No, Mr. President, you’ve been making a lot of mistakes as president, but there has been no shortage of stories you’ve been telling the public.
Let’s see, shall we count them?
- My administration will be the most transparent in history.
- If you like your doctor and your insurance, you can keep them.
- I’ll go through the budget line by line and find places to cut.
- It’s not a tax. Except when it is.
- I will cut the deficit in half.
- If we pass this stimulus, unemployment will never go above eight percent.
I could go on and on.
Obama might actually believe that he is doing a good job, which is scary.
The problem is that his stories are taller than Gulliver in Lilliput.
Sounds like an idiot’s approach to the problem. We failed because we haven’t pounded on the problem hard enough with our one solution to everything.
No, we failed because of the conservatives/kulaks/jews. The solution is obvious.
That’s right! They’re keeping us from pounding hard enough with the One Solution. Fortunately, we can use the One Solution on obstacles.
Or, more likely, as fertilizer.
Gee, maybe he’ll write us another book and explain this story all too us. I’ll be interested to see what kind of composite president he comes up with.
This only just serves as more proof that everything Obama says you can just turn it 180 and you’ll probably arrive at the truth. He’s done nothing but give us countless speeches about this story; between rounds of golf. I mean how many speeches does it take to tell this story anyways? Are we even to the exposition yet? I’m seeing November on the horizon so it’s looking more like the denouement to me.
Obama: “I pivoted 360 degrees from healthcare back to the economy.”
I have no idea how many people will vote for Obama but I doubt Romney will win. He is about as likely to win as Perot, Rockefeller, or Forbes were. He cannot even attack Obamacare because Romneycare, enacted in 2006 in Massachussetts, is already much like it including the penalties for not having an insurance. It is like the Republican party tried to choose the candidate most likely to lose the election or something.
But the ‘party’ didn’t pick him, the people in the Primaries did Godzilla. Unfortunately.
I’m no lover of Romney, I think he’s the least Conservative of the candidates who tried a run this time for the (R) side. He does have business experience, which puts him above McCain, but he is NOT what we really need.
Personally, I’m SICK of voting for the lesser of two (idiot) evils.
Cain had business experience. Romney has finance experience.
Romney has one big advantage–he isn’t Obama. Obama has had a terrible presidency, with an extended recession, spending through the roof, unpopular laws, extension of the things most people were pissed about under Bush, economic illiteracy that’s obvious to most, massive government power grabs, and pretty much open dishonesty. Obama’s going to lose, and lose big.
What’s sad is that Romney is likely going to just build on the badness and do little to roll things back.
Very much related, to be read in full, but QFE:
O’Reilly ask that woman from Salon if unborn babies have rights. Not only did she refuse to answer; I don’t believe she’s ever been back; yet, she’s all over the left media.
Mockery is their argument; because they have no substance. The left are jello and you can’t pin them down to anything. That they have any weight at all in any argument is the mystery. This is not to say the right is much better. Making an argument is a skill few have.
I completely disagree with Lakoff — putting (even forcing) issues into a conservative framework and using conservative language is the best weapon liberals have. I’ve been winning arguments about abortion since this blog’s commentariat helped me realize that sperm and unfertilized eggs are both just fertilized eggs with chromosomal disabilities, just as Downs’ syndrome is a chromosomal disability. Every sperm is sacred, and they must be protected — at gunpoint!
“I completely disagree with Lakoff — putting (even forcing) issues into a conservative framework and using conservative language is the best weapon liberals have. I’ve been winning arguments about abortion . . .” Must be nice to win an argument finally, eh, Bob-1? And I mean really win. Because without the argument-from-pity, the straw man, and the “shifting sands, “liberals” really don’t have much of an argument on any of their positions. (Like “Need=Right,” for example.)
Well, that’s a great example right there! If a liberal wants to convince a conservative to support a program to, say, feed impoverished children, it is helpful to first agree that children do not have a right to be fed. From there, it is fairly easy to talk about why it would be a good idea to make sure they are fed anyway, and finally, tackle the problems of who pays for the food, and whether everyone should be forced to contribute — at gunpoint!
Oh, and most importantly, but maybe most subtly, I’m using the conservative notion of “rights”, in which “rights” do not simply refer to how to read laws, but instead refer to something much more, um, well, spiritual or magical. Ok, that’s not fair. Conservative scientists might think of “rights” as being an emergent property of a sufficiently complex intelligence. Or something. I don’t fully understand it, but I don’t have to, because step 1 of arguing with conservatives is to figure out whether they think something isn’t a right. If they think something isn’t a right, just agree with them, and then have a pragmatic conversation. If they think something IS a right, well, then it depends – I don’t have a general rule for that one. But if it isn’t a right in their minds, no problem!
I’m using the conservative notion of “rights”, in which “rights” do not simply refer to how to read laws, but instead refer to something much more, um, well, spiritual or magical.
It’s not a conservative notion, but something that comes out of liberal thought of the 18th century. There are plenty of ways that the rhetoric of “rights” can go wrong. First, it can create a huge list of rights, each which somehow has to be supported (or as the case usually is, let slide) by the society. My view is a few powerful, enforced rights are more effective than a thousand weak, unenforced rights. It also creates a simpler legal structure.
A closely related second way things can go wrong is by putting things that one wants in the same category as rights that are necessary to the functioning of a democratic, capitalist society. One needs the right to be able to protest. One needs protection from arbitrary seizure of property by the state. One doesn’t need healthcare or old age security to have such a society.
Third, the term is often overused with people using it in cases where they know it doesn’t apply, such as while complaining about service at a restaurant (I have the “right” to complain) or singing of the “right to party”.
Fourth, it’s a frequently used rhetorical gimmick to attempt to stamp out dissent in advance (like many others). If children have a “right” to food (to borrow an example from above), then any opposition to schemes that allegedly feed children (even if in reality they don’t) is implied to be on the same level as opposition to actual rights.
For the US, rights are special, few and powerful. For a body like the UN or the EU, rights are whatever got put on the list that day by a bunch of bored diplomats. There’s no conservative or liberal distinction here. Instead, it’s particular to the political system what “rights” means.
That was a thoughtful post. I’m really hoping Titus will chime in — I was thinking of this exchange he and I had here about rights:
A Tale Of Two Rights
http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=39999
If that’s a case of “too long, didn’t read”, here’s the shortest possible version:
I said I believe that “rights are conferred by governments or contracts” and that there was no such thing as ‘natural rights’.
Titus said he believes “Natural rights have objective, external existence.” Like atoms.
And I was flabbergasted.
But I can be less flabbergasted if I imagine Titus was saying that rights are “emergent properties”, like the way birds flock and other complex phenomena that are real, but non-tangible. Titus didn’t say that, but I think he might have. Anyway, that conversation was helpful to me in that I realized I should always agree that a right doesn’t exist if a conservative wants to insist that it doesn’t exist.
Sorry Karl, I meant to refer back to your comment.
Briefly: I think your position is incompatible with Titus’, and I think Titus’ position is shared by many conservatives.
tl;dr Denny Crane!
Bob-1
The US of A was founded on the proposition that rights do exist out side of government and that the purpose of government is to secure these rights.
If you do not agree with the founding principles of the country you really should go live in a country whose founding you do believe in. You would likely be happier there.
Frank,
I’m a patriotic American who believes the Founding Fathers were geniuses. It isn’t at all inconsistent to also believe they got a number of things wrong, such as slavery, women’s rights, and the metaphysical nature of rights.
But moreover, it is significant that the Declaration of Independence does not have the legal authority of the Constitution. (And there is a long standing argument about whether the Declaration of Independence has any legal authority at all — most Supreme Court decisions have taken the position that it has none, and the few exceptions don’t give it much at all.)
I think that if an American is happy to defend the Bill of Rights, the 13th amendment, the 14th amendment, the 15th, and so on, one can safely ignore the Declaration’s considerably less important viewpoint on rights.
And finally, I’m curious: do you take issue with anything Karl Hallowell said?
Bob1
To the extent that Karl says that rights exist without governments I agree with him. That is the founding principle of our government and the founding fathers did not get that wrong. The Articles of Confederation and later the Constitution were two imperfect attempts to constrain the government. Politics dictated much of what is wrong with the Constitution.
As for your patriotism – To the extent that you do not support the founding principle of government being established to protect preexisting rights, you are patriotic to a country that has no right to exist by that founding principle.
In that country you do not have a right to force me to pay for your healthcare or food or anything else that is not required to protect those natural rights. This country was founded on the principle that there are fundamental rights and protecting those rights is why we have a government.
My mother told me back in the ’60s that we had more justification, according to the Declaration of Independence, to revolt than they had in 1776. I wasn’t sure what she meant at the time but I get it now.
Our forefathers got rid of the Torres and their unjust government. I hope it is not time to follow their example (with socialists and their unjust government) but freedom is worth more than peace.
Briefly: I think your position is incompatible with Titus’, and I think Titus’ position is shared by many conservatives.
I agree with Titus and Karl’s comments. To the extent they are imcompatible seems to be in what they are discussing. Titus is discussing the notion of Natural Rights and Karl is discussing how misunderstanding Rights can lead to abuse. Note, I reproduce a link that Titus asked others to read. That link includes this passage:
The opponents of natural rights often complain that the advocates of natural rights are not logically consistent, because we continually shift between inequivalent definitions of natural law. They gleefully manufacture long lists of “logical contradictions”. Indeed, the definitions we use are not logically equivalent, but because of the nature of man and the nature of the world, they are substantially equivalent in practice. These complaints by the opponents of natural rights are trivial hair splitting, and pointless legalistic logic chopping.
Karl, I’d love to know what you think. Do you think rights are “natural” or do you think they derive from a legal structure? I thought you were choosing the latter view.
In any case, it doesn’t matter: even proponents of “natural rights” see the need to set up a legal structure which make certain rights the law of the land, and will vigorously defend those laws (eg 1st and 2nd amendments), because they believe laws regarding rights are important. Since the importance of laws is something liberals and conservatives agree on, it would indeed be trivial hair splitting and pointless logic chopping to conclude that liberals aren’t just as patriotic as conservatives (as Frank does above), or to think that (Need == Right) is a stumbling block for liberals and conservatives agreeing with each other (as Bilwick does above). Instead, we can just work on laws together, and that’s what happened with the Affordable Care Act (which, after all, is a liberal-conservative compromise).
that’s what happened with the Affordable Care Act (which, after all, is a liberal-conservative compromise).
And you wonder why you get mocked here so often.
At gunpoint.
Oh, sorry; At gunpoint!
even proponents of “natural rights” see the need to set up a legal structure which make certain rights the law of the land, and will vigorously defend those laws
If the requirement that I purchase health insurance is a RIGHT, why is there a
penaltytax to ensure I do it? Is there such a mechanism to make me speak or bear arms? I’m certain there isn’t. So I’m lost where a construct which restricts the government (bill of rights) is the same as a law that gives the government more power over individuals (PPACA).Well, sure. I was talking about rights, you big ol’ fuzzy conservative you. Now we’re talking about Obamacare, which isn’t a right, it is just a law. Nope, not a right. Just a law. See? You’re a conservative, so when you assert that something isn’t a right,I’ll agree with you. I should write to Lakoff!
Well, sure, Bob, you were equating laws to rights, you skinny naked communist you. Now the rest of us were talking about Natural Rights, but you brought up Obamacare, because you think the requirement to purchase insurance is something you are born to do. A government requirement is a human right, that’s your assertion, bob. We don’t agree.
“, because you think the requirement to purchase insurance is something you are born to do.”
No, I don’t think that.
“A government requirement is a human right, that’s your assertion, bob.”
I don’t assert that.
As an American citizen, I enjoy certain legal rights, guaranteed by our government. You can call those “American rights” or “United States rights” if you like. Calling them “human rights” sounds silly to me, and it certainly isn’t something I would assert. Plenty of humans are not US citizens, and aren’t entitled to the rights which an American citizen has. The general term is “legal rights”, and they vary by government (and they vary by contract, in the specific case of contractual rights.)
On the other hand, “human rights” isn’t a silly idea, it is just misapplied to something as specific as the Affordable Care Act. “Human rights” activists fight for people who don’t have the legal rights that the activists think all people should have. There is no need to suppose oppressed people already have, say, free speech ( as a natural right); it is enough to think that the people in question should have free speech (as a legal right).
I was talking about rights… Now we’re talking about Obamacare
As a result of one of your so-frequent-you-could-set-a-clock-by-it throwaways. “Look, RIGHTS! Pay no attention to Obamacare behind that curtain.”
Not a throw-away at all – I was responding to Bilwick. Bilwick thinks liberals assert that (Need = Right). Interestingly, so does Karl:
“One needs the right to be able to protest. One needs protection from arbitrary seizure of property by the state. One doesn’t need healthcare or old age security to have such a society.” – Karl Hallowell (see quote in context above.)
The difference is that Karl asserts (Need = Right) when it comes to what’s needed for a democratic society, and nothing else. Bilwick assumes that liberals think that everything they personally need (like healthcare) is some sort of right.
My claim, which I thought had been explained, but you seem to need an explanation again, is that when a conservative says “no, healthcare is not a right”, the best thing for liberals to do is to agree that healthcare is not a right. That way, the liberal and the conservative can move on to talking about laws.
Regarding “natural rights”, my point there was the existence or non-existence of “natural rights” doesn’t really matter, since proponents of “natural rights” will always encode any rights they believe in as laws, and if anyone disagrees, the fight that has any consequence will be over laws, not the existence of natural rights.
Also, once a law you like gets passed, instead of talking about “the right to have affordable healthcare” (which upsets conservatives), and instead of talking about “the right to own assault rifles” (which upsets liberals), you can talk about “the right to due process”, which shouldn’t annoy anyone.
You forgot to include the part about Obamacare being a liberal-conservative compromise. You’re slipping.
Why don’t we have a single payer system?
Why hasn’t Obama managed to gain one vote for his budget in the Democratic controlled Senate?
You’re right Bob, the number of Republicans who would have voted for single-payer would have been less than those who voted for Obamacare. Therefore: Compromise.
I’m sure the uniter-in-chief’s capacity for compromise explains this. (Sorry to be the bearer of bad news there Bob, but I’m sure you’ve got a good group of true fellow-travelers to commiserate with)
By the way, since I’ve no intention of seeing it, I’d appreciate your posting a review of The Obama Effect after you’ve taken it in.
I seem to recall the compromise Obama offered was “I won”. It’s a memorable speech.
Romneycare. (At gunpoint!)
Obama is wrong; he’s in political danger because the economy is weak, not because of poor storytelling. The only speech that would do him a lot of good is the speech that miraculously convinced the Fed to take seriously both halves of its dual mandate.
Actually he’s in danger because, at his core, he doesn’t get it. Everyone around him is telling him 8% unemployment is too high, but he believes as long as there is unemployment compensation, and welfare, and food stamps, and SSI, and medicaid, etc. ad nauseam, the unemployment rate doesn’t matter. To him, the idea that Americans WANT to work is a non sequitur.
Nonsense. He knows that no one’s been re-elected with 8% unemployment. He’d love to sign the American Jobs Act, which would help bring down unemployment. He’d love to have a Fed that cared as much about unemployment as it does about inflation. But at this point, there isn’t much he can do to make either of those things happen. And he’d rather blame his predicament on something he still can change — his rhetoric — than on something he can’t (the state of the economy).
He’d love to have a Democrat that would give him at least one vote for his budget.