Americans Oppose Statist Solutions to Economic Woes
Few (if any) professional pundit can analyze polls (and demographic data) better than Michael Barone, whom I have dubbed the Hephaestus of punditry for sharing with the master craftsman of Olympus an attention to detail. In his latest piece from his new berth at the Washington Examiner, he analyzes the latest polls on the President’s job performance. They show that while the public continues to approve of Mr. Obama, they are wary about his policies.
Simply put, Americans don’t want to move in a more statist direction and prefer the free market to the federal government as the solution to our economic problems:
. . . despite the financial crisis and current economic distress, there has not been a drastic shift in American voters’ views of the balance between the market and government. The economic failures of the 1930s and successes of the 1940s convinced Americans to trust government more and markets less; the economic failures of the 1970s and successes of the 1980s convinced Americans to trust markets more and government less. These results show that American voters remain suspicious of centralized government power over the private sector and that they have great unease about the enormous far-larger-than-Bush’s budget deficits which experts project the Obama programs will produce.
Read the whole thing!
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can you imagine what the polls would be if the MSM actually reported alot of stories.? They have virtually ignored any mention of the majority of goings on. That’s why his rating is still high. People can’t disapprove of what they don’t know about
The public is even now more aware the MSM is lying and not covering things. They are starting to look for the information and finding it. It is starting to reflect that in these polls and they don’t even know all that has happened that is out there. Between Fox, word of mouth and internet news and blogs, people are finding out more. They certainly didn’t come to their conclusion based on anything the MSM has reported
Comment by Racer — June 19, 2009 @ 3:37 pm - June 19, 2009
That’s a really misleading headline. You could say “Americans oppose statist solutions to military protection” or “Americans oppose statist solutions to food inspection” or “Americans oppose statist solutions to interstate highways.” If you phrase it that way, of course Americans are going to be against it. Being anti-government is not equivalent to being conservative. I wish we could get rid of that stereotype along with being effeminate means being gay. Conservatives are for efficient government. The fact that I believe some programs are best run by the government using taxpayer money does not make me a “statist.”
Comment by Ashpenaz — June 19, 2009 @ 3:42 pm - June 19, 2009
Fail. Military protection is one of the legitimate functions of government and most Americans understand that and would not be against what you phrase there.
That’s a lousy representation of conversatism, because it is 100% equally as true of totalitarian socialists.
Some things are proper functions of a limited government, like police, courts and military. The rest aren’t. We know from past discussions, Ash, that you advocate large expansions of what is already a hideously bloated, oppressive and immoral central government in America, e.g., the national-socialization of health care (one-seventh of the economy). Sorry Virginia, but yes that makes you a statist. Don’t expect me to lie and join you in pretending otherwise. From the Free Online Dictionary:
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 19, 2009 @ 4:58 pm - June 19, 2009
(or in other words: Having the government run huge swaths of the economy)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 19, 2009 @ 4:59 pm - June 19, 2009
Would you have trusted Nestle to recall its bacteria-filled dough out of the kindness of its capitalist heart? Or is having the government check things like that “statist?” I urge you to go buy some Nestle’s dough and dig in before the “statists” pull it off the shelves.
Comment by Ashpenaz — June 19, 2009 @ 5:14 pm - June 19, 2009
In a laissez-faire world? Absolutely yes! But in an Obama-Ashpenaz world, where Nestle is endlessly threatened *by the government* and therefore can’t do its job, but can only think about covering its rear end? Then, no.
Indeed it is. Look, Ash, I’m not going to keep re-explaining the same BASIC points to you that you ought to know, if you are a literate conservative, as you continue to refuse to know them. I’ll just cut-and-paste a previous comment:
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 19, 2009 @ 5:21 pm - June 19, 2009
ILC,
Ash fails simply because he doesn’t want to take the steps needed to insure his health care.
Comment by The_Livewire — June 19, 2009 @ 6:32 pm - June 19, 2009
And TL, did you see this too?
What an inspiring, Christian (not!) thought Ash gives us. Wishing hate, disease and death upon people who have the temerity to disagree with oneself and tell one that one is w-r-o-n-g… just what Jesus would do (not).
My reference here is, of course, to Ash’s promotion of himself as a Christian, in prior conversations.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 19, 2009 @ 6:42 pm - June 19, 2009
Ooh–ad hominem. The last resort of the failed argument.
Instead of attacking people we don’t understand, we could realize that thoughtful people can come to different conclusions and we can all learn from each other. Call me statist if that makes you feel superior. But we are all part of this social contract which includes providing for the general welfare, so we might try to find some sort of common ground. Or you can move to a country where they don’t have that pesky preamble to the Constitution. Iran seems to be anti-statist right at the moment–have you tried there?
Comment by Ashpenaz — June 19, 2009 @ 6:51 pm - June 19, 2009
[...] Americans Oppose Statist Solutions to Economic Woes [...]
Pingback by GayPatriot » Will the Spirit of Ronald Reagan Sink Obamacare? — June 19, 2009 @ 7:00 pm - June 19, 2009
Ooh, moral inversion! The real last resort of the failed argument.
I made no ad hominem on you whatsoever, Ash. None. It is true that I pointed out *your* demonstration of hate and hypocrisy, in this thread. That’s not ad hominem. You are the one who expressed the hate, and who did so hypocritically. Now you try to make it sound like it’s somehow a failing of mine. Wrong again! LOL
Precisely what you did NOT do, Ash, when you tried to wish disease and death on me. Your hypocrisy burning you much?
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 19, 2009 @ 7:22 pm - June 19, 2009
(“You are the one who expressed the hate” – that is, the hateful wish on another commentor)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 19, 2009 @ 8:08 pm - June 19, 2009
[Emphasis added] NO. IT. DOES. NOT. That is *your* national-socialist inversion, Ash.
Kindly allow me to quotethe Preamble to the United States Constitution:
[Emphasis added] “Promote” does NOT mean “provide”, Ash, in the socialist-redistributionist sense you have in mind. We do “provide for the common defense”, but that is a different matter: military protection, one of the government’s few proper and legitimate functions, which I do gladly pay for.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 19, 2009 @ 8:30 pm - June 19, 2009
There is no common ground between liberty and tyranny, Ash. No common ground between morality and immorality. No common ground between freedom and National Socialism. 400,000 Americans died in World War 2 to prove that.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 19, 2009 @ 8:33 pm - June 19, 2009
My point is this: there are some things that the government does better than the private sector. Believing that the government has a role to play in promoting general welfare is not statist. Or fascist. Or socialist. Even Thomas Paine believed in the government giving each citizen a stipend. It’s important to rationally determine what things the government really should be doing. And then draw a clear boundary. That’s genuine conservatism. Conservatism is not simply a knee-jerk reaction every time someone proposes a government program.
Comment by Ashpenaz — June 20, 2009 @ 12:05 am - June 20, 2009
Ash. Please provide a short list of what the government does better than the private sector. I would like to become more acquainted with what the federal or state government does better. Thanks.
Comment by Duffy - Native Intelligence — June 20, 2009 @ 12:38 am - June 20, 2009
#15: “It’s important to rationally determine what things the government really should be doing. And then draw a clear boundary. That’s genuine conservatism. Conservatism is not simply a knee-jerk reaction every time someone proposes a government program.”
Ash, if conservatism has adopted what you call a “knee-jerk reaction” to every proposal of a government program, it is only in reaction to the fact that liberals have conclusively demonstrated that they are incapable drawing ANY boundaries for government meddling, intervention, and regulation, and even the most modest proposals of clearly establishing such boundaries is routinely condemned as hateful, greedy, immoral, and un-American. Liberals REFUSE to acknowledge history, results, statistics, or empirical/objective evidence of any kind when it comes to their bonehead ideas and their solution for every indefensible failure is always the same: more funding, more expansion, more waste, and more control (and of course, less freedom).
There isn’t a single instance in the last century when a liberal EVER acknowledged the failure of even one of their do-gooder, useless bureaucracies and voluntarily took action to dismantle the destructive machinery of their “good intentions” themselves. In EVERY CASE, the few times that any of these bloated cluster-fu*ks has been shut down or even reigned in by 1%, it only happened after a protracted, scorch-the-Earth, apocalyptic, political battle to the death in which the liberals attacked conservatives with rhetoric usually reserved for child-rapists and serial killers (welfare reform in the 90s is a perfect example).
And just look at California–drowning in debt and for the first time having to struggle to make ends meet. I LOVE IT. And who are the liberal bureaucrats blaming for their predicament? The people who pay their bloated salaries and have been funding their pet projects and causes of course (once again exposing their contempt for the people they supposedly serve). The Founding Fathers intended these clowns to live every day of their lives in abject terror that at any given moment THE PEOPLE would discover how useless they are and throw them into the street along with the trash. Instead, the liberals have done an excellent job establishing a system where we have to live in fear of their whimsical, utopian fantasies for our country. They have proven themselves to be utterly unworthy of the benefit of the doubt concerning a determination of the “proper role of government,” and conservatives are absolutely justified in viewing every single trojan-horse proposal they make with suspicion (particularly since 90% of the legislation they introduce has “for the children” tacked on as the last three words in the title). Your stupid, TIRED arguments are just a variation of what we have been hearing from liberals for decades, i.e., communism/socialism is a fantastic idea–the only problem is that the WRONG PEOPLE were in charge. Just cram it, the only person you’re fooling is yourself.
Comment by Sean A — June 20, 2009 @ 1:36 am - June 20, 2009
It’s getting deep . . .
$11 Trillion – current level of the National Debt
$13 Trillion – amount of taxpayer funded bailouts
$2 Trillion – the estimated budget deficit this year
$10 Trillion – cumulative deficit over the next decade according to CBO
$100 Trillion – amount of unfunded Medicare and Social Security benefits
$??? Trillions – full cost of Obamacare
When I see these figures, two quotes from Ronald Reagan come to mind:
“Government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.”
“It’s hard when you are up to your armpits in alligators to remember you came here to drain the swamp”
So who will be the-Ronald-Reagan to pull the drain plug . . .
Comment by Russ Powell — June 20, 2009 @ 11:10 am - June 20, 2009
I’ve recently reread Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience and Paine’s Common Sense. As anti-government as they are, they still discuss the need for government to be involved in programs promoting the general welfare. You accuse me of fascism–how does your line of thought not end in anarchy?
Comment by Ashpenaz — June 20, 2009 @ 11:41 am - June 20, 2009
Translation: No apology for the hate and hypocrisy that you showed, followed by a Leftist-style attempt to blame the victim for noticing. Duly noted.
[Emphasis added] But that is not what you believe, Ash, or at least not what you’ve said. I am the one who believes that government has a role in *promoting* the general welfare. You have repeatedly stated something quite different, the following from #9:
[such as national-socialized health care; and emphasis added] Which is wrong morally, constitutionally, economically, factually and in every other way. Horribly wrong.
First of all: We’ve had discussions before where your beliefs about Paine’s beliefs proved rather exaggerated. Second: So what? He wasn’t one of the Framers – and perhaps for good reason. I will take the principles that were actually established and agreed upon by such disparate figures as Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, John Adams and many others, over your attempt to make Thomas Paine into a socialist who would approve of you and your views, any day of the week.
1) Then call me a genuine conservative (though I don’t necessarily), because that’s exactly what I have done over and over in all our discussions. There are three legitimate functions of government: police, courts and military. For one example of my saying it, see comment #3.
2) Then DON’T call yourself a genuine conservative, because that is exactly what you have NOT done over and over in all our discussions. Your version of so-called “conservatism” is, again, indistinguishable from National Socialism, or any other Statist philosophy, in matters of economics. Again see comment #3.
Again – Promoting or providing? There is a huge difference, Ash, one that you don’t seem to want to acknowledge.
For the fiftieth time – and please really, really try to concentrate this time: The purpose of government is to remove physical force (and its close cousin, fraud) from ordinary human relations, by giving government a territorial monopoly on the use of physical force and the adjudication of disputes, then setting government itself under as many limits as can be contrived. Government has three entirely proper and legitimate functions: Police, courts, and military defense of the nation.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 20, 2009 @ 11:52 am - June 20, 2009
(And, separately from what I just said, the U.S. Constitution gives the U.S. government some additional functions, which I consider questionable – but which, even then, certainly DO NOT include or encompass the national-socialization of the economy, or of one-seventh of the economy as in health care.)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 20, 2009 @ 11:58 am - June 20, 2009
There is no set of absolutes in space somewhere which say what the government is supposed to do. You have an opinion about the limits of government, but it’s just an opinion. Plato disagreed with you. Hobbes disagreed with you. Moses disagreed with you. Paul disagreed with you. Aquinas disagreed with you. Mill disagreed with you. Marx disagreed with you. Mussolini disagreed with you. Confucius disagreed with you. Jefferson disagreed with you. Etc. There are lots ‘o people with lots ‘o ideas about government. Here, in America, we get to make up our own mind. You keep on discussing your views as if they were written by the angel Gabriel in the Koran. Or perhaps you looked into some gold tablets hidden in a hat. But the rest of the world has to rely, not on revelation, but good old fashioned debate and reason.
Comment by Ashpenaz — June 20, 2009 @ 6:29 pm - June 20, 2009
Ash,
How is #7 an ad hominim?
Comment by The_Livewire — June 20, 2009 @ 6:31 pm - June 20, 2009
Ash, in the same thread, you have now claimed this:
And this:
The first statement only makes sense if it is true that human beings can and should exercise their reason to arrive at the rationally and morally correct answer. When I state the answer mine has reached, you whip out the second statement – instead of refuting any of my points, or indeed, instead of mounting any rational argument at all. Because, clearly, you cannot, in this context. These other comments of yours are particularly revealing:
Many political philosophers consider Plato an important intellectual ancestor of totalitarian socialism. And Mussolini, of course, was exactly that, a totalitarian socialist. You now invoke their names as if doing so, in itself, somehow disproves or refutes my position in favor of human freedom and strongly limited government. Hey, why not invoke the name of Stalin, Hitler, Kim Jong Il or Saddam Hussein while you’re at it? Very, very revealing. As for this:
No actually, he didn’t. Oh, there would be many points where he and I would argue; don’t get me wrong. But for the purposes or context of *this* discussion: He would be 100% dead-set against your statism – your desire to expand the State. I hope you know that, because if you don’t know it, then you don’t know much.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 20, 2009 @ 8:53 pm - June 20, 2009
(Even the existence of a central bank – such as what today’s Federal Reserve is – or the existence of a government strong enough to do basic enforcement of its tax edicts, was too much for Jefferson. Google “Jefferson whiskey rebellion” sometime.)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 20, 2009 @ 8:58 pm - June 20, 2009
Translation: “Wahhh! You’re not letting me get away with my B.S.! You’re making it clear that it’s wrong, or expecting me to explain and defend it rationally! Wahhhhhh!” LOL
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 20, 2009 @ 9:52 pm - June 20, 2009
(In other words, Ash: Kindly try to focus less on what I’m supposedly doing, and more on what you have been doing, which is: spewing ObamaCare talking points which reveal themselves as nonsense, the second one scratches their surface.)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 21, 2009 @ 4:35 pm - June 21, 2009