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This is not a government funded organization. It is private and fully voluntary and they have a right to set the rules of membership as they want.

That wasn't my point, but you ducked that nicely.

Would you defend a racist organization similarly without saying anything about the nature of their rules? Ignoring the deep infiltration of bad ideas when they are privately funded is why you don't recognize the influence of religion in this country to the same degree that you do leftist ideology.

The same organization that privately influences these rules is the one that spent millions of its money to deny individual rights, by majority rule, to a whole slice of people in California, and fund such initiatives wherever such votes arise. I'm not suggesting that they be forced to admit anyone. I'm suggesting that the mechanism which has turned this organization into an activist organization is one that should be taken seriously.

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Those types of change would have been just as likely with another administration.

Not to the same degree, not with the same momentum.

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The equivocations being made between the two administrations despite many visible differences (like the approach to fundamental American values, differences in energy policies, healthcare, foreign policy) is something which is hard for me to understand. It must be serving some psychological purpose which I am yet to grasp. I am not argue this any longer.

Edited by ~Sophia~
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That wasn't my point, but you ducked that nicely.

Would you defend a racist organization similarly without saying anything about the nature of their rules?

In a free society there would have been all kinds of wako private organizations. I am not defending their ideas but rather I recognize people's right to organize as they please.

In this case however your money taken from you by force is going to be (it seems) used to fund leftist organizations with a funding much bigger than anything Scouts of American can ever hope to raise.

Ignoring the deep infiltration of bad ideas when they are privately funded is why you don't recognize the influence of religion in this country to the same degree that you do leftist ideology.

I am not ignoring it's existance. However, I do not consider religion as a bigger threat to my life than socialism. If walfare state was on it's way out (which it is not) I would have said that religion is the biggest problem America is facing.

I have been in the past in a position in which both my property rights and reproductive rights were not recognized (religion in school, highly mystical society - whole nine yeards). Lack of property rights and lack of economic opportunities due to government involvement in the economy were much more terrible. I am not suggesting that that is what is comming in your country (I certainly hope nobody will ever be faced with having to make such choice) but that experience gave me a good comparison about which one is worse. Rand thought so as well.

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Notice the Obama brought out the anti-virtue of selfishness in his campaign and the Republicans didn't have the balls to say that of course it is selfish to want to keep your own hard earned money and that this is good.

Because he was so explicit about his ethics and radical leftist ideas and won - people all over the world see this as a victory over traditional conservative values (and thus all the thugs and leftists of the world are celebrating right now).

(I do not think that is true re: the identity of this victory but that is how they see it).

Edited by ~Sophia~
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There is a redistribution of wealth ponzie scheme in the works from the Democrats that might make a run for it when Obama is President in fact. What they want to do is cut out the tax incentives for 401k retirement investments (usually matched by one's employer), and set up their own system that would require you to pay 5% of your income into the government system, give you $600 per year "matching funds," and you couldn't have access to it until you retired. For someone making less than $20,000 per year, it seems like a bargain if you get to keep your 5% contribution and the government incentive, but it is really a way of taking 5% from those who earn more and give it to those who earn less. For example, if you make $150,000 per year, you'd have to pay $7,500 into the system, but would only be "matched" by $600. So, if you make that kind of money, why would you invest in this ponzie scheme in the first place. You wouldn't, if it were voluntary. So the whole things is a non-starter unless the make it by force.

Besides, for those making only $20,000 per year, the additional $1,000 per year in taxes will drive them to the poor house. So I guess the new definition of rich is those making more than $20,000 per year.

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Not to the same degree, not with the same momentum.

--------------------

The equivocations being made between the two administrations despite many visible differences (like the approach to fundamental American values, differences in energy policies, healthcare, foreign policy) is something which is hard for me to understand. It must be serving some psychological purpose which I am yet to grasp. I am not argue this any longer.

The reason he is arguing this is because he believes that religion and the Right are just as or more dangerous than the sudden rapid rise of socialism in America. My guess is he is going to respond with some holier than thou comment on me psychologizing or putting words in his mouth, but that doesn't make what I saying any less true.

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God that's horrible. The first ponzi scheme taking 15% of our gross income isn't enough? There is too much danger, apparently, in people having the capacity to plan for their own retirement. My guess is that 401K's are so effective with the tax deferment and matching funds that the elderly will not be completely dependent on Social security in 30 years and they need some way to ensure our complete dependence. Evil.

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For example, if you make $150,000 per year, you'd have to pay $7,500 into the system, but would only be "matched" by $600.

Plus bonds are the only investement option. The long-run return of the stock market, adjusted for inflation, is more like 7 percent. 10k at 3 percent a year for 40 years leaves you with roughly $22,000. But $10,000 growing at 7 percent a year for 40 years leaves you with $150,000.

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God that's horrible. The first ponzi scheme taking 15% of our gross income isn't enough? There is too much danger, apparently, in people having the capacity to plan for their own retirement. My guess is that 401K's are so effective with the tax deferment and matching funds that the elderly will not be completely dependent on Social security in 30 years and they need some way to ensure our complete dependence. Evil.

It gets worse. My parents insist that what they want to do is to take over all of the 401k plans and place them into this government retirement system in order to bolster the Social Security system. I cannot get confirmation of this, even as a plan, but it is remarkable that Argentina basically nationalized their equivalent of the 401k. When I ask myself if our own government can actually get away with doing this, I have to remind myself that our own government took all of the gold owned by the American people roughly fifty years ago when it set up the Federal Reserve. So, I don't know...we'll have to keep our eyes open. But I agree that this is evil.

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The equivocations being made between the two administrations despite many visible differences (like the approach to fundamental American values, differences in energy policies, healthcare, foreign policy) is something which is hard for me to understand.

Well it certainly cannot be said that the Republicans /Conservatives have been staunch supporters of capitalism. And it was the Bush administration that made the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 the law of the land.

Still, there are differences in the approach. I think Bush would have signed off on a loan to the troubled banks, without the necessity of having to partially nationalize them. However, that isn't the Bill that was placed before him, and after all of the emergency guff that he espoused, he couldn't very well refuse to sign it on principle after he had asked for it. The Republicans in the House and Senate ought to have been against it on principle, but they didn't do that, so it can be difficult to see what is the difference when they don't act differently in a crises.

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I have been in the past in a position in which both my property rights and reproductive rights were not recognized (religion in school, highly mystical society - whole nine yeards). Lack of property rights and lack of economic opportunities due to government involvement in the economy were much more terrible. I am not suggesting that that is what is comming in your country (I certainly hope nobody will ever be faced with having to make such choice) but that experience gave me a good comparison about which one is worse. Rand thought so as well.

I agree with Rand's characterization entirely, and I look back upon the last 8 yrs of confiscatory spending, perpetrated under the same system that Obama will do so, and know that there is no way he can accomplish even near the same sort of economic disaster in the name of altruism than this which has already been done to us. Not at least withouth propelling the country into more than a Great Depression for which he will be ejected from office promptly a la Carter. The current administration has already confiscated such from you, and done it in such a way that the effect will last for decades. How is this different than what Obama will do? If Obama outspends his budget by another 5 TRILLION dollars, it will push the US beyond a depression. The Dollar will collapse. Inflation will skyrocket. His own interest in a 2nd term will stop him from going as far as the current adminstration already has. While you were experiencing socialism I was experiencing what happens to a President who tries anything like that (Carter).

Yes, he'll change the tax code to make it more progressive (rich pay a higher proportion), but he's already acknowledged that that must lower tax revenues, hamstringing him even further. He cannot, because the current administration already has. For instance, I've argued in the past that the size of the tax burden is not as important as the progressiveness of the tax code, because that is where the redistribution principle actually occurs. In that regard, the right and the left are equally to blame. That's because a tax cut that is progressive is no different in enacting this principle than a tax increase that is progressive. Yet, people trumpet the rights cuts because they are cuts, and forget quite simply that in their progressiveness they are exactly the same. So the reality is that we bounce between cuts and increases, trumpet the cuts, and all the while continue unchecked toward a system where a smaller and smaller minority of the population pay the only taxes.

I'm baffled at your refusal to acknowledge these facts, on the very topic of property rights which we agree is the most important. Should I now suggest it is the psychological impact of your past experience that is causing that to happen? (Yes, your comment was way out of line)

MOD Note: Please split this thread off from the Gay Rights one starting with my post. Or maybe combine it back with the obama president thread.

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I have seen in many threads Sophia stubbornly hold to the conviction that the left is somehow a greater threat than the right in today's world. Unfortunately, this is not the case. America has been sold short by the right; it is the right who has destroyed America with its unbridled pragmatism and refusal to support capitalism on principle. There is no way that Obama will be a worse president than Bush. Likewise, there is no way that the coming elected officials will restrict freedom more than the the tag team of the Republican Congress and Bush. The Republican party has destroyed any hope for capitalism in America for at least the next 20 years. Prancing around and calling Obama a socialist (while voting to spend $700 billion on the bailout bill) does NOT make you a defender of freedom by any measurable regard.

The question is no longer: Who's going to destroy America, the right or the left? The answer has been empirically given, just look at the facts. America has been destroyed, and the right did it.

Edited by adrock3215
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In this case however your money taken from you by force is going to be (it seems) used to fund leftist organizations with a funding much bigger than anything Scouts of American can ever hope to raise.

Really, how much do you think that will be exactly, and how does it compare to the funding the Scouts have?

I consider claims like this, since they are based on the premise that somehow the pots of money are different, equivalent to the claims that without taxation for public schools, there won't be the money to educate children. It's the same sort of thinking that might blind you to the size of funding for religious institutions.

There are some 2.5M Boy Scouts. Let's take a very conservative estimate and say that between the money his parents spend, the money he raises himself, the value of the volunteer time for the running of the various organizations, and the funding that he gets through the his district and national organizations, that he gets funded at roughly $2000 / yr. (and by my thinking that is quite conservative) That's a total spend of about $5B. That's not particularly chump change.

I'd bet that on a per person basis, Obama can't match that. I wonder too how that will compare to Bush's Faith-Based Initiatives in size...? Let's wait and see shall we?

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I have seen in many threads Sophia stubbornly hold to the conviction that the left is somehow a greater threat than the right in today's world. Unfortunately, this is not the case. America has been sold short by the right; it is the right who has destroyed America with its unbridled pragmatism and refusal to support capitalism on principle. There is no way that Obama will be a worse president than Bush. Likewise, there is no way that the coming elected officials will restrict freedom more than the the tag team of the Republican Congress and Bush. The Republican party has destroyed any hope for capitalism in America for at least the next 20 years. Prancing around and calling Obama a socialist (while voting to spend $700 billion on the bailout bill) does NOT make you a defender of freedom by any measurable regard.

The question is no longer: Who's going to destroy America, the right or the left? The answer has been empirically given, just look at the facts. America has been destroyed, and the right did it.

I dont know how that even begins to make sense. Granted, the right has been a weak defender, but what it is defending against is the ideology of the left. What responsibility for the destruction of this country does the left and its anti-capitalism ideology have in your mind? None?

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I agree with Rand's characterization entirely, and I look back upon the last 8 yrs of confiscatory spending, perpetrated under the same system that Obama will do so, and know that there is no way he can accomplish even near the same sort of economic disaster in the name of altruism than this which has already been done to us. Not at least withouth propelling the country into more than a Great Depression for which he will be ejected from office promptly a la Carter. The current administration has already confiscated such from you, and done it in such a way that the effect will last for decades. How is this different than what Obama will do? If Obama outspends his budget by another 5 TRILLION dollars, it will push the US beyond a depression. The Dollar will collapse. Inflation will skyrocket. His own interest in a 2nd term will stop him from going as far as the current adminstration already has. While you were experiencing socialism I was experiencing what happens to a President who tries anything like that (Carter).

I think the difference is that Carter was considered to be the cause of the economic maliase of the late 70's. Obama, on the other hand, can always lay the blame on others even if his Rx makes the problem even worse. FDR managed to get re-elected 3 times while pursuing policies that made things worse, so it can be done.

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I dont know how that even begins to make sense. Granted, the right has been a weak defender, but what it is defending against is the ideology of the left. What responsibility for the destruction of this country does the left and its anti-capitalism ideology have in your mind? None?

No, I wouldn't say that. In a bygone era (namely, pre-1980), the left has done a great deal to destroy this country. In today's world, the left is digusting as well. But they are not winning the battle for this country's future because they have great ideas, they are winning it because they have the only ideas. The right is an intellectual vacuum, with the exception of a few misc. people. But even those few, i.e. George Will, have deserted the corrupted party within the last year.

Don't get me wrong, because both parties bother me equally. The thing I have a problem with is when someone tries to make the case that one is better than the other.

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I think the difference is that Carter was considered to be the cause of the economic maliase of the late 70's. Obama, on the other hand, can always lay the blame on others even if his Rx makes the problem even worse. FDR managed to get re-elected 3 times while pursuing policies that made things worse, so it can be done.

No the issue with Carter was that at the end of 4 yrs he hadn't fixed it. Carter remained faithful to his principles throughout his administration, and lost. Reagan ran on change. This is a case of "it's the economy, stupid." The election was a referrendum on the economy. You're right in that he might get away for a while by blaming the previous administration, however, he can't enact anything like what people are saying he will without making itsignificantly worse. It's a two edged sword this belief that the govt actually controls the economy.

My case for why this isn't FDR, and has more chance to be like Carter/Clinton, is the fact that Keynsianism was rampant in the 30's. We understood less about how the economy worked. Monetarism is more dominant now, and it already has debunked most of the FDR myth. Look to his cabinet appointments to start to get a sense of how he will govern. If he appoints Volker (who has been thrown out as a possiblity) to Treasury, he almost can't go down the FDR track.

FDR did manage it. Carter failed it miserably after only 4 yrs. Clinton abandoned leftist principles altogether.

Obama's two paths look more like the last two democratic administrations.

Edited by KendallJ
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Don't get me wrong, because both parties bother me equally. The thing I have a problem with is when someone tries to make the case that one is better than the other.

Someone on another forum used this analogy. Because the right has a bad flu you will allow Ebola from the left.

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No the issue with Carter was that at the end of 4 yrs he hadn't fixed it. Carter remained faithful to his principles throughout his administration, and lost. Reagan ran on change. This is a case of "it's the economy, stupid." The election was a referendum on the economy. You're right in that he might get away for a while by blaming the previous administration, however, he can't enact anything like what people are saying he will without making it significantly worse. It's a two edged sword this belief that the govt actually controls the economy.

I think the problem is that we dont have any idea of what Obama will do. He may not either. But we know his principles--bigger government, more regulation, more spending, higher taxes. We can hope that the facts of reality constrain him, but since he has no real record, there is no way to know for sure. He can do a lot of damage beneath the surface through increased regulation and environmental policies. (Who he picks to head the EPA will give us a clue) Small, unknown,and seemingly insignificant laws can cause untold damage. Look how much damage the CRA did. We also know that he will not expand oil drilling and exploration, which means that when and if the economy does recover, look for gas prices to to $5+. He has said many things, promised even more, and has been vague about just about everything. Since his entire adult life has been about aligning himself with the most radical elements of the left, I dont hold out much hope that he will moderate now that he has the power to enact much of what he claims to believe. But, we shall see.

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I'm baffled at your refusal to acknowledge these facts, on the very topic of property rights which we agree is the most important. Should I now suggest it is the psychological impact of your past experience that is causing that to happen? (Yes, your comment was way out of line)

This is a legitimate question actually. One which I have definately asked myself in the past. This is not the first US election which I am following but it was the first in which I would have voted Rep.

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Someone on another forum used this analogy. Because the right has a bad flu you will allow Ebola from the left.
Doesn't this beg the question though? After all, that's was the debate is about: whether Obama or McCain is the worse disease.

Granted, Obama's intent and rhetoric are more consciously socialist, while McCain/GOP have a less consciously-socialist intent and rhetoric. However, imagine rolling back the clock 8 years. Suppose Kerry had said that he would focus government funds on the least competent students and schools rather than on the best; that he would increase spending rather than cut it; that instead of trying to cut into Medicare he would increase its scope by adding drug-coverage (costing a few billion every year); that he would add a new channel that would send government money to grass-root organizations... that would have been far more socialist an agenda than Bush's. Yet, those were all programs pushed by Bush and the GOP.

One might respond by saying that if Kerry had come in, he would have done all that and more, or that each of those would have been done as a larger program. However, I don't think that's necessarily the case. Again, it is a question of intent and real action. It is one of those seeming paradoxes that public opinion is scared of those who are terribly serious about socialist schemes, and more trusting of those who are half-hearted about them.

If Obama could magically run things the way he would like to -- magic-wand like -- it would be a huge disaster, and would take us many steps toward socialism. However, that is not how things typically turn out.

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I think one of the things to keep in mind is that Obama is not likely to go whole hog and try to get everything he wants, because then there would be rebellion. Witness the recent altering of his website on service where it said service would be "required". He got rid of the word "required". I'm sure he was experiencing a huge backlash to that, so he simply changed some wording around to make the move more palatable to more people.

You can see this here:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31...lan_for_a_Draft

That's the approach leftists use. They aren't going to be stopped. Instead, they’ll just find a way to implement their ideas by more sneaky means.

Btw, I recommend people listen to this lecture by Craig Biddle, McBama versus America. It seems religion is being used by the left now.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pag...bama_vs_america

Obama is religious and is using religion to bring a moral component to his message. For example, “I am my brother’s keeper” was a central message of his campaign. Given this, maybe we haven’t gotten rid of religion.

Edited by Thales
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Among other places you simply need look at the start of this thread.

"onset of communism in America"

"4 yr experiment in socialism..."

"beginning of the end"

"when they are up to their knees in blood..."

"when the economy collapses"

The hyperbole regarding this guy is over the top.

Why it is okay for Kendall to say it, but not me?

What, Kendall, you don't believe these things!? ARE YOU AN OBAMA SUPPORTER!? Why do you think Obama is best president ever, you obviously do! I bet you were there at his speech you quasi-Objectivist!

:)

Edited by Mammon
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