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Obama is an Intellectual Midget

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I said:"As far as fascism being caused by economic conditions, that is just silly: fascism is caused by ideology, and enabled by a lack of strong principles, like the ones that caused America to uphold individual rights through recessions, wars and even the Great Depression. Those principles are in danger now because of the Republicans, and their ideology is the only one growing dangerously."

You responded:

Germany. 1930's. 'nuff said.

It really isn't. In fact that is nowhere near enough said. Just a few days ago someone on your side argued that fascism was a response to comunism, in 1930's Germany, and that is why Obama is going to somehow cause fascism, just as the communists caused it then.

So which is it?

Did poverty, hunger and misery cause all the poor germans to kill 6 million jews (you seem to be suggesting that is so obvious, there isn't even a need to explain it), or did the communists cause them to do it?

Or was it a combination of the two?

Hitler's rise was facilitated by the bourgeois, who believed in his ideology. I'm not going to go into it in detail (I saw somone recomment "The Ominous Parallels" for such details), because it is irelevant to our discussion(on Obama), but the fact is his supporters were among the rich and the middle class, certainly not the poor unemployed workers, who were most affected by the economic troubles.

So I mantain my opinion: saying that economic problems are the root cause of fascism is silly-->saying that they might be the root cause of fascism in America is even more silly, since America has been through tough times before, never spawned any fascism. (not even a little)

Edited by Jake_Ellison
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  • 1 year later...

I wrote about Obama in November of 2008:

He has a vision (....) a goal bigger than just getting into the White House. There are men who seek such office because it is an accomplishment and once they get there - they have pretty much achieved their goal. And then there are men who seek such power as means to a greater goal. That is Obama.

I draw no pleasure from validation in this case (and sadly this is not the first instance of it).

This is a great article (HT: Objectivists on Facebook):

Loosing In Fall OK with Democrats if it means they win Healthcare

from the article:

Because it's worth it. Big time. I've been saying in this space for two years that the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible.

....

Right-of-center parties [in most of the rest of the Western world] will once in a while be in office, but never in power, merely presiding over vast left-wing bureaucracies that cruise on regardless.

....

Once the state swells to a certain size, the people available to fill the ever expanding number of government jobs will be statists...

.....

The people can elect "conservatives," as the Germans have done and the British are about to do, and the left is mostly relaxed about it because, in all but exceptional cases (Thatcher), they fulfill the same function in the system as the first-year boys at wintry English boarding schools who for tuppence-ha'penny or some such would agree to go and warm the seat in the unheated lavatories until the prefects strolled in and took their rightful place.

....

You pass ObamaCare. You lose the 2010 election, which gives the GOP co-ownership of an awkward couple of years. And you come back in 2012 to find your health care apparatus is still in place, a fetid behemoth of toxic pustules oozing all over the basement, and, simply through the natural processes of government, already bigger and more expensive and more bureaucratic than it was when you passed it two years earlier.

That's a huge prize, and well worth a midterm timeout.

(.....)

ObamaCare represents the government annexation of "one-sixth of the U.S. economy" — i.e., the equivalent of the entire British or French economy, or the entire Indian economy twice over.

This "reform" is not about health care...

Edited by ~Sophia~
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Well, it's fascinating to read the old '08 posts.

How's that gay marriage in Utah working out?

How about that tax cut?

Nobody worried about the Census? Federal takeover of college financing? A VAT on top of the income tax? $4 trillion + budget? Ridiculous healthcare carousel of tragic irony?

The funny thing is, all the people talking about 1) Obama's inexperience 2) Radical ideology 3) Dangerous ambition, were basically all right. The 'evidence' was always there. As Glenn Reynolds says, "Rubes".

Anyway, I imagine that by 2030, the religious and collectivist factions of America will merge. This as conservative religion grows more 'people-friendly' and 'youth-oriented' - oh yes, there was a reactionary bump against today's declining taste for religion, but that will fade in the face of more and more MTV - and also as liberals grow more and more in need of mystical spirituality. Don't forget that just two generations ago, liberals were very empirical and thoughtful people, one generation ago they rejected knowledge, that means the up and coming generation will need to seek 'mystical' knowledge to complete the cycle. Hare Krishna was only the beginning.

That's just my prediction, hopefully it will make life easier for Objectivists, when one candidate is collectivist and religious. Well, probably in the end both will be.

So ask yourself: do I want conservatives that restrict things on the margin - like formal gay marriage and abortion - or will I settle for that since they also believe in a constrained government? The other choice being an intellectual vacuum dressed up as all powerful all giving super-state?

By the way - you don't have to vote for the lesser of two evils. There is much thought that you must, but I argue that if enough people refused to choose the lesser of two evils then a more noticeable 'independent' vote would emerge - which would have enormous sway in deciding policy.

So rather than vote for Obama or McCain, don't vote, until someone realizes they have to become a bit more palatable for you to cast in their favor. It works in the converse - if someone is so bad, vote against them. But of two general 'evils', neither deserves your vote if you don't care to give it - primary process be damned.

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I think I may disagree with you. I think he is the real deal. What is suppressed in the popular media is just how radical he is. He is an idealist. He has a vision (very much integrated vision which goes beyond American borders - this collective vision is global) - a goal bigger than just getting into the White House. There are men who seek such office because it is an accomplishment and once they get there - they have pretty much achieved their goal. And then there are men who seek such power as means to a greater goal. That is Obama.

Lord Obama is the spiritual grandson of the America hating Saul Alinsky, a left wing radical of the most destructive and loathsome type. Alinsky was a Zinn type lefty, despising the American essence down to the molecular level. Obama falsely swore to uphold the Constitution of the U.S.. He is of a philosophical tradition that completely denies what our Founders try to set up for us, a bottom up republic capable of defending our property and liberty.

Do not underestimate Obama's intelligence. He is a very smart man. He made Harvard Law Review which is no place for intellectual lightweights. It is interesting that some of the most effective left wing enemies of our constitution are extremely intelligent. Bill Clinton was one such (he was a Rhodes Scholar). Woodrow Wilson is another example. It is very dangerous to underestimate the intelligence and determination of our mortal enemies.

Bob Kolker

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  • 4 months later...

Emailed from a good friend of mine.+ Damn obama!

~~~

New tax changes -

In just six months, the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect. They will hit families and small businesses in three great waves on January 1, 2011:

First Wave: Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief

In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for investors, small business owners, and families.

These will all expire on January 1, 2011:

Personal income tax rates will rise. The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed). The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent. All the rates in between will also rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates. The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:

The 10% bracket rises to an expanded 15%

The 25% bracket rises to 28%

The 28% bracket rises to 31%

The 33% bracket rises to 36%

The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%

Higher taxes on marriage and family. The “marriage penalty” (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of income. The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child. The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level. The dependent care and adoption tax credits will be cut.

The return of the Death Tax. This year, there is no death tax. For those dying on or after January 1 2011, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million. A person leaving behind two homes and a retirement account could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones.

Higher tax rates on savers and investors. The capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 20 percent in 2011. The dividends tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 39.6 percent in 2011. These rates will rise another 3.8 percent in 2013.

Second Wave: Obamacare

There are over twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare. Several will first go into effect on January 1, 2011. They include:

The “Medicine Cabinet Tax”

Thanks to Obamacare, Americans will no longer be able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin).

The “Special Needs Kids Tax”

This provision of Obamacare imposes a cap on flexible spending accounts (FSAs) of $2500 (Currently, there is no federal government limit). There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can not be used to pay for this type of special needs education.

The HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike.

This provision of Obamacare increases the additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent.

Third Wave:

The Alternative Minimum Tax and Employer Tax Hikes

When Americans prepare to file their tax returns in January of 2011, they’ll be in for a nasty surprise—the AMT won’t be held harmless, and many tax relief provisions will have expired.

The major items include:

The AMT will ensnare over 28 million families, up from 4 million last year. According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, Congress’ failure to index the AMT will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying families—rising from 4 million last

year to 28.5 million. These families will have to calculate their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level. The AMT was created in 1969 to ensnare a handful of taxpayers.

Small business expensing will be slashed and 50% expensing will disappear.

Small businesses can normally expense (rather than slowly-deduct, or “depreciate”) equipment purchases up to $250,000. This will be cut all the way down to $25,000. Larger businesses can expense half of their purchases of equipment. In January of 2011, all of it will have to be “depreciated.”

Taxes will be raised on all types of businesses.

There are literally scores of tax hikes on business that will take place. The biggest is the loss of the “research and

experimentation tax credit,” but there are many, many others. Combining high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost jobs.

Tax Benefits for Education and Teaching Reduced.

The deduction for tuition and fees will not be available. Tax credits for education will be limited. Teachers will no longer be able to deduct classroom expenses. Coverdell Education Savings Accounts will be cut. Employer-provided educational assistance is curtailed. The student loan interest deduction will be disallowed for hundreds of thousands of families.

Charitable Contributions from IRAs no longer allowed.

Under current law, a retired person with an IRA can contribute up to $100,000 per year directly to a charity from their IRA. This contribution also counts toward an annual “required minimum distribution.” This ability will no longer be there.

PDF Version Read more: http://www.atr.org/six-months-untilbr-largest-tax-hikes-a5171##ixzz0sY8waPq1

Now your insurance is INCOME on your W2's......

One of the surprises we'll find come next year, is what follows - - a little "surprise" that 99% of us had no idea was included in the "new and improved" healthcare legislation . . .

Starting in 2011, (next year folks), your W-2 tax form sent by your employer will be increased to show the value of whatever health insurance you are given by the company. It does not matter if that's a private concern or governmental body of some sort. If you're retired? So what? Your gross will go up by the amount of insurance you get.

You will be required to pay taxes on a large sum of money that you have never seen. Take your tax form you just finished and see what $15,000 or $20,000 additional gross does to your tax debt. That's what you'll pay next year. For many, it also puts you into a new higher bracket so it's even worse.

This is how the government is going to buy insurance for the 15% who don't have insurance and it's only part of the tax increases.

Not believing this??? Here is a research of the summaries.....

On page 25 of 29: TITLE IX REVENUE PROVISIONS- SUBTITLE A: REVENUE OFFSET PROVISIONS-(sec. 9001,

as modified by sec. 10901) Sec.9002 "requires employers to include in the W-2 form of each employee the aggregate cost of applicable employer sponsored group health coverage that is excludable from the employees gross income."

Joan Pryde is the senior tax editor for the Kiplinger letters.

Go to Kiplingers and read about 13 tax changes that could affect you. Number 3 is what is above.

http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/forecast/archive/health-care-reform-tax-hikes-on-the-way.html

People have the right to know the truth because an election is coming in November.

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  • 2 months later...

Have you seen it?

"We are not angry liberals; we are disappointed Democrats, who love our country and feel the DNC needs to stand for truth, care about its voter base and stop committing actions worse than what we only thought possible of the worst Republicans."

Democrats reporting voters fraud in the Democratic Presidential Primary 2008

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Thanks for sharing that.

(It looks increasingly likely that there will be a intra-Democratic fight after this election, with the rebels disavowing Obama and trying to "take back their party", probably looking to Hillary as a possible 2012 candidate.)

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(It looks increasingly likely that there will be a intra-Democratic fight after this election, with the rebels disavowing Obama and trying to "take back their party", probably looking to Hillary as a possible 2012 candidate.)

Now that will be interesting. The far left controls the Democratic Party and one can only hope that if the Party contniues on that path, it will be relegated to electoral exile.

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Now that will be interesting. The far left controls the Democratic Party and one can only hope that if the Party contniues on that path, it will be relegated to electoral exile.
Funnily enough, many formerly enthusiastic Obama supporters think he has let them down and become cozy with big-business (e.g. see the popular "Naked Capitalism" blog). Then there are some people I know who regularly vote Democrat, wanted Hillary in the last election, and did not vote for Obama saying "we aren't socialists"! This latter group includes a lot of rich folk.
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Funnily enough, many formerly enthusiastic Obama supporters think he has let them down and become cozy with big-business (e.g. see the popular "Naked Capitalism" blog). Then there are some people I know who regularly vote Democrat, wanted Hillary in the last election, and did not vote for Obama saying "we aren't socialists"! This latter group includes a lot of rich folk.

It's amazing. A good portion of the left wing of the Democrat Party is mad at Obama because he supposedly compromised too much with the Republicans. He apparently wasn't socialist enough for them. They wanted "single payer" and they wanted "cap and trade" and they wanted to see a bunch of Wall Street and BP execs breaking rocks on Alcatraz. The hard left turn we took simply wasn't hard enough. Go figure.

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It's amazing. A good portion of the left wing of the Democrat Party is mad at Obama because he supposedly compromised too much with the Republicans. He apparently wasn't socialist enough for them. They wanted "single payer" and they wanted "cap and trade" and they wanted to see a bunch of Wall Street and BP execs breaking rocks on Alcatraz. The hard left turn we took simply wasn't hard enough. Go figure.

Actually most of the "rebels" in the party are trying to show they are blue dogs, not more Left.

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If they started using unfair tactics against each other it is likely they will try whatever they can against Republicans. Blogs are reporting on numerous strange things. I am not sure if things like that happen in all elections, perhaps they do to some degree, but in light of the current atmosphere I think it is worth paying attention to.

For example,

The Yuma Sun is reporting that two organizations — Mi Familia Vota and One Vote Arizona — submitted more than 3000 voter registrations in Yuma County, and more than 20,000 voters statewide. Even more, they have signed up 43,000 people statewide for the permanent early voter list.

Today, these same 3000 newly registered voters — as a group — had papers dropped off at the Yuma Recorder’s office requesting to be signed up for the permanent early voters list… The Yuma Recorder’s office is checking the voter registration forms and have found that already more than 65% of them are invalid due to the registrant not being a citizen, wrong/invalid address, false signature, etc. Mi Familia Vota is a wholly-owned SEIU sub-organization.

There have been other incidents reported involving what appears to be attempts of manipulation of the electoral system connected to the SEIU. In Houston, an investigation revealed that 23,207 of the 25,000 voter registrations submitted by a voter registration group headed by a SEIU employee were invalid. Mi Familia Vota is also accused of turning in 6,000 bogus voter registrations in Colorado.

Bucks County, Pa:

The county Board of Elections recording a unusual spike in Democratic absentee ballot application last week. Within a six day period from Oct. 14 to 19, Democrat absentee ballot applications to the county increased by 67 percent as compared to Republican applications, a spike that occurred nowhere else in the state.

and from same county:

Last week, it came to light that voters in southeastern Pennsylvania’s 8th district were receiving notices warning that their right to vote could be in jeopardy if they did not return an absentee ballot to the “Pennsylvania Voter Assistance Office,” a fictitious agency headquartered at a post office box. The mailer contained a postage-paid envelope instructing voters to return their ballots to a post office box controlled by the Democratic Party.
Edited by ~Sophia~
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Because recent events in my personal life have made the subject of gay civil-unions a top value to me, and there is more likelihood that civil-unions would be forcibly recognized in my state of Utah under Obama than under McCain. Plain and simple. I would be willing to suffer through everything else Obama would do if it meant I got that one value out of it.

November 4, 2008. So, how's that working out for you now in 2010? It amuses me to read some of the older posts on this thread, and see some of the posters claim that others were lying about Obama's communist ties and radical agenda.

To those O'ists who voted for him: Are you proud of yourself now?

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If you actually listen to them, politicians will usually tell you what they are going to do. Obama was no different. He planned to socialize America and he told us just that. Unfortunately, he has been pretty successful in getting a big chunk of his agenda through Congress. Those who didn't hear him or chose to ignore his obvious intentions back in 2008 were guilty of denying reality.

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Really? So you're okay with his agenda? Are you really that afraid of religious people that you'd support a naked Marxist? :o

Straw man. The Objectivist objections to Republicans are quite extensive, and they have very little to do with their personal religious beliefs. I'm not going to go over them again, because when I did in the past, you just ignored my arguments and moved on to a different thread, to post the same simplistic catch phrases.

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Straw man. The Objectivist objections to Republicans are quite extensive, and they have very little to do with their personal religious beliefs. I'm not going to go over them again, because when I did in the past, you just ignored my arguments and moved on to a different thread, to post the same simplistic catch phrases.

I have many disagreements with the Republicans, that is not the issue. What I can not understand is how, in good conscience, one can overtly support Marxism/Leninism to the detriment of our republic. I see people giving lip service to the ideal of capitalism, yet voting for an individual bent on destroying what semblance of liberty we still have remaining. Face facts, there is never going to be an ideal Objectivist society in place of what we have now. It would take decades to give Objectivism an equal place in the university philosophy departments, if ever, and the general populace, while already embracing many tenants, are not going to be convinced to become Atheists. I also fail to understand why you and others seem to have such an inordinate fear of religion in general, and Christianity in particular. This nation was founded on principles that originated with Enlightenment thinkers, the majority of whom were people of religious faith. There are fanatics and nut cases in any organization or movement, including this one. But, believe me, the normal religious individual in this country presents no danger whatever to you or to any other Objectivist here. I think it foolish to refuse to support or partner with them and support a philosophy that is anti-man and anti-life like the socialist/communist/progressive agenda that is being promulgated now.

And this is not a damned straw-man, but the very heart of the matter. We are in greater danger now of losing everything that this nation has stood for since it's inception. I, for one, can not and will not sit idly by and contemplate my philosophical navel while the republic is torn to shreds around me.

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