I have not written on the debt ceiling because I am not sure what I would do. I understand debt in principle. In the long term . . . . (more…)
Archive for the ‘President Obama’ Category
Hitting the Ceiling
Monday, July 25th, 2011Talk Softly and Carry a Big Debt
Thursday, January 27th, 2011If you were wondering what unbelievable levels of debt sold to the Chinese means, answers were offered by President Obama’s reception of the Chinese President Hu. President Obama did talk about human rights, but the comments that I saw were far from strident. They were all that we could afford to say to the country that holds a good portion of our debt. We have lived beyond our means. Now, we cannot speak truth to wicked nations. Welcome to the beginning of slavery. We need to quickly change our tune. Right now, it seems, we have no moral ground on which to stand. The Chinese Communists might be more capitalist than us. They are aborting mountains of children; we probably can’t match them. The temptation is to feel that “in the dark night of sin all cats are gray”. This was the feeling I got from President’s Obama’s interview. “We call the Chinese to honor human rights. Which are principles embedded in their Constitution.”
The borrower is slave to the lender. We are the borrower.
The Politics of Tragedy
Friday, January 14th, 2011The tragic murders in Arizona during the attempted assassination attempt on the life of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by a deranged man have resounded through our nation for the last week. They have also become a political football kicked and passed (and fumbled) by many. There are some educational and political lessons that we should learn—politics first:
- The political left uses tragedies to take swipes at the right even when—maybe I should say especially when—there is no cause. The left wants gun control. All facts are used to prove that it is necessary. Of course, let me be clear, this fellow should not have had a gun! The idea that somehow mass restriction on guns will keep guns out of the hands of criminals is dubious. I believe that the left has learned (maybe it is just instinctual) that they should toss accusation at the right whenever something like this happens especially if there is no reasonable connection between the action and anyone on the right. They do this because…
- The political right (in the case Governor Palin) does not handle these sorts of swipes well and too often ends up looking petty as they react to these baseless attacks. Governor Palin is not to blame for this event. The fellow was deranged. Communist Manifesto was one of his favorite books—which, of course is not one on the Glenn Beck approved list. Governor Palin, I am sure, got angry because she was unjustly smeared. Sadly, she released her video response at the same time that President Obama was at the bully pulpit. She is justified in her anger. Her response was unwise. Any sort of reaction that rebuts personal concerns looks petty—particularly against Obama’s excellent and uplifting speech. I am not sure why she did it, but, politically, I do not think it was wise.
- Finally, both sides of our political spectrum seem immune to both history and reason. The chant arises that our political rhetoric is over the top. It is. This “over the topness”, however, is not new. It has been a characteristic of American politics (and American life) since the third election (Adams v. Jefferson). We are given to overstatement. In some ways our political dialogue is fruitless today, but not because of its vitriol, but because of our penchant for having hurt feelings. We cannot argue with each other. We preach to the choir and stir them in a froth. Real political gains happen when leaders focus their rhetoric more broadly but still resonate with their base—see Ronald Reagan on this point.
Liberalism as a Suicide Pact
Tuesday, September 14th, 2010The paper reported today that President Barack Obama has committed himself to repealing some of the Bush Administration’s Tax Cuts—particularly those that cut the taxes on people with incomes of $250,000 a year. (FYI, my tax cuts will be restored.) He is committing to this again the advice all Conservative and most Liberal economists. The comment usually goes something like this: “Why would anyone raise taxes on anyone during a recession? Don’t we want to stimulate the economy?” President Obama’s deafness at this point is instructive…very instructive. President Obama is quite willing to stimulate the economy with further government spending—further, vast, endless, gargantuan, at-times-pointless, government spending. He, however, is willing to oppose the most normal type of stimulus—letting people keep and spend their own money. (more…)
A Striking Dissimilarity
Thursday, August 19th, 2010I am working my way through an online video list of 50 Great Political Speeches. Today, I listened to this clip of John F. Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. Here is the clip:
I had read it before, but had not seen it. You should watch it. For me, having just finished the morning paper which proclaimed that President Obama is backing the construction of an Islamic Community Center near the mass grave that we call Ground Zero, I was slapped across the face by the dissimilar approaches of these two Presidents. Kennedy knows Communism to be an evil enemy. He slashes the naivety and support that some could have for Communism by summoning them to Berlin to see what Communism is like. He denies that we can even work with Communists. He is boisterous and his saber is rattling. He knows that the Communists are listening and he wants them to know that until they change, we, the free people of the world, will be there to oppose them. He does not deny the imperfections of democracy, but notes tellingly that “we have never built a wall to keep our people from leaving!” (more…)
