Scientists in giant panda suits attend to the needs of a cub. Perhaps Pres. Obama can borrow their costumes as he shills for his Stimulus II menu of handouts.
I keep waiting for the panda bear to replace the donkey as the official symbol of the Democratic Party. Pres. Obama continues to tour the country pandering to every special interest group which might have a special interest in federal government handouts, and promising that everything will be paid for with a small surcharge on the wealthy. Imitating FDR, the grand master of re-election through federally-funded vote buying, Pres. Obama hopes that the electorate will overlook his unctuous economic failure, if there’s something in it for them. This week he attempted to purchase the student vote with an over-hyped and unimpressive easing of student loans, apparently convinced that the generation he’s forcing into a lifetime of indebtedness will accept more of the same, if only he allows them to retain an additional $4 – 8 per month. Nice to know Barry’s hard at work keeping the dream of a college education alive. I’m sure his plan conjures up all sorts of fond college memories, especially the image of Kevin Bacon doubled over, grimacing, as he requests “another.”
Obama, like Kevin Bacon’s character, seems invested in repetitious activity despite the inevitability of the pain inflicted. According to Peter Schiff, writing in Business Insider, Obama’s student loan plan, which also puts limits on the amount of money students will be required to repay, creates the same moral hazard as did government subsidies in the housing market. We know how well that worked out.
Here’s a little quiz. What do these three things have in common: college tuition, housing prices and medical costs? Yes, they all have risen above the rate of inflation. And, they are all government subsidized. Coincidence? Of course not.
Obama’s economically illiterate student loan program
Yet, our economically illiterate President feels the way to make things affordable is to increase government subsidy, and in the case of higher education, make a de facto transition from a system of student loans (which get repaid) to government grants (nominal loans which are not repaid, but simply defaulted upon and absorbed by government as a cost of doing business). The endpoint is a system of “free” education, which, although utopian, is as unsustainable as Medicare and as vulnerable to crashing as the mortgage market.
I can’t help thinking that at the root of this is not simply the President’s ignorance. Though I have never in my life witnessed such a startling disparity between a man’s putative (diplomaed) intelligence and his working knowledge, I’m pretty sure the cause of his intransigence is a hardened ideological confusion about the nature of rights.
Does Barack Obama understand the nature of “unalienable rights”?
When Thomas Jefferson wrote that among our unalienable rights are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” he expressed a commonly held belief that rights are both universal and limited. That is, we all have them, but they are limited to that which is integral to us and detached from others. My life, my liberty and my (reasonable, healthy) pursuit of happiness do not interfere with or detract from anyone else’s. Obama’s notion of a right seems to be the exact opposite: that rights are different depending upon one’s identity and are potentially unlimited, including the right to impose my will and the consequences of my actions on others. This system not only results in moral confusion, but is in no way practicable and inevitably results in violence. Viva la revolution!
Was “Fast and Furious” a deliberate scheme to discredit the 2nd Amendment?
Example. I have the right to life. Implicit in the right to life is the right to defend that life. Implicit in the right to defend that life is the right to possess the means to defend that life. That is the essence of the 2nd amendment. Without the means and the moral authority to defend my life, my right to life does not exist.
If Rep. Joe Walsh (R – IL) is correct and the scandalous “Fast and Furious” was simply a scheme to implicate legal gun sales to gain public support for further eroding the 2nd amendment, it would reveal much about how the Obama administration views the right to life: not unalienable at all, but governed by the political whims of the ruling class.
Example 2. Liberty. In order to be free one must be self-sufficient. In order to be self-sufficient, one must not be dependent. In order not to be dependent, one must do for oneself. However, the President seems to believe that one is only free if one is able to do what others can do and have what others have. If one is unable to do or have, government must act, imposing an equal result. But, government cannot create opportunity and/or material possessions out of thin air; it can only take from those who have created to give to those whom the government favors. Thus to the extent that the government makes some citizens “free” it forces others into servitude. That may make things more “equal” but it does violence to the notion of liberty. It also does violence to the idea that rights are universal and that they are in any way self-contained. When I can claim the right to the fruits of another person’s labor, learning or genius, I essentially own that person. This system breeds divisiveness and always requires violence to enforce and violence to overthrow.
It is ironic that the first Black president is advocating a system of “free” this and “free” that, which is grossly unsustainable and will inevitably reduce the nation to slavery.
FDR, shown at his 2nd inaugural in 1937, one re-election three times despite failing to improve the nation's economic circumstances during The Great Depression. His recipe for success: class warfare pandering and lots of entitlements.
Will the President’s divide and conquer strategy of buying votes with handouts work? Democratic candidates from FDR to Harvey Milk and beyond have used this method to successfully work mischief, so there’s reason to believe it could work again. As the socialist playwright and Stalin apologist George Bernard Shaw wrote, “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” In this coming election, we’ve got to count on Paul to do the right thing. To look at the enormity of the federal deficit and realize that doubling down on reckless fiscal policy is not in his self-interest or the nation’s. If enough Pauls return to an understanding of rights as universal and limited, and reject the pandering, it’s possible we’ll be alright.
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