, to actually believe all of that crap so he was better able to sell it.
Who knows how it will all turn out in the end but one thing is abundantly clear. Mr. Obama’s education will be the most expensive one in history.
To Hayek With You Says:
March 7th, 2010 at 12:58 am
That was good. I have to laugh to keep from crying.
The Left charges the Tea Parties/Right with threatening violence simply because they speak up at town halls and assemble peaceably to petition the government… but the actual violence so far has been carried out by the angry Left:
* Amy Bishop guns down her co-workers when she doesn’t get her way
* the Bush-hater flies his plane into the IRS building
* radicals at Berkeley light the campus on fire
* anti-globalists burn cars and break windows
* avowed lefty shoots up the Pentagon
* eco-terrorists burn down partially-built housing projects and burn new-car lots to destroy SUVs
I think way before the right gets angry enough at Obama’s destructive incompetence to take up arms against the Nation they deeply love and appreciate, the left will have done way worse.
There’s nothing quite like a really angry liberal. The unhinged Keith Olbermann comes to mind. The above list proves to me they are capable of almost anything. And this is while they control all levers of government.
If history is any guide as to how angry lefties treat their once-worshiped politicians who let them down, Mussolini comes to mind. And that was after he got the
health caretrains to run on time….“Be assured, my young friend, that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” (Adam Smith) Smith was referring to the reverses the British had suffered in their campaign to restore their American colonies to obedience to the crown. He was right: the sun had yet to set on the British empire. At that time, the empire had more than 100 years more to run before its peak, despite the loss of the 13 rebellious colonies. It will take more than four years of profligacy and ineptitude to cause permanent damage to the United States.
Obama is likely to be regarded as a lame duck by the end of his second year in office. Whatever he screws up in his term may be regarded as an aberration. The people are ahead of their government now. Ask a 20- or 30- something how much they expect to get from Social Security. Pessimism or arithmetic?
We all know there is no free lunch. Someone needs to tell those nitwits with the snoods scooping tuna salad that they are going to have to punch out and go home.
The Rubicon was stiffing GM bondholders.
That ended commercial law in the US.
Koblog is correct and the damage being done by the public schools is by design. It is all part of the progressive agenda that goes back over 100 years.
How to reverse the damage while there is still a USA is the question. It won’t be quick or easy. Thank goodness home schooling has not been outlawed – yet.
About foreign policy: widespread consternation, especially in Europe, about the way Obama’s presidency has turned out, may not be such a bad thing. The European elites got what they so fervently wished for all these years, and see what it did for them. They may even have to start thinking about defending themselves.
TTT Says:
March 6th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
That is one hell of a link. I’m still working my way through it.
“…There will no longer be an opening for a person of African descent to reach a high political executive office; the “brand” has become unfairly tainted by incompetence and misplaced expectance….”
I see this prediction occasionally and I disagree strongly. First of all, to say the “brand” has been tainted is a blatantly racist statement. Maybe to you, but you can’t speak for anyone else in that regard.
I can’t think of any conservative or Tea Partier who would hesitate to vote for a black conservative. Especially after going through this racially charged election and living in this identity-group-obsessed administration, we are all the more determined to treat people according to their character, not the color of their skin.
I don’t think Obama’s presidency will rebound to the detriment of other African-Americans, as such.
I know it is depressing, but of course Obama’s overreach is not irreversible. The assumption comes from British acceptance of the NHS and Canadian acceptance of their National Health Care pan.
Americans are not Brits, and they are not Canadians. The British wanted their National Health Care, as did the Canadians who remain convinced that their health care is free. Americans, by a significant majority want no part of ObamaCare.
Democrats are betting that Americans will come to love government health care as soon as they have experienced it. Why? It doesn’t do one single thing that Obama claims. There is nothing positive about it.
The uninsured and the poor get covered by Medicaid, which is broke in most states, and fewer and fewer doctors will accept Medicaid patients. Free health care isn’t much good if you can’t find a doctor. Contrary to assumptions, premiums will be higher than they were before. Somewhere over 40% of doctors polled said they would consider leaving medicine or just quitting if ObamaCare passed.
Massachusetts health care is essentially broke after only 3 years, and Gov. Patrick is asking the legislature to pass price controls — which never work.
Are Americans passive wimps who will sit back and whine, and accept the inevitable? Not the Americans I know, and I don’t think the Americans you know either.
I think rhhardin has it right:
“The Rubicon was stiffing GM bondholders.”
We are now a nation whose government has NATIONALIZED two-thirds of a major industry. That is not something that happens in a free, capitalist society. To the best of my knowledge, it’s not even something that happens in Socialist countries. It is something that happens in a nation that is taking its final steps from increasing socialism into out-and-out communism. We’re not there yet, but we’ve come further in the past year than at any time in our history — including the reign of FDR.
Every step that this country has taken down the staircase called socialism away from the freedom of its founding principles and towards the tyranny of communism has been irreversible. I will stand corrected if anyone can name more than two.
Now we’re taking irreversible steps three at a time.
Reaction across the pond is telling. Con Coughlin, the most staunch US supporter in Britain, pissed off by Obama’s betrayal of British claims to Falkland Islands, now writes in Daily Telegraph that “special relationship” became one-sided.
The progressive indoctrination is very much in the open. Simply google “boulder colorado school system” and read the mission statement. It is chilling. Bill Bennett is doing excellent work in this area and needs all the support and attention that he can get. I assume he does not have a blog because I never see him linked to.
The Democrats are doing what they have been doing since Carter: proving that they are incapable of governing.
Each and every time Democratic voters think “this time, it’ll be different!”
Dare I mention that repeating harmful activity in the belief that it will somehow end up different this time is an indication of psychological problems?
And they think conservatives (and neo-neo-conservatives) are the wackos?
Projection, anyone?
On the same topic of instability, my wife works at a hospital and it is very slow, naturally. The CEO is a hard core lefty and he sent out the letter sugarcoating that lay offs are likely coming for some. Anyway, even HE acknowledged and is upset about the constant lack of certainty regarding health care policy. They cannot plan for the future because they don’t know what the government’s health care policy will be. Imagine the harm this uncertainty is doing to the economy in this recession.
We are indeed not Brits or Canadians, the majority of us anyway. Even if God forbid my wife were laid off and we lose our insurance, I want NO PART of government health care. They can take it and SHOVE IT. I’ll manage on my own thank you.
It’s a great point. It applies domesticcally as well. We used to be able to count on President and Congress for a certain kind of stability. No more. It’s very difficult for a person to live too long in an unstable psychological or emotional or financial ‘world’. The same must be true for a nation.
If the individueal eventually has a ‘breakdown’ or some sort of ‘event’, what is the equivalent thing that happens to a nation?
One thing I predict, on a good side, is that more and more people will wabt to learn about the history and tradition and morality that kept things stable and good for so long.
Obama will be gone someday …
His voters will remain among us ….
G6loq,
That’s the problem! Where they came from first, and how can we get rid of them second.
They came from 40 years of a purposely dumb-downed and narrow education. They came from 40 years of PCism.
The only way to get rid of them is to begin to educate people again and to counter-PCism to the max. It may be we have to start a movement that intentionally counters PC-speak.
What I am sure of is that it is eiother us or them. The two sides we have in America any more cannot live together for too much longer. Either we go the way of the dinosaurs or they do. There are irreconcilables beyond reconciling at this point. There is a tipping point where you either have freedom and tyranny and not a little bit of both.
I think that whether or not we recover as a nation depends on Americans themselves.
The reason Obama’s presidency is so devastating isn’t that it’s Chicago politics, or reconciliation of awful legislation, or even a profoundly dumb foreign policy.
It’s that he’s the first president in living memory that hated America.
Who would want to do business with an entity whose “boss” hates it and thinks it bad?
Bob From Virginia Says:
This is why I am optimistic about the United States.
Yes, Obama has done damage. But so did Jimmy Carter, and we came back from that prior disaster (hostages held in Iran for over a year, Soviets in Afghanistan, Sandinistas in Nicaragua, economy in shables, “malaise”). In fact we came back to win the Cold War.
I think the reaction the Obama elitists are causing from ordinary Americans… the tea party protests and otherwise… shows just how resilient our country is. I’ll admit this is a bit of emotional reaction, but thats my feeling.
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They have been many fluctuations should read There have been many fluctuations
Paul A’Barge: thanks. I corrected the typo.
What’s coming?
http://tinyurl.com/ya9vxd3
Give this man a neoneoconlanche!
I’m afraid I have to partly disagree with the thesis, the Democratic Congress starting with Watergate (e.g. the betrayal of South Vietnam and Cambodia) and Carter were as bad or worse than Obama when it comes to maintaining the US as a “solid and somewhat predictable commodity”, and the stakes were a lot higher (Islam is not an existential threat to the US, just to a few cities that might get nuked someday).
On the other hand, we’re still paying for the above, with Iran front and center today, and demonstrating that the ’70s were not a one time aberration is likely to cost us dearly. If the American people are irresponsible enough to put such wrecking crews in office twice, there’s no reason to believe they won’t do it again in a couple of decades.
“Islam is not an existential threat to the US, just to a few cities that might get nuked someday.”
But what might happen to the US, existentially, if just “a few” cities get nuked???
“That’s going to be an angry generation when they realize that not only did Obama betray their hopes for a better world, but he will have saddled them with dire financial burdens.”
I thinkthe big problem re the ‘youth’ is not cynicism resulting from having been, but rather that to get their vote he only encouraged a fantasy-based view of how the world works, instead of having an adult conversation in the election.
Each generation, in due time, feels it was betrayed by history. This is an educational experience: when this happens, peoples achieve maturity. For 18+ year old this moment is close enough, and usually it produces people with strong convictions just opposite those they held being young.
betsybounds: I don’t have a very good idea, but, yeah, while most of our people would be alive our political system might not survive.
Also, I think it’s likely that sometime after our 2nd or 3rd city is nuked (i.e. the 3rd through 5th) we will use our nukes to kill almost all the Muslims in the world (outside of the PRC and India … and lets hope that Europe is not Eurabia yet).
That will have terrible consequences for us as well.
…usually it produces people with strong convictions just opposite those they held being young.
Sergey: Ten years down the road, perhaps less, it’s a definite possibility that today’s young Obama voters will turn strongly to the Right.
I’d say it’s a certainty that they will turn even more strongly against the Boomers.
I think that there are several things–so far–that Obama has done in the way of permanent damage.
First and foremost, he has given many more citizens than possibly ever before in living memory reason to view their government as the Enemy; not–as in the past–just a stupid, incompetent, bumbling, accidental enemy, but an intentional, malevolent Enemy–an Enemy that is going to actually come after him, to seek him out, to try to dominate and control him, to impose endless rules and confiscatory taxes on him, and to use this theft to “redistribute” his wealth to the people who make up the largely non-working (and often illegal) but voting and more “deserving,” Democrat supporting mob, and, in the process, to wreck his and his children’s future; and this threat, for the first time since the Civil War and perhaps the Great Depression, has given these words of the Declaration a new relevance and urgency:
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [of securing Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”
The other things that Obama has damaged for the foreseeable future are the “brands” of the Democrats, black politicians and the MSM.
Never before, to my knowledge, has a President as candidate lied so totally about his program, his basic beliefs, and his intentions as has Obama and, thus, I would imagine each and every Democratic candidate for President for the foreseeable future will be viewed by voters with much more skepticism that they would otherwise be viewed.
And, since Obama has traded so heavily on his “Blackness,” that Blackness will be forever associated with his lies and misdeeds (and perhaps even more overt attempts at Tyranny further down the road), again making for distrust of future “Black’ candidates, especially those who have any hint of the hatred of Whites which Obama has demonstrated through his words and actions, and his attendance at the Marxist oriented, White hating, Black Liberation Theology church of the Rev. Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright for 20 years.
Finally, their abandonment of any pretense of “professionalism” or “objectivity,” their total obeisance to Obama, their “Slobbering Love Affair” with him, their willingness to cover up, to look the other way, to print any lie, attack any enemy of Obama and his plans and actions, to become, in effect, Obama and the Democrat’s “Ministry of Truth” means that the MSM is inextricably entwined with and pretty thoroughly tainted by Obama, and when Obama goes down, the MSM–which has been taking on increasing amounts of water–finally goes down with him.
There’s a complementary way to look at this.
America has been about growth, change and progress. For example: The Louisiana Purchase. Emancipation. The Homestead Act. Women’s suffrage. Jazz. Tom Edison. The telephone. Civil rights. The Salk vaccine. The Moon landing. The PC. The Internet. Mobile phones. Consumer GPS.
What transformations are not happening because of Obama’s screw-ups?
On the other hand, unlikely though it seems, if he rights the ship and something big happens on his watch–something like a breakthrough in robotics that makes domestic manufacturing cost-effective–, he could still go out in triumph like Clinton did during the Internet Bubble.
I for one did not vote for Obama and the reason was the man did not have the experience to be the President of the United States. Think about it people, The United States of America supposedly the Greatest Country in the world being run by a man with only what 144 days of experience in politics. We have had some good Presidents and we have had some bad, but through it all at least they had experience. So he gets voted in as President and he is awarded The Nobel Peace Prize??? So tiring to figure that one out. Then he does a great thing and tells Mothers to go back to school. I have a question to all the Mothers out there is it that easy to go back to school. Then he takes away some of your debt from the credit card companies. Which now makes it harder to get a credit card. Now the health care. My Mom is 57 years old she is not going to have any more children she can’t but she has to pay for maternity services and a man who has no children has to pay for pediatric coverage, a healthy individual
will now have to pay for someone who smokes 3 pack of cigarettes a day or someone who drinks a gallon of whiskey etc. And in the future Doctor’s who goes to school to become a specialist and a doctor who goes to school the minimum time to get his degree, will get paid the same??? Does anyone else out there find this a little up setting. If I have cancer I want a specialist and since I am paying for the insurance, then by god my insurance company need to pay the doctors fees. The fact is that we the people have put our self’s in this position that we are in and until we stand up and say ENOUGH, then we get what we deserve. But our children do not so we have to make changes now, I do not think its to late.
Obama: a Disgrace to The United States! A disgrace in The White House!
God Bless America/ Land That I Love!!
Impeachment!!! yes!! President B. O is a fraud, a threat to our Country and its People.
How can we stand by and allow this terrorist to take us down? He and his corrupt friends of terrorist and communist.. why wait for him to do more harm then he has already done.. come on folks.. sign petitions to impeach.. a start!! vote dems out!
God Bless Our Soldiers fighting for our Rights.. we all know Obama could care less..
which is quite interesting. It presented me a couple ideas and I’ll get writing them on my websites soon. I’m bookmarking your blog and I’ll be to return. Thank you again!
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