Obama Casts His Spell

[Barbara Branden]

Obama Casts His Spell

February 15, 2008

By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- There's no better path to success than getting people to buy a free commodity. Like the genius who figured out how to get people to pay for water: bottle it (Aquafina was revealed to be nothing more than reprocessed tap water) and charge more than they pay for gasoline. Or consider how Google found a way to sell dictionary nouns -- boat, shoe, clock -- by charging advertisers zillions to be listed whenever the word is searched.

And now, in the most amazing trick of all, a silver-tongued freshman senator has found a way to sell hope. To get it, you need only give him your vote. Barack Obama is getting millions.

This kind of sale is hardly new. Organized religion has been offering a similar commodity -- salvation -- for millennia. Which is why the Obama campaign has the feel of a religious revival with, as writer James Wolcott observed, a "salvational fervor" and "idealistic zeal divorced from any particular policy or cause and chariot-driven by pure euphoria."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/..._his_spell.html

[sjw]

Years ago Krauthammer wrote this piece Big Blue when it won its first chess match against a Grand Master, called "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

After reading that ridiculous piece I've never been able to take the man seriously. He's a neo-conservative empty-headed joke. Probably a reflection of the audience he writes for.

Obama peddles hope? Well let's see, what are our other alternatives? Anything would count as "hope" when contrasted with McCain or Clinton.

Shayne

[Barbara Branden]

Shayne, I recommend that you read the entire article and think about it before presumimg to make empty-headed statements about Krauthammer and his audience.

Barbara

[Chris Grieb]

Since I have already called Obama a snake oil salesman. But doesn't a snake oil salesman offer hope.

There is beginning to be a little scrunity of Obama's proposals.

[BaalChatzaf]

Since I have already called Obama a snake oil salesman. But doesn't a snake oil salesman offer hope.

There is beginning to be a little scrunity of Obama's proposals.

America loves a Kennedy. Obama, if he wins, will be the first black Kennedy.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Aggrad02]

Good article. I actually read Obama's book Audacity of Hope, if he tries to implement 1/10th of the social programs that he called for in his book, we will be broke, absolutely broke.

--Dustan

[sjw]

Shayne, I recommend that you read the entire article and think about it before presumimg to make empty-headed statements about Krauthammer and his audience.

Barbara

OK I read it. It should have been about how Americans are hungry for a politician with a single moral fiber in his body. Who has a passion for truth and what is right. That this is a deep need of all humans, and that when there is a moral vacuum, then any charlatan can come fill it up. Something along these lines.

Instead, Krauthammer doesn't merely ignore this, he as an amoral power-hungry neoconservative is completely oblivious to it. So he's left with the banal, to call Obama the equivalent of a false prophet who's casting a spell on sheep. Krauthammer would say exactly the same thing if Ron Paul were "mesmerizing" the masses with the ideas of individual rights and the spirit of the Founders. He is opposed to moral passion as such.

So I stand by my initial assessment. People like Krauthammer are in fact the *reason* for the moral vacuum in the first place, they've created this hole that Obama is now filling. He and his fellow neoconservatives are even more guilty than Obama.

Shayne

[Selene]

Shayne:

I will respond to your "argument" as soon as I finish dodging your hailstorm of judgments.

Adam

[galtgulch]

I understand that Obama has said in one of his speeches that, "You are your brother's keeper, but you haven't given enough yet!"

Sounds to me that he wants to raise your taxes.

The only 'change' he seems to have in mind is for him to be the one who decides how your hard earned money is spent.

On the other hand if Obama were elected it would give us a chance to show the children how evil the morality of altruism is in practice.

I should have said another chance because virtually all the presidents we have had are manifestations of the mystic-altruist-collectivist ideology.

I still think that Ron Paul is the best of the lot despite his inconsistencies and religiosity. It sure is easy to perk up someone's interest in Ron Paul because of his dedication to the Constitution and individual rights and limited government.

[BaalChatzaf]

So I stand by my initial assessment. People like Krauthammer are in fact the *reason* for the moral vacuum in the first place, they've created this hole that Obama is now filling. He and his fellow neoconservatives are even more guilty than Obama.

Shayne

That's right. Slay the messenger for bringing Bad News.

Ba'al Chatzaf.

[sjw]

I will respond to your "argument" as soon as I finish dodging your hailstorm of judgments.

I'm sure you'll post something, I'm sure it won't be an actual response to my argument. You seem fond of tossing stuff like the above into the forum--unsubstantiated and woozy attacks. Are you a troll?

Shayne

[sjw]

So I stand by my initial assessment. People like Krauthammer are in fact the *reason* for the moral vacuum in the first place, they've created this hole that Obama is now filling. He and his fellow neoconservatives are even more guilty than Obama.

Shayne

That's right. Slay the messenger for bringing Bad News.

Ba'al Chatzaf.

You of all people in this forum would be the one to defend the neoconservative.

Shayne

[sjw]

On the other hand if Obama were elected it would give us a chance to show the children how evil the morality of altruism is in practice.

This is very naive. Like a frog in water slowly being boiled, hardly anyone will notice. Those who do notice will be called "crackpots" and "loonies". Most human beings (self-proclaimed "Objectivists" included) accept things as they are, they have no capacity for seeing how things might be and ought to be, and their memory is very short.

Shayne

[BaalChatzaf]

You of all people in this forum would be the one to defend the neoconservative.

Shayne

Why not? They exhibit the verisimilitude of good sense. Particularly Krauthammer. He knows who our enemies are.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[sjw]

You of all people in this forum would be the one to defend the neoconservative.

Shayne

Why not? They exhibit the verisimilitude of good sense. Particularly Krauthammer. He knows who our enemies are.

Ba'al Chatzaf

No one who rejects a proper moral base in individual rights knows who the enemy is.

Shayne

[BaalChatzaf]

No one who rejects a proper moral base in individual rights knows who the enemy is.

Shayne

Go visit the site of the former WTC and say that. I would recommend you do not say it out loud where others can here you.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Amen brother.

My father was a deputy chief in the NYFD and we went to too many funerals. I lost the wives of two friends that I have known for 40 years.

Lest we forget.

Never forgive, never forget.

Asam

[sjw]

Amen brother.

My father was a deputy chief in the NYFD and we went to too many funerals. I lost the wives of two friends that I have known for 40 years.

Lest we forget.

Never forgive, never forget.

Asam

I can't regard anyone as sincere who ignores our own government's culpability in permitting the world to have come to such a state that that happened. We build oil wells, then let them be nationalized and robbed, we send billions of dollars to the region, sell them weapons, we set up puppet governments and anger citizens there, we refuse to allow oil wells to be built in Alaska so we can stop funding our enemies, we fail to retaliate year after year as the violence against us escalates, we commit atrocities here at home with the war on drugs that in economic and human terms likely rivals the damage caused by 9/11, we have pretended patriots violating our own Constitution under the pretense of defending what it stands for--the list goes on and on.

"Amen" indeed--what you are promoting has as much sense as religion.

Shayne

[Selene]

So essentially, as throughout our history, we have had problems, both locally and internationally. Wow, thank you for informing me, I think I will call Newsday because you have completely made me aware that our foreign and domestic policies are not perfect. I am shocked.

Read the Ugly American from the late 50's.

[sjw]

So essentially, as throughout our history, we have had problems, both locally and internationally. Wow, thank you for informing me, I think I will call Newsday because you have completely made me aware that our foreign and domestic policies are not perfect. I am shocked.

You don't get it. These aren't minor imperfections, these are systemic fundamental problems that are going to destroy America. Failing to understand the true causes of 9/11 as you and Giuliani do is just one more major step toward the ultimate dead-end of the destruction of America. YOU are part of the problem, Adam Selene.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."--Abraham Lincoln

Shayne

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Shayne,

All of these insults you keep using to attack other posters are getting tiresome. The problem with the above post (the next to the last one by you), for instance, is that no one really cares if you doubt the sincerity of that poster or not. They just don't care what your opinion of him is. The majority of people turn off to your real message because of your poor rhetorical discipline.

As with all actions in life, there is a question of value. What is achieved? What value do insults like hypocrite, petty, pathetic and so forth have? Do they make you feel good? That would be one value. Speaking for myself, I find no value in the way you use them. They certainly do not convince anyone of anything in any manner I can see, and they damage the tone of goodwill and thinking for oneself I am trying to maintain here on OL. Rather than thinking over an idea, a poster starts thinking about the insult he received from you out of nowhere—one he certainly does not agree with. I do not remember any of Rand's heroes behaving like this, especially not in the volume you do it.

There comes a point when a person who owns, say, a restaurant, has to tell the loud obnoxious customer to keep it down or leave. Otherwise he loses all his other customers. A discussion forum is similar when it comes to personal attacks.

If you want to change the national opinion (and that is a great and admirable goal), I suggest you produce a work and get it published or somehow get your ideas into the mainstream, not simply call some posters on a small Internet forum some harsh names.

You are not achieving any value by this practice—not even the value of having your moral condemnations taken seriously. Most people simply shrug them off as gratuitous nastiness. The principle is that the more you use a rhetorical effect, the less effect is has. Your moral condemnations have become so watered down with overuse and misuse that this is all they are to the public: empty rhetoric of a nasty sort.

When a moral condemnation actually needs to be heard and could be effective, you have no audience anymore. (What audience you do have is my audience, to be frank.) People turn elsewhere to examine moral opinions and judgments. You can even be right and people can even come around to your viewpoint, but it will not happen from them listening to you. They have to get it from someplace else. They tuned out long ago to your message when you say it.

It is possible to be clear, influence people, and go far without being so hostile one-on-one all the time. Ron Paul is a wonderful example of how to do it. He certainly would not be in Congress if he made a habit out of calling the majority of his constituents hypocrites, lacking sincerity, pathetic and so forth when he disagreed with them, even when he was right.

But then again, Ron Paul is in Congress and ran for President, and you are on a small discussion forum not your own. Who has made a bigger difference in spreading ideas? Do you think it is possible to run for President and bring the public's attention to the founding principles of our country doing what you do? Or doing what Ron Paul does (even while being a Republican to boot)?

Please reflect on all this. I like you a lot and, as a friend, it makes me sad to say these things. But they must be said if I am to value what I am building here.

Michael

[Selene]

Incredible. Now you lump me with Giuliani, who I know and assume that I share his position on the why of the attack.

The fact is that the attact occured.

That is what the Never Forgive, Never Forget. Oh, I don't know, kinda like I feel about Pearl Harbor.

I have not even advanced an argument about why the attack occured.

You just love to set up "straw men" and then attack your fantasy.

Very poor thinking skills young man.

Adam

[sjw]

Michael,

Are you against insults, or only honest and accurate insults? Because I don't usually insult someone who hasn't first insulted me. Adam Selene has insulted me a number of times this past few weeks and you've said nothing. He was the one who initiated the hostile remarks against me in this thread. So it strikes me that you're OK with insults as long as they aren't accurate.

I think you just object to my insults because they are actually reality-oriented and therefore hit the spot, whereas those of my opponents are quite misplaced. It's altruism: they are the weaker party so you're stepping in to defend them.

Shayne

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Shayne,

I am against actions without value and that impact other values destructively, regardless of the reason.

You are neither martyr nor moral avenger. You are simply a poster on a discussion forum. You can't get to being a martyr or moral avenger from that place. You have to do other stuff.

Michael

[sjw]

Very poor thinking skills young man.

Thanks for making my point. Hey Michael, are you going to give Selene a pass on this, or does he get a lecture too?

Shayne