Peikoff says vote Democratic, from 1992

[9thdoctor]

I just loaded this to YouTube. I was planning to do it last weekend but I had good ideas for commentary I was going to add to it. In the end I decided that it would be too long if I added as much as would be needed to make the various points I had in mind, so I decided to upload it relatively unadorned.

[Brant Gaede]

The sound seems weak.

--Brant

[9thdoctor]

The sound seems weak.

--Brant

Sounds fine on my system, it's at a regular volume level, what do you mean by weak? It's from a VHS tape, but it sounds good enough to me.

[Brant Gaede]

My computer. I just fixed it.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

I just loaded this to YouTube. I was planning to do it last weekend but I had good ideas for commentary I was going to add to it. In the end I decided that it would be too long if I added as much as would be needed to make the various points I had in mind, so I decided to upload it relatively unadorned.

I kept expecting to hear "Onward Christian Soldiers."

The man is fundamentally confused. This is pure neo-con. He, as did Rand, uses Objectivism* as a conservative, atheistic philosophy which advocated abortion and such in the name of "reason." There is no Israel, which so much informed Objectivism more and more in the 1960s and 1970s, in Atlas Shrugged. The novel is huge, but that European country in an Arab sea was just one more biggie too big to fit into it. In the world of Ayn Rand, during its creation and promulgation, Atlas was the biggest of the big she dealt with. Then the world washed back over her with its publication in all the depth and breath of its sundry complexities. Leonard Peikoff obviously looks upon government as a noble steed--a white horse--only needing an heroic rider to go out and do good in the world. Or, at least, get rid of that damn rider Bush.

Quo vadis, Atlas?

--Brant

*how Objectivism was and is used and what it is are two different things

funny how he was right, though; Clinton was better than Bush I and Bush II, although crappy enough in his own right, for the country continues to go downhill and so too the current blabberer in the White House

[Dan Haggerty]

funny how he was right, though; Clinton was better than Bush I and Bush II, although crappy enough in his own right, for the country continues to go downhill and so too the current blabberer in the White House

Oh my, no and double no. I need to repeat something I posted on OO:

We need some perspective on Clinton here. I was a driver during the Clinton years so I read a lot of papers and listened to a lot of news, and let me tell you Clinton was NOT a better President then Bush. This is not praise of Bush but a condemnation of how bad Clinton was.

Clinton had a better Presidency than Bush but that was because his party got spanked hard in 94, after which he proved he was a better politician than Obama:

• Before that election Clinton’s unelected wife hosted secret meetings (as in the meetings were known but the content was never made public) on nationalizing healthcare. That was a huge debacle at the time and his push for Nationalized Healthcare was a big talking point from 92-94.
  
• Clinton also tried to pass emergency stimulus spending (some of which were blocked) that were shown to be high priced rewards for political supporters.
  
• We pushed through the largest tax increase in history (as of that time).
  
• We got the first run at “Energy Reform”.
  
• He ordered troops in Somalia, who were there on order from Bush Sr. to protect food relief programs thanks to a New York Times tear jerking hunger story during the election, to stay and help hunt down a Warlord which became the “Battle for Mogadishu”. After two dozen American soldiers were killed and some of their mutilated body dragged through the streets, on TV I might add, Clinton ordered the troops to not respond and exit. I’m shaky on the full story now but I remember it was appalling how we had no reason to go into incursion mode and then we abandoned the bodies like cowards.
  
• I mention the Somalia mess also because I’ve always suspected how we turned tail and ran like cowards sent the wrong signals to terrorist group, the ones that spent the next decade attacking us largely unopposed.
  

After 94 Clinton got smart and worked with the freshman coming into Congress. Sadly some became politicians and spent the 00’s acting like career rift-raft you would expect (and lost their jobs later because of this). The rest that fought things like the ridiculous energy plan got targeted hard, in fact I remember a sign in Chicago showing gang-bangers with Uzi’s and a caption saying the local Republican supported that (you think the rancor is bad today). But still Clinton played nice publically and after one ugly partial shutdown of the Government worked with Congress on “Welfare Reform” and balancing the budget.

But even after that it was telling:

• Clinton tried to push through a massive energy tax program that would have forced different kinds of fuel to be color coded and companies would have been fined for using unapproved fuel. After the Republican take over he still got a watered down version passed by one vote.
  
• He greatly expanded the scope of FEMA and the Feds roll in declaring “states of emergencies”, effectively nationalizing natural disasters into the Federal circus we see today.
  
• His Treasury Department orchestrated the changes in how Inflation and Unemployment are calculated today, including the now infamous ability to swap goods from the “retail basket” when determining price.
  
• His FBI chief botched the arrest of Weaver after screwing up a notification of a trial date and issued his arrest a week before his trial date. This resulted in the ATF storming his site and causing a stand-off after shooting the man’s Dog. In ended with the death of Weaver’s wife and his son by sniper shots before negotiators arrived. Weaver was found innocent and every agency involved was cited for failing. Clinton rubberstamped Reno’s handling of the mess until congress stepped in and forced a real investigation.
  
• Less we say about the botched Waco incident and how the ATF stormed that site the better. Yes, the man was a psycho but the report on the ATF’s conduct and complete mismanaging of the situation is atrocious.
  
• Pardoned the participants in his wife’s “Whitewater Scandal”.
  
• Pardoned former House Leader Rostenkowski who served jail time after the Government’s Post Office Scandal (remember that little debacle?).
  
• “Don’t ask, don’t tell”
  
• Expanded the death penalty for Federal Crimes not involving murder (being a drug lord is the one description I remember without bothering to look it up).
  
• I remember he responded to the Al-Qaida attacks on Embassies by bombing a lab that supposedly helped the terrorist group but was easily discovered by CNN to be a simple Pharmaceutical company. We killed a helpless janitor since we attacked at night (evidently the target was the building, not the “terrorists”).
  
• The immoral assault on Microsoft through Anti-Trust laws. Remember Al Gore going to Microsoft and telling the poor employees how the shakedown of their company was for their own good?
  
• Elián González forced deportation at gun point to Communist Cuba.
  

Say what you want about Bush but he never ordered a kid to be sent to a communist hellhole “because it was the right thing to do”. The picture of the Feds storming that family’s home and tearing the scared kid from his family’s arms at gun point tells you exactly just how poor of a leader Bill Clinton was, especially since Reno had oversaw many such horrible abuses of Government power before that and Clinton supported her before and through that.

Clinton was by far a worse President and for the life of me I cannot fathom how LP endorsed environmental whack job Al Gore (the man who thought the automobile was more dangerous than a nuclear weapon) who came from the same administration.

Bush wasn't good but Clinton was far worse.

[Brant Gaede]

You'll get no argument from me about Clinton per se.

As for Bush I, he was responsible for the first Gulf War by effectively giving Iraq the green light to invade Kuwait. Makes Clinton look like a pip squeak. He was a lot better than his son who couldn't figure out how to stop his wars and didn't evince much interest in that regardless.

--Brant

[Dan Haggerty]

You know, when it comes to the Bush clan and I can make arguments both ways. The issue is likely due to the fact Bush Sr. only got four years to review. I'll have to agree that he was the better President of the two. Plus he had Barbra. The Silver Fox was class.