Via Ace of Spades,
A week after my father arrived in New York, he and a friend were walking around Manhattan in pure wonder. They got to midtown and stood in front of Bloomingdale’s watching well-dressed people come in and out. They discussed it amongst themselves that they would obviously have to show evidence that they had money, or proof of income, or some other paperwork to get inside. Surely this store for the wealthy wouldn’t just let them in. They watched and watched but didn’t see people getting stopped. They walked slowly through the doors and found no one gave them a second look.
RTWT.
This is the essence of American Exceptionalism.
Americans are motivated by the rich and successful and not jealous of their wealth or success.
Though this is also true to a certain degree in the rest of the Anglosphere and in some other countries, nowhere else is it embraced like it is by the American.
Are we using Romney ads entirely taken out of context for headlines now?
Obama’s campaign slogan is “forward!” as in we’re going backwards so fast you’ll think it’s forward!
Krauthammer has an excellent column on this in the National Review. Here are a few excerpts:
“Government, says Obama. It built the roads you drive on. It provided the teacher who inspired you. It “created the Internet.” It represents the embodiment of “we’re in this together” social solidarity that, in Obama’s view, is the essential origin of individual and national achievement.
To say all individuals are embedded in and the product of society is banal. Obama rises above banality by means of fallacy: equating society with government, the collectivity with the state. Of course we are shaped by our milieu. But the most formative, most important influence on the individual is not government. It is civil society, those elements of the collectivity that lie outside government: family, neighborhood, church, Rotary club, PTA, the voluntary associations that Tocqueville understood to be the genius of America and source of its energy and freedom.
Moreover, the greatest threat to a robust, autonomous civil society is the ever-growing Leviathan state and those like Obama who see it as the ultimate expression of the collective.”
As Krauthammer points out, Obama fallaciously sets up government as the societal infrastructure rather than the private and free civil society of family, friends, colleagues, associates.
By “out of context” you mean exactly what was said and what was intended by what was said?
Did America build Barack?
“Did America build Barack?”
Kenya?
If you want to see what America will look like after a second Obama term, look at Mexico.Lots of people without homes living where ever, how ever, and a morally and fiscally bankrupt Junta type federal regime.
Bueno BO, welcome to Atzlan north amigo.
the Lyin’ Hawaiian. Bathhouse Barry is using dead mans SSN. if its in the Globe it must be true!
http://obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.ca/2012/07/globe-magazine-obama-fraud-obama-using.html
Barry O’Blamer. Professor of Victimology.
Your President Barack Obama is residing today in the White House, using CT SS number 042-XX-XXXX, issued in CT in and around March 1977, to an elderly individual named John Paul Ludwig, who was born in 1890, who is presumed dead and whose death was either never reported to the SS administration or reported and deleted from the database by someone.
tldr; Get your own blog.
If we get his name off the ballot in Ohio,
we can remove his name in other states..
All good socialists might want to have a looksie at this. Start paying attention around para. 20, starting with the line: “For too long, perhaps ever since the war, we postponed facing up to fundamental choices and fundamental changes in our society and in our economy. That is what I mean when I say we have been living on borrowed time.”
http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm?speech=174
Impeach the lyin Hawaiian !!!
Impeach boathouse Barack!!
Impeach Barack Obama!!
I was thinking about the Choomer in Chief’s argument and it occurs to me he is arguing for the total dismantling of the welfare state.
If you accept his argument about everything necessary for a successful business being provided by the government then there is no need for welfare or social security. If you find you need money, simply decide to begin a business, after a tiny, un-noteworthy and un-praiseworthy amount of effort, you will have a successful business and all the money you need. I mean, it is not like a successful business requires anything the government does not provide to all. So if you do NOT have a successful business of your own, it is no one’s fault but your own.
I would like to congratulate the president, he has finally learned that equal opportunity is the important principle and NOT equal outcome.
“those like Obama who see it as the ultimate expression of the collective.”
~Charles Krauthammer
“Obama fallaciously sets up government as the societal infrastructure rather than the private and free civil society of family, friends, colleagues, associates.”
~et
And that fits with your many earlier characterizations of Obama being an ideology free malicious narcissist how?
Looks to me that Krauthammer sees Obama as a socialist, as do most rational conservatives.
From the link:
“As Communism retreats into the rear-view mirror of history it’s easy to gloss over the everyday ways that Communism is meant to crush the individual and make everyone equal–equally poor, equally scared, equally hopeless. “
From the mirror:
“Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.”
Dear Perception does not equal Reality at 3:21 AM
You are Brilliant!
Oz- you simply don’t get it; I’ve said many times that Obama is a malignant narcissist. And that he has no ideology but that he is, since he ‘works’ in politics, a psychological socialist.
Not an ideological socialist for that would mean that Obama had actually studied, analyzed, thought about different political ideologies and chose socialism as ‘the best mode of social organization. I claim that Obama is not an intellect; he doesn’t read, think, analyze.
That means that Obama is a psychological socialist which means that he promotes socialism, not because he thinks its infrastructure is economically and politically robust but because it gives HIM tremendous personal power over the people. It’s all about personal power for Obama. Not a thing to do with societal systems and the ‘best way to organize an economy’. Instead, it’s the best way for Obama to have power over and control others.
If you can’t see the difference, then, that’s your problem. And kindly don’t introduce fallacious evaluative opinions into your own self-assessment, such as ‘most rational conservatives’.
It is civil society, those elements of the collectivity that lie outside government: family, neighborhood, church, Rotary club, PTA, the voluntary associations that Tocqueville understood to be the genius of America and source of its energy and freedom.
One tribe against the other. heh
Not an ideological socialist for that would mean that Obama had actually studied, analyzed, thought about different political ideologies and chose socialism as ‘the best mode of social organization.
I’ve never heard of a socialist who has done that. Must mean they’re all ‘psychological socialists’.
“You didn’t build that” cartoon (via hotair.com)
http://news.investors.com/editorialcartoons/cartoon.aspx?id=619253
“Not an ideological socialist for that would mean that Obama had actually studied, analyzed, thought about different political ideologies and chose socialism as ‘the best mode of social organization.”
So you’re saying that EVERY ideological socalist or ideologue of any point of view has actually studied, analyzed, thought about different political ideologies and chosen their specific as ‘the best mode of social organization’?
What rubbish, that premise is absurd on the face of it.
What rubbish, that premise is absurd on the face of it.
Yeah, but it’s ‘analyzed’ rubbish. lol
Yeah, that was in the 1970’s when people had a greater chance at social mobility, BECAUSE of things like affordable medicare and access to a good education. All that has changed as the wealthy cement their claim on a greater and greater share of wealth.
But just so we’re clear. Obama DID NOT say that business owners didn’t create their businesses, but that the infrastructure, such as roads and libraries and schools and the internet, were in fact created with help from the government purse.
So please stick with the facts before getting your oversized panties in knots.
…infrastructure, such as roads and libraries and schools and the internet, were in fact created with help from the government purse.
Government doesn’t have any wealth, except what they tax from individuals and business. Therefore individuals and business built all of what you mention.
oz- No, I’m talking about Obama and how and why he has arrived at his acceptance of ‘socialism’. I’m saying that he is NOT an ideological socialist because despite being touted as an intellect, he has no intellectual understanding of socialism as an economic and political infrastructure. He’s a socialist because of what it psychologically gives him: Power. You ignore this.
Not all ideological socialists have themselves analyzed its axioms. How have they come to hold these beliefs? I refer you to Peirce’s famous article on ‘Fixation of Belief’. You can arrive at a belief by accepting someone else’s opinion as an authority; so, you accept your teacher, a book, an article. You accept their analysis of socialism as an ideology, ie, a belief in How Should a Society Function.
Or, you can arrive at this acceptance of socialism via an ‘a priori’ or personal psychological acceptance. It ‘feels good’. That’s how Obama comes to accept socialism. Not as an ideology but because it helps him ‘feel good’, ie, powerful.
Both these methods are held by their followers tenaciously. You refuse to confront your ideological authority, you are unable to confront your psychological needs.
However, you can come to this acceptance of socialism via your own intellectual analysis. I don’t doubt that a fair number of people have thought, analyzed, read, debated, about the value of socialism. Everyone from Plato to Hegel to Marx, after all, believed in it. They believe in it as an ideology and it takes a good bit of logical and empirical analysis to prove they are wrong.
“Government doesn’t have any wealth, except what they tax from individuals and business. Therefore individuals and business built all of what you mention.”
Sure. But that wealth was collected and spent in the name and service of the public good according to their wishes as expressed through governments they elected. Remember that whole “We the People” thing? What do you think a democratic government is?
The point being, that if you don’t have some sort of collective public will, none of this happens. If you want a capitalist anarchy, just move to Somalia.
The point being, that if you don’t have some sort of collective public will, none of this happens.
Odd, there are thousands of miles of logging and oil service roads and bridges. All private.
John – you are making the same mistake that Obama made, of mistaking government for a civil social structure. Krauthammer wrote an excellent article on this in the National Review. A few quotes;
“Government, says Obama. It built the roads you drive on. It provided the teacher who inspired you. It “created the Internet.” It represents the embodiment of “we’re in this together” social solidarity that, in Obama’s view, is the essential origin of individual and national achievement.”
“To say all individuals are embedded in and the product of society is banal. Obama rises above banality by means of fallacy: equating society with government, the collectivity with the state. Of course we are shaped by our milieu. But the most formative, most important influence on the individual is not government. It is civil society, those elements of the collectivity that lie outside government: family, neighborhood, church, Rotary club, PTA, the voluntary associations that Tocqueville understood to be the genius of America and source of its energy and freedom.”
“Moreover, the greatest threat to a robust, autonomous civil society is the ever-growing Leviathan state and those like Obama who see it as the ultimate expression of the collective.”
“Obama’s infrastructure argument is easily refuted by what is essentially a controlled social experiment. Roads and schools are the constant. What’s variable is the energy, enterprise, risk-taking, hard work, and genius of the individual. It is therefore precisely those individual characteristics, not the communal utilities, that account for the different outcomes”
Furthermore, John, what Obama is talking about is basically illogical. He said: “If you got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.”
Analyze it. Obama says: somebody else did X, and the result is you are a success; somebody else did Y, and so you thrive.
What Obama does is to remove, completely, the will, the work, the activities of the individual. He inserts ‘others’ and makes your existence totally, completely, dependent on these Others.
Of course, he ignores the regressive path of these others who presumably are also what they are not because of themselves but because of others. We are all robots in Obama’s world.
Somalia is not capitalist. Anarchy is not capitalism. Kindly get your theories straight.
“If you want a capitalist anarchy, just move to Somalia.”
You haven’t the foggiest idea what is meant by the word “capitalism”, do you?
John – notice your unexamined assumptions. You state: “All that has changed as the wealthy cement their claim on a greater and greater share of wealth”.
You see wealth as some kind of communal pie, that somehow exists ‘just because it does’ rather than being created by somone. Furthermore, this communal pie, you feel, since it exists ‘just because’ rather than being created by someone, ought to be ‘fair shared’ (Obama).
Examine that assumption. It’s a fiction. Wealth doesn’t exist like some existential gold-in-them-thar-rocks. Wealth is created. Actually created by individuals, who come up with innovative ideas, transform them into practical attributes, work hard, very hard to manufacture and market them. Wealth is created by individuals. Steve Jobs deserves his wealth; the restaurant owner and cook deserves his wealth; the clothing designer deserves his wealth.
And you who envy it, you don’t deserve it. You didn’t think it up, work hard for it; you just want it. Tough.