Prediction - The Strangest Feeling

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Prediction - The Strangest Feeling

I have the strangest feeling about President Obama. I saw his speech before Congress last night and the strangest feeling welled up inside me.

I pity him.

I really do.

I got the feeling that he truly believes the ideas he holds are going to work. The reality is that society is going to chew him up and spit him out like garbage. The rumblings have already started and a speech like he gave full of platitudes disconnected from reality is fuel for that fire. I even believe he runs serious risk of impeachment, although it is not evident yet.

The saying is that you get elected with poetry, but rule with logic. The speech I saw was poetry. Hell, even that spending bill is poetry so far when it is not smokescreen legalese.

President Obama is what I call a political butterfly. He lands on something unpleasant, but then flies off it. As a subordinate, you can do that and remain above it all. As leader, you can't without serious punishment from followers.

I don't think he realizes how nasty people can get when the nasty ringleaders are not dealt with—and despite his handshaking going up to and leaving the speech podium, I don't see him really in charge of the nasty folks.

What bothers me is that I also predict that someone with an iron grip over the nasty folks will follow him if (or I should say when) he falls. If that person happens to be a nasty folk, too, we ain't seen nothing yet.

Let's hope that President Obama cures cancer—like he claimed he (actually "we" and "in our time" with federal funding, of course) was going to do—before the bad stuff hits. Maybe we can watch him walk on water while he's at it.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Let's hope that President Obama cures cancer—like he claimed he (actually "we" and "in our time" with federal funding, of course) was going to do—before the bad stuff hits. Maybe we can watch him walk on water while he's at it.

Michael

Intelligence and hard work is what will cure cancer (if there is a cure). Throwing stolen money at the problem will not solve it. As I pointed out in another post, regarding money as a primary cause for wealth is obverse.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Michael:

Yes, indeed, as I noted last night in another thread, "He actually believes this shit!"

As I have mentioned before, it is all the appointments and provisionals, 25 or 27 year olds that do not have a clue, but have the power to effect, in law, their little wet dream fantasies of how society should be forced to work.

I am trying to track down a story about a particular board that has been created by this Mega Marxist Law that was enacted. If what I heard is true, it is time as Rush put it yesterday, "...to try a John Galt...".

Your point about the Iron Fist that will follow has a very high probability of occurring, in my humble opinion.

Adam

[BaalChatzaf]

Michael:

Yes, indeed, as I noted last night in another thread, "He actually believes this shit!"

As I have mentioned before, it is all the appointments and provisionals, 25 or 27 year olds that do not have a clue, but have the power to effect, in law, their little wet dream fantasies of how society should be forced to work.

I am trying to track down a story about a particular board that has been created by this Mega Marxist Law that was enacted. If what I heard is true, it is time as Rush put it yesterday, "...to try a John Galt...".

Your point about the Iron Fist that will follow has a very high probability of occurring, in my humble opinion.

Adam

It just occurred to me. Fearless Leader has declared a Children's Crusade against What Ails Us. The original Children's Crusade was an unmitigated disaster. As the Chinese are supposed to have said: may we live interesting times.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited February 25, 2009 by BaalChatzaf

[Selene]

"According to more recent research there seem to have actually been two movements of people (of all ages) in 1212 in Germany and France.[1][2] The similarities of the two allowed later chroniclers to combine and embellish the tales.

In the first movement Nicholas, a shepherd from Germany, led a group across the Alps and into Italy in the early spring of 1212. About 7,000 arrived in Genoa in late August. However, their plans did not bear fruit when the waters failed to part as promised, and the band broke up. Some left for home, others may have gone to Rome, and some may have travelled down the Rhône to Marseilles, where they were probably sold into slavery. Few returned home and none reached the Holy Land.

The second movement was led by a 12 year old French shepherd boy named Stephen of Cloyes (a village near Châteaudun), who claimed in June that he bore a letter for the king of France from Jesus. Attracting a crowd of over 30,000 he went to Saint-Denis, where he was seen to work miracles. On the orders of Philip II, on the advice of the University of Paris, the crowd was sent home, and most of them went. None of the contemporary sources mention plans to go to Jerusalem." Wikipedia

[Christopher]

"According to more recent research there seem to have actually been two movements of people (of all ages) in 1212 in Germany and France.[1][2] The similarities of the two allowed later chroniclers to combine and embellish the tales."

If we're talking about children, didn't the Children's Crusade end poorly, with most of the children being taken up into slavery by ships that were supposed to carry them to the holy land?

Actually, what I'm valuing about Obama is a centeredness and self-awareness that will help him make decisions relatively independent of political pressures. To be fair, he is president and is therefore imbued with significant power himself. We can also admit, any ideas that come from political pressure are more than likely to go against Objectivist beliefs. I just hope he independently has some good ideas and not fruitless spending plans.

[BaalChatzaf]

Actually, what I'm valuing about Obama is a centeredness and self-awareness that will help him make decisions relatively independent of political pressures. To be fair, he is president and is therefore imbued with significant power himself. We can also admit, any ideas that come from political pressure are more than likely to go against Objectivist beliefs. I just hope he independently has some good ideas and not fruitless spending plans.

As my bubbe (grandma) used to say in Yiddish: Baldt es will kommen.. Translate that: Yeah! Right.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Barbara Branden]

What I intensely disliked about Obama's last speech and press conference -- aside from the total content of his remarks -- was his presumptuous, authoritarian scolding, wagging his finger as if in their faces, of Wall Street investors and the CEOs of major companies. No more bonuses? No more jets? He should have added: No more right to contract as constitutionally required. This man, who has never run so much as a corner store, and is spending other people's money like a drunken sailor, has the incredible gall to announce that he will decide how businessmen shall be paid. And the utter madness to think, if he really does think it, that the bureaucrats who so ably run Amtrak and the Post Office are fit to run banks, major industries, and the nation's health care.

No, I don't feel sorry for Obama. I feel sorry for the rest of us.

Barbara

[Jerry Biggers]

What I intensely disliked about Obama's last speech and press conference -- aside from the total content of his remarks -- was his presumptuous, authoritarian scolding, wagging his finger as if in their faces, of Wall Street investors and the CEOs of major companies. No more bonuses? No more jets? He should have added: No more right to contract as constitutionally required. This man, who has never run so much as a corner store, and is spending other people's money like a drunken sailor, has the incredible gall to announce that he will decide how businessmen shall be paid. And the utter madness to think, if he really does think it, that the bureaucrats who so ably run Amtrak and the Post Office are fit to run banks, major industries, and the nation's health care.

No, I don't feel sorry for Obama. I feel sorry for the rest of us.

Barbara

I don't see naivety or innocence in Obama's past history or in his plans. I think he knows exactly what he is doing and what he wants to accomplish - redistribution of wealth (as he said himself in the WBEZ radio interview on Youtube that you linked to elsewhere in OL, Michael).

He reminds me of Sen Huey Long from Louisiana, in the 1930's (and ably depicted by Robert Penn Warren in his book, All The King's Men, and in the original movie of that name from 1948). A populist demogogue with collectivist totalitarian goals. Other similar examples are Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Juan Peron in Argentina.

The paralells with Chavez are particularly troubling. There, the majority of the electorate have not only embraced his socialist policies, but have re-elected him again, overturning the constitutional term limits, so that he can further his confiscatory policies.

When Obama's economic "rescue plan" fails, he will blame everybody but himself. Accusations against capitalist greed will fly. Tighter economic controls will be insituted, with further more intrusive regulations, or with outright nationalizations.

Well, the American electorate decided to believe the Mainstream Media whitewash and elected him. They now have their "Mr. Thompson."

Ayn Rand may have been correct in her depiction of the Looters in Atlas Shrugged. Unfortunately, the book is not literal prophecy (which is a mystical concept), and there is no John Galt who will save us. Somehow, we will have to save ourselves.

[Chris Grieb]

Barbara; Stop being so hard on drunken sailors. They can't print money. Obama has and will.

[Roger Bissell]

What I intensely disliked about Obama's last speech and press conference...

If only it were!

REB

[Selene]

Jery:

Ayn Rand may have been correct in her depiction of the Looters in Atlas Shrugged. Unfortunately, the book is not literal prophecy (which is a mystical concept), and there is no John Galt who will save us. Somehow, we will have to save ourselves.

"..may have been correct..." < I believe she was correct. Additionally, I have never ceased to be amazed by the generic awe that objectivists. Randians, etc. display for Ayn until it comes to the issue of "the strike". Well, you know the strike was just a metaphoric, novelic device to effect her message.

"...there is no John Galt who will save us." I am going to pull from the Jesus guy, who stated that he was in all of us.

I believe the real problem with the strike is that it requires us to take precipitous action. Vanishing is not that easy yet because of the technology. [ba'al referred to it in discussing the gun props against what is available to the "authoritarian authority" than will be seeking you.]

However, all of the logistical "stuff" aside.

Why not strike because folks it don't look good at all?

http://www.iea.org.uk/record.jsp?type=pres...icle&ID=386 This article posits that the PAYGO plan espoused by government is a Ponzi scheme.

Adam

Edited February 26, 2009 by Selene

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Pity or not, the good news is that society in general is going to tear President Obama to shreds. I firmly believe that. This is still America and you can't do what he is doing. There will be a mess to clean up, but I predict they will make mincemeat out of his political career, then run it through the grinder once again.

Michael

[rhartford]

Why not strike because folks it don't look good at all?

I agree! This is an opportune time to strike, not an "Atlas Shrugged strike," but striking out with advocacy for freedom.

The clarity of the opponents' collectivism, and the ground prepared by friends of freedom over recent decades, may make such an "advocacy strike" preempt the need for an "Atlas Shrugged strike." Now is the time to increase our efforts to promote a culture of freedom. Success may be near!

[Selene]

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/e...isposition.html <click on the executive order and read how powerful these "signings" are and the breadth of their scope.

Executive Orders

Subject Index for Barack Obama - 2009-Present

D

* Defense, national

o Guantanamo Bay Naval Base; closure of detention facilities and review of detentions: EO 13492

o Interrogation of individuals in U.S. custody or control in armed conflicts; standards and practices: EO 13491

o Special Interagency Task Force on Detainee Disposition; establishment: EO 13493

G

* Government agencies and employees

o Executive Branch appointees; ethics commitments: EO 13490

P

* Presidential Records Act; policies and procedures: EO 13489

[Barbara Branden]

John Bolton recently made an interesting comment. He said that conservatives should not be comforted by the fact that Obama has backed off some of his campaign rhetoric on issues such as Gitmo, oAFTA, and CIA black sites. "Being inconsistent and deceptive is not the same as being moderate," he said.

Barbara

[Alfonso Jones]

Prediction - The Strangest Feeling

I have the strangest feeling about President Obama. I saw his speech before Congress last night and the strangest feeling welled up inside me.

I pity him.

I really do.

I got the feeling that he truly believes the ideas he holds are going to work. The reality is that society is going to chew him up and spit him out like garbage. The rumblings have already started and a speech like he gave full of platitudes disconnected from reality is fuel for that fire. I even believe he runs serious risk of impeachment, although it is not evident yet.

The saying is that you get elected with poetry, but rule with logic. The speech I saw was poetry. Hell, even that spending bill is poetry so far when it is not smokescreen legalese.

President Obama is what I call a political butterfly. He lands on something unpleasant, but then flies off it. As a subordinate, you can do that and remain above it all. As leader, you can't without serious punishment from followers.

I don't think he realizes how nasty people can get when the nasty ringleaders are not dealt with—and despite his handshaking going up to and leaving the speech podium, I don't see him really in charge of the nasty folks.

What bothers me is that I also predict that someone with an iron grip over the nasty folks will follow him if (or I should say when) he falls. If that person happens to be a nasty folk, too, we ain't seen nothing yet.

Let's hope that President Obama cures cancer—like he claimed he (actually "we" and "in our time" with federal funding, of course) was going to do—before the bad stuff hits. Maybe we can watch him walk on water while he's at it.

Michael

Time to go back and read Drury's Advise and Consent series (I just did that recently).

It's looking more and more like we got Ted Jason.

Dire days for the republic.

Bill P

[Selene]

Excellent Bill:

Come Ninevah, Come Trye (1973) - one of my favorite writers. I wrote him at the end of Preserve and Protect (1968) stating that I was a believer in resolving plots based on values and was upset that he did not do that in Preserve and Protect.

He wrote back to me, by hand, very nice man and explained that he was writing two sequels with two different starts.

He, of course, wrote the Promise of Joy in 1975.

His non-fiction A Very Strange Society (1967) about South Africa is excellent - I think it was contributed to by his novel A Shade of Difference (1962).

Great writer and super individual.

Adam

[Alfonso Jones]

Excellent Bill:

Come Ninevah, Come Trye (1973) - one of my favorite writers. I wrote him at the end of Preserve and Protect (1968) stating that I was a believer in resolving plots based on values and was upset that he did not do that in Preserve and Protect.

He wrote back to me, by hand, very nice man and explained that he was writing two sequels with two different starts.

He, of course, wrote the Promise of Joy in 1975.

His non-fiction A Very Strange Society (1967) about South Africa is excellent - I think it was contributed to by his novel A Shade of Difference (1962).

Great writer and super individual.

Adam

Yes. I treasure a series of hardbacks of all six volumes in the Advise and Consent series. I remember being seriously discomfited by the confusing conclusion to The Promise of Joy.

At least a couple of the books in the series were reviewed, quite positively, in The Objectivist Newsletter or the Objectivist. Don't look for those reviews in the Objectivism Research CD-ROM, however . . .

For the usual reason.

Bill P

[Selene]

And the difference between Peikoff and the 1984 dude and Stalin/Mao/Adolf, et. al. is...what again?

Edited February 27, 2009 by Selene

[DavidMcK]

Mike, I also had your sentiment even during the campaign, but it went away when I had this thought: Isn't he like a Doctor presuming to perform surgery on a sick patient? And if he hasn't bothered to find out the first thing about medicine isn't he responsible for the things that he doesn't know that he could find out (by reading Atlas for example; or learning Bastiat's/Hazlitt's One Lesson). When you realize that you are the patient I think feeling sorry for him will start to dissipate very quickly!

Edited February 27, 2009 by DavidMcK

[galtgulch]

Why not strike because folks it don't look good at all?

I agree! This is an opportune time to strike, not an "Atlas Shrugged strike," but striking out with advocacy for freedom.

The clarity of the opponents' collectivism, and the ground prepared by friends of freedom over recent decades, may make such an "advocacy strike" preempt the need for an "Atlas Shrugged strike." Now is the time to increase our efforts to promote a culture of freedom. Success may be near!

Robert Hartford,

That is the spirit!

www.campaignforliberty.com 104920 1 Mar 105202

Join us and pass the torch!

gulch

Edited March 1, 2009 by galtgulch

[Christopher]

I don't see naivety or innocence in Obama's past history or in his plans. I think he knows exactly what he is doing and what he wants to accomplish - redistribution of wealth (as he said himself in the WBEZ radio interview on Youtube that you linked to elsewhere in OL, Michael).

He reminds me of Sen Huey Long from Louisiana, in the 1930's (and ably depicted by Robert Penn Warren in his book, All The King's Men, and in the original movie of that name from 1948). A populist demogogue with collectivist totalitarian goals. Other similar examples are Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Juan Peron in Argentina.

The paralells with Chavez are particularly troubling. There, the majority of the electorate have not only embraced his socialist policies, but have re-elected him again, overturning the constitutional term limits, so that he can further his confiscatory policies.

When Obama's economic "rescue plan" fails, he will blame everybody but himself. Accusations against capitalist greed will fly. Tighter economic controls will be insituted, with further more intrusive regulations, or with outright nationalizations.

Well, the American electorate decided to believe the Mainstream Media whitewash and elected him. They now have their "Mr. Thompson."

Ayn Rand may have been correct in her depiction of the Looters in Atlas Shrugged. Unfortunately, the book is not literal prophecy (which is a mystical concept), and there is no John Galt who will save us. Somehow, we will have to save ourselves.

Redistribution of wealth? Does anyone really still believe in such a policy (other than Sarkozy)? ...Seriously? Usually when people act in the name of wealth redistribution, I assume they have an ulterior motive underneath the veil. Chavez, Stalin, Mao... these guys were not true socialists, they used "socialism" for their own political ends.

So if Obama turns out to display deep socialist tendencies, let's ask what evidence we have of ulterior motives.

[BaalChatzaf]

Redistribution of wealth? Does anyone really still believe in such a policy (other than Sarkozy)? ...Seriously? Usually when people act in the name of wealth redistribution, I assume they have an ulterior motive underneath the veil. Chavez, Stalin, Mao... these guys were not true socialists, they used "socialism" for their own political ends.

So if Obama turns out to display deep socialist tendencies, let's ask what evidence we have of ulterior motives.

Their is a simple word for the forceful redistribution of wealth. Theft

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Roger Bissell]

I don't see naivety or innocence in Obama's past history or in his plans. I think he knows exactly what he is doing and what he wants to accomplish - redistribution of wealth (as he said himself in the WBEZ radio interview on Youtube that you linked to elsewhere in OL, Michael).

He reminds me of Sen Huey Long from Louisiana, in the 1930's (and ably depicted by Robert Penn Warren in his book, All The King's Men, and in the original movie of that name from 1948). A populist demogogue with collectivist totalitarian goals. Other similar examples are Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Juan Peron in Argentina.

The paralells with Chavez are particularly troubling. There, the majority of the electorate have not only embraced his socialist policies, but have re-elected him again, overturning the constitutional term limits, so that he can further his confiscatory policies.

When Obama's economic "rescue plan" fails, he will blame everybody but himself. Accusations against capitalist greed will fly. Tighter economic controls will be insituted, with further more intrusive regulations, or with outright nationalizations.

Well, the American electorate decided to believe the Mainstream Media whitewash and elected him. They now have their "Mr. Thompson."

Ayn Rand may have been correct in her depiction of the Looters in Atlas Shrugged. Unfortunately, the book is not literal prophecy (which is a mystical concept), and there is no John Galt who will save us. Somehow, we will have to save ourselves.

Redistribution of wealth? Does anyone really still believe in such a policy (other than Sarkozy)? ...Seriously? Usually when people act in the name of wealth redistribution, I assume they have an ulterior motive underneath the veil. Chavez, Stalin, Mao... these guys were not true socialists, they used "socialism" for their own political ends.

So if Obama turns out to display deep socialist tendencies, let's ask what evidence we have of ulterior motives.

Does it really matter whether any political leader has believed in redistribution of wealth as an end in itself?

Whether theft is pursued as an end in itself or as a means to an end (e.g., political power) is irrelevant. It's theft, it's a violation of individual rights, it's unjust, it's evil, it's anti-life. (Underneath the veil of income redistribution is evil, which is "live" backwards. Fewer more apropros anagrams in English than that one!)

Personally, I'm convinced that Obama is just another phony, dangerously charismatic, power-seeking politician of the big (i.e., huge) government variety. Whether he's after power as an end in itself and redistribution as the means -- or redistribution of wealth as an end in itself and political power as the means -- who cares, at this point? If Obama and the Democratically controlled Congress are not stopped -- and maybe a huge crash discrediting their programs will do it -- America, the Land of the Free, is cooked.

Also, I think there is a very real possibility that there will be a further power grab, when (not if) these huge spend/borrow/tax programs crash and burn. One Party system? Quite possibly. We'll see what happens in the mid-term Congressional elections in 2010.

REB

P. S. -- I was so amused at all the paranoia about Bush and Cheney staging a coup and not giving up power. There has been no more gracious person than Bush, from beginning to end of his Administration. He and Laura left the White House pristine, unlike the Clintons who basically looted it; and he provided a very smooth transition for Obama's people, unlike what Clinton did for him. Also unlike Clinton, I think "W" is going to be considerably less anxious to stay in the spotlight. Less testosterone? Less "ego" to feed? Whatever.