Devil’s Advocate: What if the economy does get better during Obama’s stewardship for a period of time (which may possibly be **in spite **of the stimulus package, rather than being caused by it), and the “success” of the stimulus spurs the implementation of further socialist policies, which eventually doom the country?
If we assume the latter is true, isn’t it rational to hope that the stimulus fails?
I’m not sure what SA is saying, but that is pretty much what Rush is saying. I don’t have a cite handy, but I listen to Rush every now and again and his thoroughly explained statement as having been ever so handily missed by the drive by liberal media is that Obama’s plan is socialism, the end of capitalism, the redistribution of your hard earned wealth, the return of intrusive big government into your daily lives, and the silencing of the few voices of dissent out there of which “El Rushbo” is proud to be a part of. All of those are univerally viewed as both the truth and very bad things and thusly he wants Obama (and all of his clear and present above views) to fail for if Obama succeeds in his plans, the country that he knows and loves will be all but destroyed and he’ll be forced to move to New Zealand.
If you really need a cite, you can turn on Rush and listen to him for about ten minutes or so. He’ll be talking about it.
And Yamato Twinkie: The economy will not get better during Obama’s time because the market has been rejecting his socialist policies from day one. This is proven by the stock markets decline every time he makes a statement about his economic plans which has absolutely nothing else to do with anything but Obama’s announcements so don’t think that at all. As far as I can tell, the belief is that Obama’s initial plans will bring about socialism and everything else which will doom the free markets and the country.
Government health care, redistribution of earned income, a nanny state form of government that makes people afraid of everything so they’ll look to government for their care and their needs rather than making their own way in the world.
Limbaugh, for all his faults, is basically a person who is very positive about the ability of people in this country to achieve, and to, if you’ll pardon the expression, be all that they can be. He feels that people are repressed and kept down and live duller and less rewarding lives if they just plod through life looking to the government to take care of them. He (and I) also believe that government provided anything is almost always substandard and cost inefficient and barely enough. He truly believes that people live happier and more rewarding lives by providing for themselves and taking care of their own needs. Take a look at the government housing projects and welfare programs that were the creation of The Great Society and you can see how happily people live when dependent on goverment largess.
Starving Artist, before the Great Society, the people living on Herman Street (ten houses I was told) shared one outdoor toilet. Now they have public housing with bathrooms and hot and cold running water. It might not be where you would choose to live, but it’s better than what they had before.
Multiple studies from different studies show that the happiest countries in the world are the Scandanavian countries. And they are very heavily taxed. There is no poverty. Everyone has five weeks of mandatory vacation each year. Their health care is excellent and extends to retirement living for the elderly. They have a very high life expectancy and a low infant mortality rate. (Imagine not having to pay the hospital or the doctor when your wife has a baby. Imagine not having to pay insurance.) They have a very high standard of living.
Nevertheless, I’m getting a tax break. How about you?
That’s why we won’t be throwing money at social problems.
I don’t think that many people are suggesting only windmills and solar energy. What do you want to use? Fairy dust?
I don’t know of anyone who wanted it to fail. I knew of many who thought it would. That’s the difference.
So you want to do away with our police and fire departments? Our libraries? Free public education? Terrible, terrible socialist programs!
What do you mean by socialism? Do you think that people can’t own their own businesses? Rush Limbaugh wants you to think that. The President has no intention of doing away with Capitalism.
Rush Limbaugh is a nutcase extremist who talks about liberty and justice for all and then calls any woman who supports gender equality in social, economic, and political issues a “femi-Nazi.” He’s a joke.
Just ask yourself “What has the President really said?”
I think your standard of proof (~1 month of being president and a handful of public comments) needed in order to project long term trends is hardly rigorous.
We need to define what Limbaugh means by fail.
He could want Obama to fail at implementing his agenda or to fail at running his agenda.
The desire for Obama to fail at implementing his agenda I have no problem with.
However, if Obama fails at running his agenda once it’s already implemented, then that means Americans suffer.
Since I’m naturally cynical about whatever Limbaugh says I assumed he wanted Obama to fail in a way where Americans suffer, so that his retarded policies will look good. Now I can see how he might have meant he just doesn’t want Obama to implement the “liberal” agenda.
I was not taking that particular argument myself. I was simply explaining He of the Golden Microphone’s view. You should change your statement to reflect this. Personally, I think that Rush’s views border on the ridiculous. If I may remove a quote from context and repost it here to highlight.
In this statement, there is nothing wrong with the belief espoused except for that pesky “if.” While I suppose it is possibly debatable that Obama’s policies could bring about socialism maybe sorta kinda (
), that’s not his stated goal nor is it even hinted at in any of his statements or actions.
To turn this argument the other way, What is so strange about being honest and saying I want Rush Limbaugh arrested as a sex offender for travelling abroad with a truckload of erectile dysfunction medication in order to fornicate with every orifice within arms reach? Both arguments have a clear answer and both of them have a grain of truth with a huge amount of hysterical assumption mixed in to stir outrage.
Also Zoe, I believe those quotes you have attributed to me are actually those of Rush Limbaugh. A correction would be nice.
If I were defending Limbaugh, I would argue that his views make more sense if you assume (as I actually would assume that he does, and I don’t know why he isn’t more clear about it) that Obama’s policies aren’t going to affect the economy very much in terms of helping it recover. If you aren’t a Keynesian, then you don’t believe that the stimulus will really fix the economy in the first place: so it “failing” isn’t really relevant to whether the economy recovers or not. But it certainly is relevant to restructuring the tax code and government spending in ways that Limbaugh opposes.
You might want to read the part of my quote that you truncated with ellipses where I mentioned:
And where I was going under the assumption that Any further “socialist” trends will doom the country eventually. In no way do I consider that to be true. I’m pretty sure Rush does.
I, see, your own devil’s advocatism went over my head. Duly noted. :smack:
Again, my argument was that I think that more than one person did at least consider the idea. How do I know this? I myself briefly entertained the idea, before recognizing it as childish and petty. I’m willing to admit that. And I’m not even very hardcore on the partisan “anti-bush” end of things.
For God’s sake, people, we need to get past this idea that Obama and the Dems are all about implementing to the hilt some dogmatic, prefabricated ideological agenda with a scary name like “European-stye”. No, they’re about solving actual problems by juggling the the factors pertinent to the situation, doing the math, and coming up with an optimal solution.
The flip side of “socialism” is knee-jerk ideological opposition to anything that can be spun as “socialism”. If the stimulus plan succeeds, then spending can be reined back in as no longer necessary.
If I went to the hospital suffering from appendicitis, I wouldn’t want my doctor’s surgical procedure to fail on the grounds that success would encourage him to perform a lot more surgery on me, like all he really wants to do is cut me open and mess with my insides.
Once the economy ain’t broke, there will no longer be any need to fix it.
And anyone else who never said such a thing out loud is entitled to the presumption that they came to the same sort of conclusion, i.e. the benefit of the doubt.
Cite? And just for fun, what do you think happened in the 1930s-1940s, and the 1980s?
Actually, it’s the foundation of modern capitalism. They’re called business loans. What are you, some kind of communist?
The free market will cure polio! Children belong in the mines!
That’s why they call them mad scientists. No sane person thinks our economy can rely on a single power source, so that’s why we’ve got lots of them. If we invest in solar and wind energy now, we can sell it to those other countries when it’s cheaper than the other forms.
Is that you, Rush? Please put the Oxy-Contin down and go take a nap.
PS Whenever you use the phrase “throwing money at social problems”, you forfeit any right to be taken seriously.
I’m not going to make a habit of this but I’m going to defend Rush Limbaugh. He’s not saying he wants Obama’s plans to fail - Limbaugh believes those plans would fail because of their inherent faults. What he’s saying is that he wants Obama to fail to achieve his plans.
Didn’t we try the free market/private financial system? Where did it get us?
Isn’t our great military a “socialist” endevour? Not everything we do “collectively” is a failure. What about our highway system?
What are the options? Let the free market correct itself?
My personal opinion is that it’s a false either/or dilemma. Both systems work and each have their advantages and disadvantages. A free market system varies over wider cycles: it has higher highs and lower lows - call it a range from 1-9. A regulated system is muted and tends to cluster more towards the middle - call it a range of 4-6. When your economy is booming it makes sense to let the free market have its way; you’ll hit peaks of 7, 8, or 9 rather than be held back at 6. But when your economy busts, you regulate; you’d rather bottom out at a 4 then drop all the way to a 3, 2, or 1. Mix them together and you’ve got a system with a range of 4-9 - better than either system could do on its own.
Of course. To Rush, when Bush was doing it, it was for a war vital to defending this country from being torn apart by Al Queda and bringing democracy to a people crying out from under the thumb of brutal oppression. When Obama does it, it’s to buy off cronies, destroy capitalism in favor of a socialist system, and lie about doing something for an economy that would recover if we would just do nothing and let all the banks fail.
If the essential principle of small government/low tax/limited service conservatism is that government intervention is harmful, then aren’t conservatives contradicting themselves when they say they “hope” Obama’s policies will fail? They should assert that they absolutely will fail in the end, because their core beliefs allow no other outcome.
I don’t count myself as a conservative by any means, and believe the more like Canada or Sweden we can become, the better! And, of course, I’ve oversimplified my concept of what lies at the heart of that brand of conservatism. But I think I can safely argue that if you’re conservative but you accept the idea of some government-imposed structure on the market, then to that extent you are not as conservative as you think, on an absolute level. Real politics, on the other hand, is not absolute.
For that matter, shouldn’t they hold their tongues and let the plan be implemented? That way, when it does fail, it will be clearly a Democratic failure and not due to Republican obstruction and interference.
But then, if it works it would be a clear Democratic success. They dare not even risk that.
I suppose the president forming a fascist totalitarian regime might fix the economy, but I wouldn’t want that persons plans to succeed.
I’m not saying, I’m just saying.