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Daily Dose of Reason -
Politics & Government
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Written by Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D.
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Sunday, 31 August 2008 12:10 |
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Hurricanes and natural disasters are things to be survived and
endured. They're not political footballs. At least, they shouldn't
be--but now they are. This is the result of a society which has--in
very large numbers--succumbed to the illusion that some force "greater
than ourselves" is there to take care of us...somehow. It's not up to
us to plan as individuals--by purchasing insurance on a private market,
or by moving to a different location (unless the risk we assume is
worth it, by choice), to name only two examples. It's not even up to
our local governments. It's up to "the President" to take care of us
and make everything OK in the immediate aftermath of natural disaster.
The most bizarre manifestation of this is that a Communist-like,
command-and-control organization like FEMA can be expected to somehow
accomplish the impossible. When FEMA falls prey to the inefficiency and
bumbling of any large-scale government operation, the administration in
charge gets the blame--if it's Republican. If the administration is
Democratic, its failures are ignored while its leader--the
President--is hailed as the greatest man of compassion who ever lived.
This shows that, at least to the left-wing politicians who run most of
the country, it's not about protecting people at all. It's about
looking and feeling important.
The poor Republicans. They can't win under these circumstances. If
they try to look humane and humanitarian, the mostly pro-Obama media
will verbally assassinate them for daring to take political advantage
of a natural disaster. If they go on with business as usual, including
their convention, they'll be condemned as callous and insensitive. No
matter how FEMA performs, its perceived and actual successes will be
attributed to people like the idiotic mayor of New Orleans; while any
perceived and actual failures will be attributed to anyone by the name
of Bush or with an "R" next to his or her name.
McCain had better be careful. He says he loves service to his fellow
man above all else, including the capitalism and individualist freedom
he tepidly defends against the socialist and Marxist onslaught of the
Obama Democrats. Well, this playing to the vulnerability of people in
the midst of disaster is the liberal Democratic game. He's treading on
their territory. They are the ones who want to suck the wealth out of
"the rich" and the productivity out of society, in the name of
altruistic self-sacrifice. They are the ones with the greatest thirst
for control over people, and how better to control people than when
they're vulnerable to temporary, though strong, natural forces? Nobody
could be more haughty or self-righteous about this than Mr. Obama. Is
McCain ready to take him on in his own league? How dare he! Keep an eye
on how this plays out. It may not be any prettier than the hurricane. |
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Daily Dose of Reason -
Politics & Government
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Written by Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D.
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Friday, 29 August 2008 13:17 |
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John McCain's choice for Vice President is less fascinating than the
means by which he apparently chose her--and the reasons people applaud
him for it. Like Obama, she wasn't chosen because she was perceived as
the best person to become Commander-in-Chief and protect the country.
She was chosen because she is perceived as someone who understands and
feels compassion for major sectors of the country--working mothers,
blue collar "Hillary" or "Reagan" Democrats, and the like.
What has happened to America? This is not a commentary on Sarah
Palin one way or the other. She may well end up as President, given
McCain's advancing age, and she might actually be a good one--whereas
we can know for certain Obama cannot and would never be an acceptable
President. But she's not being selected for the right reasons. In a
free country, a President is chosen who can best defend the nation
against violent aggression; and who can (in today's context) do the
best job at limiting and reducing government intervention in both the
economy and in the private lives of citizens--since the nature of
government is, unfortunately, to grow and try to violate the rights of
the individual at every turn. Palin is a Republican, but that tells you
little more than her under two years in major public office. Ditto for
Obama, grandiose speeches notwithstanding. McCain and Biden are career
politicians whose records are well-known but not reflective of what a
President, under a limited government, was supposed to be.
If you select a Vice President--or a President--for the wrong
reasons, you will probably make the wrong choice. If you end up with a
good one, it's only by luck. If Palin someday becomes President, and if
she's a pretty good one, then we'll be lucky. I'm open, because I have
no other choice and because I will do anything in my power to vote
against Obama. Jimmy Carter's policies? Karl Marx's ideology? Been
there, done that. The 1970s were a disaster and Soviet Communism an
even bigger one. At least Palin really is an unknown, whereas Obama
will most certainly be a Western European-style socialist. But I'm
tired of relying on luck. And I'm sick of living in a nation where the
majority seem to care more about how a President feels towards their
everyday concerns--doing laundry, getting dinner on the table, paying
their cable bill, which SUV to buy--than how to simply stay out of the
way and protect them from violence. |
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Daily Dose of Reason -
Politics & Government
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Written by Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D.
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Thursday, 28 August 2008 21:08 |
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"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." --Winston Churchill
Obama's proposals to sit down with overt killers and terrorists and "make peace" with them bring to mind Churchill's wise comment. Obama is not merely too young to be Commander-in-Chief. He's too wrong to be Commander-in-Chief. It would be paranoid to suggest that he's on the other side, and that he's anti-American--his prior associations with anti-American militants and his wife's open loathing of America notwithstanding. Yet, if he WERE overtly on the other side, his policies would be exactly the right ones to pursue: Pretend we have no enemies. Slowly dismantle our defense and instead spend it on national health care and other welfare state "goodies"--if you can call government services by such a name. Express outrage when a dangerous thug invades an innocent country or even detonates nuclear weapons on Israeli or American soil...but otherwise do nothing. Can you imagine a better set of circumstances for dangerous killers around the globe? More dangerous--and more disturbing--than any suggestion that Obama secretly sides with enemies of freedom is the startling perception implied by Churchill's quote. It's possible that Obama really does believe that feeding a crocodile, rather than killing or caging it, will somehow save us from being eaten. If this is so, then Obama is simply too stupid to be President. The last President we had who was this stupid, when it came to understanding the nature of criminals, was Jimmy Carter. We still pay for his policies today. Is even one term of a President Obama worth it? |
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Daily Dose of Reason -
Politics & Government
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Written by Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D.
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Wednesday, 27 August 2008 13:27 |
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"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." (Thomas Jefferson)
How true. How could Thomas Jefferson see this--all those years ago--while neither of our major political parties today do so?
A woman decides to adopt two kids. She decides to do so on her own, but fails to make plans for acquiring health insurance ahead of time. On top of this, the woman gets cancer. Now YOU and I must pay to buy that woman health insurance, according to Hillary Clinton and her cohorts. But why? To dare to even ask the question is to imply that you don't care about the plight of people with problems. But there's no law stopping Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or anyone else who wants to help from helping whomever they choose. How is the presence of difficulty--even tragedy--a justification for using the force of government to enslave 49 percent of the population for the sake of 51?
This question isn't difficult to answer. The difficulty lies in finding leaders brave enough to ask it. |
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