Jan12
Is Barack Obama Merely Incompetent?
on January 12, 2012 at 2:37 pmOr is he evil?
There’s no reason he can’t be both, of course, but if he is, it’s better to have an incompetent evil president than a competent one. Anyway, Kevin Williamson has some good advice for the Republicans.
Both. >:-(
(I don’t think that’s too short, but the comment-bot does.)
This is a man who heard an ostensibly true story about an elderly woman who had to fight to get life-saving heart surgery, won that fight, and is still living strong several years later — and when asked what his decision would have been, said that he would have told the woman to “take a pain pill.” Then he signed a rammed-through law that will ultimately give him the power to enforce such decisions.
That’s an evil man. There is no f&$#*ng question about it.
No. That’s not what happened.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJYvaLS-xOw
It is comical: Kevin D. Williamson’s opinion piece was one of the more sane political articles linked here in recent years, but the comments here and beneath Williamson’s piece don’t embrace that sanity.
Then he signed a rammed-through law that will ultimately give him the power to enforce such decisions.
What color is the sky on your planet?
Thankfully incompetent and definitely evil. But it’s the wrong question.
Is he evil with a purpose or just deluded?
But this is America and it’s not about the president; it’s about the electorate.
What the hell is wrong with them?
A rhetorical question I’ve floated before:
Which is more dangerous, a smart Marxist or a stupid Marxist?
Yes
I’d echo the comments by Barbara Skolaut and Ken Anthony in saying “both,” but I’d complicate it by considering Rickl’s rhetorical question at the same time. Obama is more of a ham-handed Marxist–he’s engaging in blatant power-grabs, while trying to enact the Cloward-Piven strategy and at the same time trying to ensure his re-election by making payouts which benefit his political allies in SEIU, ACORN (Bank of America settlement anyone?). Then, to make his goals even more obvious, he’s instructing his justice department to try to obstruct any efforts to root out voter fraud before the next election. The trouble is that his strategy is so obvious to anyone who has been paying attention that he risks being exposed for what he’s doing. The unfortunate thing is that very few are paying attention and the press is making an effort not to look too hard.
Contrast Obama’s approach with that of another Alinsky disciple from Chicago, one Hillary Rodham Clinton. Had Clinton been elected president, I have little doubt that she would have pursued a much more moderate and certainly, on the surface at least, a more bipartisan approach than Obama–at least in her first term. And by doing so, she would have insured her re-election while at the same time building a stronger infrastructure for the Democrats to hold on to power. Having learned from the great Hillarycare debacle, she would have enacted only modest healthcare reforms during her first term, and would have ratcheted up the government control in her second term, when she could use the popularity that had gotten her re-elected to sell the country on things it wouldn’t otherwise choose.
With Hillary, in other words, we’d have gotten someone who would have gradually increased the heat under the pot with a frog in it. Obama, on the other hand, keeps trying to throw frogs into boiling water.
Whether the person is smart Marxist or a Stupid Marxist doesn’t matter. The ideology is so incredibly flawed that even an act of God couldn’t straighten it out. But a smart Marxist, like the late Deng Xiaoping, might figure out that Marxism didn’t work very well, and move beyond it to take a shot a capitalism, which is exactly what he did starting in the late 1970s. But then again, he may not have been particularly Marxist at heart. Some of the early Chinese Communists seemed to have latched on to Marxism because China’s all around situation was so awful at the beginning of the 20th century. The old any port in a storm syndrome. But then they got stuck in port for the next 70 or so years.
What’s the deal with National Review? That piece was so out of touch that even our village idiot liked it.
The question is not if, but to what degree. Obama is a thief, thievery is evil, therefore Obama is evil.
At some point the line between incompetence and evil is indistinguishable.
I have never understood this sentiment that extreme incompetence and evil are indistinguishable. Is it only a joke, or do people really believe this? If so, could someone please could explain it to me, perhaps using Hitler and the Three Stooges as reference points?
“Any sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice.” J. Porter Clark’s law (originally made in reference to spammers).
It is funny, but it doesn’t make sense. Even in the context of automata and spamming (which is fairly unlike the material world, since resources work differently, at least in some important respects), evil is much more costly than incompetence. Incompetence which sends out hundreds of millions of emails can lead to bandwidth problems and denial of service, but the Nigerian scam caused Americans to part with hundreds of millions of dollars in one 15 month period (http://www.snopes.com/fraud/advancefee/nigeria.asp).
That money went to needy poor Africans. What are you, racist?
Are you illiterate? They say clearly that a) they are rich, and b) the money will go for real estate investment.
Dear Respected One,
GREETINGS,
Permit me to inform you of my desire of going into business relationship with you. I got your contact from the International web site directory. I prayed over it and selected your name among other names due to it’s esteeming nature and the recommendations given to me as a reputable and trust worthy person I can do business with and by the recommendations I must not hesitate to confide in you for this simple and sincere business.
I am Wumi Abdul; the only Daughter of late Mr and Mrs George Abdul. My father was a very wealthy cocoa merchant in Abidjan,the economic capital of Ivory Coast before he was poisoned to death by his business associates on one of their outing to discus on a business deal. When my mother died on the 21st October 1984, my father took me and my younger brother HASSAN special because we are motherless. Before the death of my father on 30th June 2002 in a private hospital here in Abidjan. He secretly called me on his bedside and told me that he has a sum of $12.500.000 (Twelve Million, five hundred thousand dollars) left in a suspense account in a local Bank here in Abidjan, that he used my name as his first Daughter for the next of kin in deposit of the fund.
He also explained to me that it was because of this wealth and some huge amount of money his business associates supposed to balance his from the deal they had that he was poisoned by his business associates, that I should seek for a God fearing foreign partner in a country of my choice where I will transfer this money and use it for investment purpose, (such as real estate management).
—
Rand, if your spam-bot lets me post this, I will wonder about its utility!
If you think working for the fundamental change of an ENTIRE country’s way of life and way of doing business, based on one man ideals, isn’t EVIL, I’m must not understand that word like I thought I did.
If it’s wrong in NK, or the old USSR, or any other place run by ONE MAN, then how can it be right for us? This cluck had a damned near rubber stamp for 2 years and he / they spent us into the ground, took over 1/6 of the entire economy, and F-A-I-L-E-D to create a budget of ANY kind all at the same time. If it’s wrong for Castro, it’s wrong for Obama. And in this case wrong equates to evil.
If you think working for that kind of change isn’t EVIL, then again, I’m must not understand that word like I thought I did.
I don’t think he’s the brains behind any of this, he’s not that smart; but Quislings aren’t removed from the circle of blame either. ANYONE who continually flouts the law and goes around the people’s will because ‘he knows best’ is evil.
The fact that he THINKS he’s got the answer does not remove him / them from the realm of doing evil. Hitler, Mao and Stalin thought they new best too. And, Bob-1 and Jim before you jump on this, the fact that we have no evidence of clear cut deaths based on Obama’s Policies doesn’t mean it’s not happening or isn’t going to come from implementation of those policies.
Again, Hitler, Mao and Stalin didn’t kill or starve anyone in just a few minutes or months either. It takes time for things to fall apart like that.
Taking ANYONE’S freedom IS evil, and he’s anti-freedom.
This cluck had a damned near rubber stamp for 2 years
A majority of the House and a 60-member Democratic caucus is not a “rubber stamp” — Obama was still hostage to Joe Lieberman (goodbye public option), Ben Nelson (hello Cornhusker kickback), Mary Landrieu (no cap and trade), etc. And he only had that slim hold on legislative power for a period of months, between Franken being sworn in and Scott Brown’s election.
ANYONE who continually flouts the law and goes around the people’s will because ‘he knows best’ is evil.
It was the people’s will that Obama be president and that the Dems control the Congress in 2009. They promised to do things like cover the uninsured, we elected them by overwhelming margins, and they did what they promised. Then they (most of them) stood for re-election, giving the people the opportunity to change their minds, which they did. That’s how representative government is supposed to work. The comparison to Hitler, Mao and Stalin is ridiculous.
I’m not sure this applies to BHO, but there is a third option.
One can be ignorant of facts and correct conclusions. That explains the 50% of the electorate that votes for Leftist ideas. A well meaning voter, going by evidence presented to them on NPR and in the newspapers (and in the zeitgeist of TV and the movies) would “know” the following to be true:
* SUVs are killing the planet
* The president “runs” the economy
* Spending (borrowed) money creates jobs
* and so on
I’m honestly happy when the trolls are here. At least they can get a hint of heretical ideas…
A majority of the House and a 60-member Democratic caucus is not a “rubber stamp”
So your vote is incompetence then Jim?