We are SO Screwed

We are SO Screwed

In relation to the Quote of the Election below, I forwarded the Forbes piece to my office-mate who is an Obama supporter for his reaction. Here is our email exchange on the subject:

From: Kevin
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 6:55 AM
To: Obama Supporter
Subject: Something you should read

http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/10/23/thomas-sowell-election-oped-cx_pr_1024robinson.html

From: Obama Supporter
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 9:34 AM
To: Kevin
Subject: RE: Something you should read

Interesting thoughts, but I am not sure I completely buy the "Holier than Though" position assigned to McCain. In the end, during every presidential election, both sides promise the moon and in the end neither ever seems to deliver. Yes, McCain might cut taxes in one spot, but he would raise them in others as every president does. It is all perception. Bread and Circus.... it is simply which crowd is being pandered to and who will contribute the most votes to get the best for the individual casting the vote. It would be great if a president could change the world, but I have never heard of one doing so... at least not for the better.

In the end, I think McCain is an optimist. A "stick to what you know" kinda guy. A "walk softly and carry a big stick" kinda guy. A guy that you want and need on that wall of freedom and protection because he has a military background to support that role. You know he will take a bullet for you, because that is just who he is.

Obama on the other hand, well... I think he is more of an opportunist and realist. He (like myself) sees this country as a great place with lots of potential. We used to be a grand country and we have found many ways to stumble and make ourselves not so grand anymore. He wants to rekindle the fire that once drove our country to be the world power. How is this done? By believing in your common man and helping him to succeed again. Give him every opportunity to make something of himself, starting with our educational system. Provide the foundation and then provide the building materials. Instill in the youth of today so they can then instill the concepts for the youth of tomorrow. We can look around and say, "It has never worked before. Every where it has been tried, it failed." Well... you are right. But then, the USA has never tried it before and if we are as good as everyone says, then I can't believe that we would fail at this if we really try. Yes, it means sacrifice. It means patience. It means a lot of hard work and investing in ourselves.

I think both men are quite qualified to run the country. I think both can do a far better job than their predecessor did. I simply think you have to take the taste challenge... are you a Coke or Pepsi kinda guy. Me... I don't drink soda... so I have to chose the one I rather drink if I did drink soda. Go figure. I think that is what America is facing today. We face an election of one of two men that neither is the preferred choice. I think it used to be this simple, but it no longer is. Before a Coke or Pepsi did fine, but now there are diet soda drinkers and tea drinkers and coffee drinkers. Some like milk and sugar and others want it black (no pun intended). Others want plain water. Where are the candidates that satisfy these peoples' thirsts? Why have we stuck with a system that is now failing? Obama was right when he said we are ready for change. And in the absence of real change we are willing to select a candidate that looks like change, but is just like all the others. We need change in this country or it will most definitely die. A proud nation so inspired by itself, it could not adapt and died. We must learn to adapt, and thus evolve to meet the needs of the modern people. The constitution is a living, breathing document... it has the ability to adapt, yet represent the people of today as well as those 200 years ago. We just need smart people like you and I to argue the points and realize that not everyone wants the same thing, and how can we make it work for the majority. And for those it doesn't work for, we provide a different option. The world is not fair, nor will it ever be. This does not mean we can't make it a little less hurtful in the process. We are a caring nation... it is time we started to care for ourselves for a change.

From: Kevin
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 9:53 AM
To: Obama Supporter
Subject: RE: Something you should read

"Obama on the other hand, well... I think he is more of an opportunist and realist. He (like myself) sees this country as a great place with lots of potential. We used to be a grand country and we have found many ways to stumble and make ourselves not so grand anymore. He wants to rekindle the fire that once drove our country to be the world power. How is this done? By believing in your common man and helping him to succeed again. Give him every opportunity to make something of himself, starting with our educational system. Provide the foundation and then provide the building materials. Instill in the youth of today so they can then instill the concepts for the youth of tomorrow." - Obama Supporter

"I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." - Barack Obama

Obama's father was a Marxist.

His early mentor Frank Marshall Davis was a Marxist.

His pastor of 20 years was a Black Liberation Theologist - a Marxist theology of victimhood and revolution.

William Ayers is an unrepentant communist. They worked in the same building on the same floor for at least three years, worked together (really!) on the Annenberg project and another project. Obama wrote a review of an Ayers book. Point being, Ayers was not "just a guy in (his) neighborhood". They were associates.

Obama was a member of the New Party - also Marxist.

By all indications, Obama is the closest thing to a thorougoing Socialist (big "S" on purpose) to run for President (with a chance of actually winning) that we've ever had.

But he "serves as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views."

I think Sowell is right: "This man [Obama] really does believe that he can change the world. And people like that are infinitely more dangerous than mere crooked politicians."

It really is a decision not between something as trivial as Coke and Pepsi but between John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. And I think Rousseau very well might win this time, and America will finally completely cease to be what the Constitution was written to ensure it would remain. It's taken us decades to reach this point, and the blame does not rest entirely on one party, but that's how I see it.

From: Obama Supporter
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 10:17 AM
To: Kevin
Subject: RE: Something you should read

Keep in mind that the very document that was "to ensure it would remain" is the same document that allows for someone like Barack Obama to "serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views". The fact that the country is going socialized is purely the workings of the people themselves. This is what they want and this is what they get. They elected the politicians that added the amendments. They are the ones that voted (or didn't vote) for those that wrote the laws of this country. All our politicians asked for in return was money and power. A fair trade for the people of this country to get the socialized society they wanted. Like you said... Bread and Circuses. The politicians have provided the feedbags and the entertainment, the common man that cares about nothing else is happy. And what made it possible? The constitution.

From: Kevin
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 10:49 AM
To: Obama Supporter
Subject: RE: Something you should read

The fact that the country is going socialized is purely the workings of the people themselves. This is what they want and this is what they get. They elected the politicians that added the amendments.

Err, no.

The last amendment added to the Constitution was ratified in 1992. There are 27 of them. Not one changes our form of government from Constitutional Republic to Socialist State. (Although a weak argument could be made about the 16th.) FDR began the gutting of the Constitution with the assistance of Congress and the capitulation of the Supreme Court.

What has allowed this to happen is the indoctrination of literally generations of Americans into believing that their government should do things it was never empowered to do. If they had amended the Constitution to give the government those powers, I would not be objecting (as much), but they did not.

Instead, we got the "living, breathing document" BULLSHIT fed to our parents, ourselves, and now our children. And we're paying the price. And our children will be paying it in perpetuity.

I don't know if you've seen it, but there's this very popular (probably apocryphal) quote attributed to Alexander Frasier Tytler supposedly written about the time of the ratification of the Constitution. It goes like this:

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.

This goes along with an actual quotation from Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America from the same time:

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

Guess where we are now on Tytler's scale?

From: Obama Supporter
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 11:21 AM
To: Kevin
Subject: RE: Something you should read

The problem is that all of these ideals come from a historical view. The world has changed. It has advanced (and regressed) in many ways. While yes, we are on the end of Tytler's scale and about to leap off, the world is much more stable and controlled than it used to be. The US is the US. It is to big, to powerful and to recognized to suddenly fall into dictatorship as suggested by Tytler. Yes it has never worked before, because it could not work before. Will it work now? I don't know. But I do no we live in a completely different time with completely different rules. I think there is a way to bridge these ideas. Whether you believe John Locke or Jean-Jacques Rousseau was right... it has been long enough these two concepts stood opposed. Much like Rodney King said as he was being beat by the government employees... "Can't we all just get along?"

From: Kevin
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 12:11 PM
To: Obama Supporter
Subject: RE: Something you should read

As it will be in the future, it was at the Birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit, and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire;

And after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.

The last two stanzas of Kipling's "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" - 1919.

The times may have changed, but Man is still the same. And the Fool's bandaged finger, it appears, is about to go wobbling back to the flame.

Yuri Bezmenov was right.

As an aside, the complete Yuri Bezmenov interview is available here. I intend to watch the whole thing as soon as I get a chance.

Now that it's too late, of course.