Why did Obama feel it necessary to politicize his energy addresses??
“In a campaign speech cleverly disguised as his Weekly Address to the nation,” writes Joe Newby of the Spokane Conservative Examiner, the president rehashed “his Miami campaign speech”, the self-proclaimed post-partisan politician engaged in partisan posturing:
Now, some politicians always see this as a political opportunity. And since it’s an election year, they’re already dusting off their three-point plans for $2 gas. I’ll save you the suspense: Step one is drill, step two is drill, and step three is keep drilling. We hear the same thing every year.
Well the American people aren’t stupid. You know that’s not a plan – especially since we’re already drilling. It’s a bumper sticker. It’s not a strategy to solve our energy challenge. It’s a strategy to get politicians through an election.
That’s rich. He launches a partisan broadside in a policy speech while attacking his opponents for playing politics.
Why did the incumbent president feel it incumbent upon himself to attack his partisan adversaries in a policy speech? Couldn’t he just have put forward his energy policy (which, if you just remove the algae and other green subsidies, contains proposals similar to those put forward by Republicans) without the partisan attacks? Isn’t that what a “post-partisan” politician would do?
Did his predecessor, often faulted for his divisiveness engage in such partisan attacks in his policy speeches?
The president would have served himself better — and sounded more presidential — had he simply acknowledged the problem of higher gas prices and then articulated what his administration had done– and was planning to do — to address the problem.
The question remains: why can’t Obama deliver a policy address without launching a partisan attack?
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That’s a rhetorical question, right?
Comment by Bastiat Fan — February 26, 2012 @ 3:48 pm - February 26, 2012
When all you have is a teleprompter, every issue is resolved with a campaign speech.
Comment by DaveO — February 26, 2012 @ 5:25 pm - February 26, 2012
Wish we had a feature on this blog where the blogger could “like” his readers’ comments and I would star the prior comments to this post. Well said, guys.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — February 26, 2012 @ 5:28 pm - February 26, 2012
I am trying to recall whether Obama has ever been Presidential.
…..thinking
…..thinking
…..thinking
Oh, I guess they are just letting Obama be Obama. Political hacks are nothing if not partisan. He is taking the helm on the Chicago Way and launching torpedoes and putting up flak.
Comment by Heliotrope — February 26, 2012 @ 5:34 pm - February 26, 2012
Because he a Chicago socialist in the Saul Alinsky vein. To them, it is not about discussing issues, but eliminating the opposition by name calling. If that doesn’t work, forget about the First Amendment and attempt to silence the Republicans.
Comment by davinci — February 26, 2012 @ 7:25 pm - February 26, 2012
What else would you expect from a political hack?
Comment by benj — February 26, 2012 @ 7:31 pm - February 26, 2012
Obama is a political animal; he’s an empty suit selling snake oil. He’s nothing. That’s why he politicizes everything he touches.
Comment by Sebastian Shaw — February 26, 2012 @ 7:41 pm - February 26, 2012
“Our chief weapons are surprise and fear!” and no fanatical devotion to the Pope.
Comment by TGC — February 26, 2012 @ 9:54 pm - February 26, 2012
This world is just too evil for the Lightworker. He would have brought enlightenment, jobs and post-partisanship to us all, but we just weren’t good enough for His revolution.
That’s supposed to be a satire but I guarantee you, some lefty somewhere has said something very like it.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 27, 2012 @ 2:55 am - February 27, 2012
The question remains: why can’t Obama deliver a policy address without launching a partisan attack?
If I may borrow a line from Kyle Reese, “That’s what he does! That’s ALL he does!”
Comment by Evil Otto — February 27, 2012 @ 7:17 am - February 27, 2012
[...] – Politicizing Energy policy (via [...]
Pingback by AllPatriotsMedia » The TK Quick Six – Monday, February 27th 2012 — February 27, 2012 @ 11:01 am - February 27, 2012
Barrack Obama – career politician:
Yes…. They Do!
See…. I KNEW there was SOMETHING we agreed on!
Comment by sonicfrog — February 27, 2012 @ 11:28 am - February 27, 2012
Like the Fable of the Frog and the Scorpion…he can’t change his nature.
Comment by Ted B. (Charging Rhino) — February 27, 2012 @ 4:29 pm - February 27, 2012
And I’m never letting that one get on my back!
Comment by sonicfrog — February 27, 2012 @ 6:32 pm - February 27, 2012
Obama says we hear the same plan (domestic drilling) every year as if we’ve tried it and it doesn’t work. Obama has shut down a lot of wells and refuses to grant more permits and denied the keystone pipeline. He’s done everything he can to hinder domestic oil production and when the price of gas and virtually all other goods go up he has the audacity to proclaim that domestic production has been tried and failed? This from the man who thought tuning your car and inflating the tires more would solve the problem of high gas prices.
This president so often straddles the line between dishonesty and stupidity, its hard to tell which is the case here. Either way, the GOP nominee needs to be able to make Obama’s record on energy very clear to the voters, because it flies in the face of reality.
Comment by Jimmy — February 27, 2012 @ 8:32 pm - February 27, 2012
Fortunately for Obama, the GOP is focused like a laser beam on more important issues, like dumping the TEA Party.
Comment by DaveO — February 27, 2012 @ 9:27 pm - February 27, 2012
And the MFM will keep steering the conversation away from gas prices and onto contraception,
Comment by V the K — February 27, 2012 @ 10:16 pm - February 27, 2012
It’s amazing how often the economy-destroying prescriptions of the Left line up with the pathetic excuses made by immoral person.
An immoral person would say “No good learning a career now, it would take too long. I’m set in my ways, I’ll keep (stealing / drug dealing / whoring / killing / etc.).”
The Left says, “No good letting the nation work hard to produce more oil, it would take too long. We should keep (stealing / making war on oil-producing nations / printing money / etc.).”
If the Left had just let people do the right thing back in the 90s and 00s – when, instead, the Left was blocking oil drilling with the tired excuse just cited – we’d be way better off, right now.
In short, the Left often (or typically?) says “No good worrying about the future – it’s too much damn work – In the long run, we’ll all be dead”, a classic rationalization of individuals who occupy that gray zone somewhere between ‘pathetic’ and ‘evil’.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 28, 2012 @ 12:35 am - February 28, 2012
Damn! You beat me to it. Of course I dig the way Chakotay tells it in the Scorpion episode of Voyager.
Comment by TGC — February 28, 2012 @ 2:45 am - February 28, 2012
Took me 8 months and I’m 38 years old (older than two of my teachers).
Just throwin’ that in there in case you know such an “immoral person”.
Comment by TGC — February 28, 2012 @ 2:49 am - February 28, 2012
@ILoveCapitalism: So much wrong in so little space. Ironically, this will take some work.
So focusing on extracting more oil, a resource that even the companies producing it admit is a limited resource that will run out in our lifetimes, is strategy focused on the future rather than the present? While focusing on alternative resources to continue powering that world after oil is an example of not worrying about the future? More oil is a good short and medium-term energy solution, but no one in their right mind thinks of it as a long-term solution.
Also, you don’t get to pin Iraq on the left now that history has judged it badly. Republican President, Republican Congress, left-wing opposition, it’s your mess.
More irony, that the famous Keynes quote this originates from was chastising other economists would said recessions would clear up by themselves in the long run if we did nothing by pointing out that in the long run we are all dead. Some would rather let the future take care of itself, other say we should do something.
Seriously your whole post was so topsy-turvy it became a case of not even wrong, an attempt to link some existing preconceptions to some new accusations on ‘the Left’ without even thinking whether any of it made the slightest bit of sense. Not that I expect this to make any difference to you, it probably made complete sense in your head and you inevitably think it still makes sense here. Somehow.
Comment by Serenity — February 28, 2012 @ 3:59 am - February 28, 2012
ILC, an exception to your observation is budget cuts; all of which must take place at least ten years in the future (except for military cuts). Apparently, the Government absolutely needs every dollar it is currently spending (including those spent to teach African men to wash their pee-pees) and more (hence immediate tax increases) but no spending reductions can be allowed to take place for at least ten years.
Comment by V the K — February 28, 2012 @ 5:52 am - February 28, 2012
Amy,
Ever hear of the Simon-Ehrlich wager? How’d that work out for you?
As the tar sands and fracking show (not frakking, that’s a different form of drilling) we get better at extracting resources.
Comment by The Livewire — February 28, 2012 @ 7:56 am - February 28, 2012
The Malthusian theory of fossil fuels has gripped the griper.
Fossil fuels are in enormous demand in China and India where the population is enormous and energy is being consumed at an exponential rate. Shouldn’t we just bomb them back to “reasonable” energy consumption rates?
England, Scotland, Sweden, Norway, France, Italy, Serbia, China, India, the US, Germany, Israel, Australia, Japan and more have all produced great minds in the energy production world. No challenge is greater than that of producing cheap energy and it is being worked on world wide.
Our boy-wonder has taken his lead from the alchemists. He invests in turning sunlight into energy and dreams of a day when you flip open your pocket solar panel and your energy needs are met.
What people like Serenity always overlook is that energy creation is always a matter of collecting it, whether you run after the wind, the tides, the sun or release it from storage in wood, coal, oil, natural gas, water behind dams, radio active rocks or welfare recipients on treadmills.
The leftist solution is for the government to ration energy to each according to what the bureaucracy deems as his needs. An extreme example of this would be North Korea.
For the left, the conservation of energy is a political solution, not a law of physics. Each compound should have one central refrigeration unit where all the people keep their perishables. The unit would be powered by members of the compound turning the generator by taking turns. Their farts would be collected for cooking gas and they would heat the water from solar energy and burning their hair. Their diets would be strictly controlled and they would rejoice in the harmony of serving one another through serving the state and the glory of organization.
Later they could all go out an build a pyramid to the lasting memory of the dear leader.
No fossil fuels need be expended.
Comment by Heliotrope — February 28, 2012 @ 8:56 am - February 28, 2012
And what we should keep in mind is that the Obama Party and “progressives” like Pomposity are now screaming that work equals slavery.
That really makes matters clear. Lazy Pomposity and it’s fellow leftist pigs don’t want to work, don’t want to pay, and don’t want to contribute; they want everyone else to do it for them.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — February 28, 2012 @ 9:20 am - February 28, 2012
Never forget: The world, indeed the Universe, is literally made of resources. If we seem to be losing out on one, we’ll “discover” another.
Or at least we will, if we are a free people. That’s what freedom, property rights and the profit motive do: they move (and enable) people to “discover” new resources; things that were there all along, but that the Malthusian leftist cannot imagine or use as resources (as they have no real imagination nor ability). Only heat death might defeat the discovery and exploitation of new resources, and that is trillions of years away, if it will happen at all.
Why haven’t we built any new nuclear plants, in the last 30+ years? Again, we haven’t because of leftists blocking it with their classic rationalization (along with several others), “it would take too long – it’s too much damn work – In the long run, we’ll all be dead.” But if we had started the work, we’d be better off now. Gosh, it’s almost like leftists are opposed to human life or something.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 28, 2012 @ 9:23 am - February 28, 2012
Dunno… He was always my least favorite of that crew. The writers tried to make him a politically correct Native American steroetype… ironically showing their racism.
Cool!
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 28, 2012 @ 9:43 am - February 28, 2012
@ILC
[Voyager Threadjack] I think the actors were mostly disappointed with Voyager too. I know Tim Russ signed on because they sold him the pitch that he’d have a chance to define the Vulcans like TNG did to the Klingons with Worf. So much for that idea…
So much potential in Voyager was lost.
Comment by The Livewire — February 28, 2012 @ 10:34 am - February 28, 2012
Best Vulcan Ever: Joleen Blalock. She nailed the superiority-with-vulnerability thing.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 28, 2012 @ 11:56 am - February 28, 2012
Serenity, that’s quite a bold assertion. Care to link to any exec of any of the major energy producing companies that have said that? Granted, extracting petroleum becomes harder and more expensive over time, which will make it a more expensive commodity, but we won’t “run out”.
Comment by sonicfrog — February 28, 2012 @ 12:46 pm - February 28, 2012
DAMMIT!
Serenity, that’s quite a bold assertion. Care to link to any exec of any of the major energy producing companies that have said that? Granted, extracting petroleum becomes harder and more expensive over time, which will make it a more expensive commodity, but we won’t “run out”.
Though I would agree that, seeing that they made the choice to invade both Iraq and Afghanistan without understanding at all the over-arching tribal dynamics of the region, the Republicans have a lions share of the burden of the outcome in both countries. But, seeing that most of the Democratic caucus went along with the invasion at the time, and also made proclamation that Iraq had WMD’s before Bush ever got elected, there is plenty of culpability to go around.
And yet, here we are, with a Federal government in deadlock for over a year, and yet, the economy continues to improve! Oh, the irony!
To be clear, I am not one of those that proclaim the stimulus a failure. It did act as a buffer against an even worse outcome than we saw in 2009. Because of the incredibly sloppy way it was structured, that trillion dollars was not nearly as effective as it could have been. And, such that over 1/3 was in the for of tax breaks, it is also foolish for liberals on the one hand to claim that the stimulus was a rousing success yet claim that tax cuts and breaks do absolutely nothing to spur economic growth.
And get off this worship of Maynard Keynes. He was a man of his time, a brilliant economist who changed the dynamics of economic thought. But the world and economic machine has moved beyond him, the dynamic machine that is the economy, due to both the growth of the seamless global market place, and political influences, and the huge dept-load of all the major nation-banks, has effectively neutered many of the remedies that Keynes prescribes for dealing with depressions. The same is true for supply-side economics.
It’s time for a new model.
Now… On Voyager. The Sonic-Mate and i have been re-watching some of those episodes. They have aged much better than most of the Next Gen stuff. Yes, Nelix was a complete Snarf most of the time, but much of the story writing was pretty good. The Seska story-lines was good, and I wished they would have done more with the psychotic Suder. The pairing of Paris and B’Lana worked very well. Disclaimer – I was never that enamored with TNG. Though it was often too hokey… And… Deana Troy… Hooking up with Worf…. Really??? He would have broken that delicate thing in two!
Comment by sonicfrog — February 28, 2012 @ 12:48 pm - February 28, 2012
Oh, serrenity honey..I’ve been hearing we’re ABOUT TO RUN OUT OF OIL!!!! all my life. The reality is that we’ll NEVER run out of oil. Use your little pea brain and think in terms of ECONOMICS for a change and see if you can reason out why.
Comment by Bastiat Fan — February 28, 2012 @ 1:30 pm - February 28, 2012
As (1) price goes up, (2) consumption drops and also (3) substitutes are found…
I, too, enjoy explaining to the ignorant why, barring the destruction of civilization, oil will always be available at some price.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 28, 2012 @ 2:44 pm - February 28, 2012
Only for government employees, and the DC housing market. For everyone else: No, the stimulus (plus bailouts) have distinctly made the economy worse than it would have been, otherwise.
First, government debt is future taxes. The more it goes up, the more the future looks bleak (a future of confiscation), and the less reason people have to endure the long and difficult slog of creating new businesses and therefore new jobs. Second, the larger government is, the more economic resources are wasted (relative to what the private sector would have done).
For both reasons, a large government acts as a *brake* on economic recovery. The stimulus + bailouts have been *preventing* economic recovery. So, sf:
Take your own advice. Your belief that the stimulus somehow helped anybody except government workers and their friends, is straight Keynesian propaganda, courtesy of the Obama machine.
Yeah: small government, economic (and of course political) freedom, property rights, free enterprise, fiscal responsibility, NO bailouts (let the failures fail)… and sound money, or at least sound-er money.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 28, 2012 @ 2:52 pm - February 28, 2012
And:
Are you kidding? It’s over 50% explosions and camera-shaking. First two seasons aside, TNG usually gave you something to think about.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 28, 2012 @ 2:56 pm - February 28, 2012
Where did I specifically say that? I didn’t. Putting that aside, I note that you didn’t distinguish between the tax breaks that were included in the stimulus, and the spending. And note that I didn’t get into the obvious long term consequences of that policy. That said, the stimulus acted as a buffer in 2009 – 2010, just as FDR’s stimulus did the same in the 1932 -33. Did it “fix” the underlying problems that cause both depressions… Of course not, and neither party is willing to take the hard steps to do so. . But it’s just stupid to assert that throwing 1 trillion dollars into the economy, at least in the short term.
Comment by sonicfrog — February 28, 2012 @ 4:25 pm - February 28, 2012
DAMMIT AGAIN!
Your belief that the stimulus somehow helped anybody except government workers and their friends,…
Comment by sonicfrog — February 28, 2012 @ 4:26 pm - February 28, 2012
For me, the interesting subtext of ‘Voyager’ was Janeway’s utter incompetence as a captain. Seems after all the good starfleet captains got wiped out at Wolf 359, they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
Also, I enjoyed Seven of Nine’s Borg “Implants,” although knowing Jeri Ryan is responsible for Barack Obama being president takes some of the joy out of that.
Comment by V the K — February 28, 2012 @ 4:40 pm - February 28, 2012
V, if you thought Katherine Janeway was incompetent, maybe you never saw Nicole Janeway, her French-Canadian twin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pgAFV2YxLQ&feature=related
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 28, 2012 @ 4:57 pm - February 28, 2012
You said this, which I quoted for you at the beginning of my comment, but which I shall kindly re-quote for you:
Which was a shortened version of:
Unless you are in the habit, sf, of writing words with no meaning, your words clearly imply that the stimulus was a help, or an improvement over that which otherwise would have happened in 2009 and since. Against which I gave my reasons for disagreement.
Correct, since the tax breaks were of the worst possible kind: non-permanent, yet still causing significant additions to the deficit/debt. Not all tax breaks are created equal. Context matters – a lot. In this case, the very slight benefit of the tax breaks was greatly outweighed by the associated negative factors I mentioned.
There you go again! Your words imply that it was a help – an improvement over what otherwise would have been. That is straight Keynesian propaganda and untrue.
Wrong again.
1) FDR did not take office until 1933, hence he did nothing in 1932.
2) As with Obama’s policies today, Hoover’s and Roosevelt’s “stimulus” policies (which in fact were very similar; Hoover was a Big Government guy at the time, and Roosevelt merely took his policies to a further extreme) *prevented* normal economic recovery and so *caused* the Recession of 1930 to turn into the Great Depression.
The idea that Roosevelt somehow saved us from the Depression (rather than what he actually did, which was to cause it to drag on and on) is contrary to the economic and historical facts, and – you guessed it – straight from the Keynesian propaganda machine.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 28, 2012 @ 5:16 pm - February 28, 2012
Ugh… now Adrienne Barbeau as Captain Hardcandy Janeway…. that would have been something.
Comment by V the K — February 28, 2012 @ 6:27 pm - February 28, 2012
I had an alternate Voyager idea.
They should have thrown Voyager into the past about 1000 years in the delta quadrant. Voyager starts trading and adding tech to the ship to get home, finally resorting to adding crew and cybernetics to keep going.
Finally the ship is so modified and the series ends with them facing off against a vehicle that won’t trade. Janeway announces that they will add their technology to their own, and resistance is futile.
Yes, I thought of Voyager being the borg.
Comment by The_Livewire — February 28, 2012 @ 7:21 pm - February 28, 2012
Livewire, that would have been so cool!
Comment by V the K — February 28, 2012 @ 7:45 pm - February 28, 2012
Actually, ‘run out’ is probably the wrong term to use there. It’s more a case of demand outstripping supply as oil becomes harder to extract, first in an economic sense, later in a material sense.
As for the estimates, I’ll have to rescind that statement. I recall oil companies a back estimating anywhere between 2030 and 2050 before demand truly outstripped supply (I’d be between 45 and 65 by those estimates) but that was before tar sands and oil shale started being exploited on a commercial scale. Now they’re calling the supply effectively infinite.
However, as I was saying to a friend a few days ago, there’s plenty of oil to get at, but not that much cheap oil, as my link backs up. It may be the ideal scenario though, that as oil gets progressively more expensive to extract we naturally switch to alternatives as they become more financially viable by comparison. Maybe we can all win. I’m not totally convinced of that yet though.
True enough. But as President Obama likes to point out, he was one of the Democrats who made the right call on that one, and it’s Republicans now making all the noise about getting into an even dumber war in Iran. The Democrats made a mistake in 2003, but it seems they’ve learned their lesson while the Republicans haven’t.
I never said tax cuts do nothing to spur economic growth, there are many type of economic stimulus, I just happen to think that more often than not there are better methods than more tax cuts. Though with the current American political climate, tax cuts are often the only tool available and are better than nothing.
Also as foolish as it would be for liberals to praise the stimulus while saying tax cuts don’t spur economic growth, it would by the same measure be foolish for conservatives to talk about Obama only wanting to raise taxes when a full 1/3 of his ‘porkulus’ was, in fact, tax cuts!
You clearly don’t like Keynes, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. ILC brought up a classic Keynes quote and (predictably) butchered it. I hate it when that happens and thought it required correcting. I’m rather ambiguous towards Keynes’ economic philosophy.
More controversially though, I’ve been giving much the same thought to a group of men known as the Founding Fathers. I think the world has moved beyond much of their ideas too. I expect much hatred for that, but their ideas are no more sacrosanct than the next to me and I think the last 200 years have not been entirely kind to them.
That’s more interesting. What is your preferred economic system?
Comment by Serenity — February 28, 2012 @ 8:54 pm - February 28, 2012
Livewire / V – agreed!
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 28, 2012 @ 10:14 pm - February 28, 2012
Only temporary ones… which he has spent the rest of his term condeming, and promising to reverse. Economically worse-than-useless.
Thank you, Pomposity. Coming from you, that is a compliment: it means that I used the quote tellingly, and you’re stung by that.
Spoken like the fascist you are, Pomposity. They established a system based on individual rights to life, liberty and property, in other words, on human freedom. It’s been clear for some time that you don’t believe in such things. Thank you for admitting it.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 28, 2012 @ 10:18 pm - February 28, 2012
Care to cite any of that-oh forget it.
Well, like a wasp sting it did annoy me. Though what do you think the old quote actually meant anyway?
Glad to see you were stung too. It was meant to be painful.
Still, I stand by the part you quoted completely. I think it’s entirely in the spirit the Constitution was written in. No man’s ideas are more or less sacrosanct than another’s, they stand or fall based on rational analysis of their merits and pitfalls. Following an ideal without truly understanding what it means and coming back to question whether there is a better ideal would be foolhardy.
Hence my philosophy of questioning everything, looking for flaws and scope for improvement. I’d be remiss in doing otherwise.
Comment by Serenity — February 29, 2012 @ 1:14 am - February 29, 2012
Shorter Amy “I can’t find any quotes to back up my statement, so I’ll hold you to standards I can’t maintain myself.”
Comment by The Livewire — February 29, 2012 @ 7:59 am - February 29, 2012
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy: laissez-faire capitalism, please. With a side of personal liberty AND personal responsibility.
Comment by Bastiat Fan — February 29, 2012 @ 8:35 am - February 29, 2012
Which makes you no different than any other fascist, dearie. Trust me, we believers in human freedom know what to expect
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 29, 2012 @ 9:05 am - February 29, 2012
By the way – Isn’t this:
Rather at odds with this?
In other words: Rational inquiry? Or self-confessed, intentionally emotional venom? Which does Pomposity practice, really? Because the two do tend to exclude each other, a bit. LOL
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — February 29, 2012 @ 9:59 am - February 29, 2012
Hernia @ #44:
So, the world’s first and most influential Constitution has finished its run, has it?
The US has the longest, continuous, written form of government in the history of the world. The US Senate convened in 1789 and has continued in session ever since as Presidents and Congresses come and go. The Constitution of the united States is the work of the founding fathers and their unique success. The Constitution can be amended and it has been. The process prevents it from being tinkered with for light and transient reasons.
Now, Simplicity, who do you turn to for a better Constitution? The UN? The EU? China? Fiji?
How do you “decide” when it is time to be the smarter generation than those who organized the foundation upon which our relativism is based? Time to pitch out Abelard, Aquinas, Augustine, Moore, Hillel, Shammai, , Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Aurelius, Socrates, Bacon, Spinoza, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Kant, Hegel, Spencer, Nietzche, Schopenhauer, Smith, Marx, etc.
You go right ahead, Pomposity, and out think the Founding Fathers and the great minds that informed their thinking. It will be interesting to see what your singular brilliance will produce by way of yet unknown and truly foundational thinking.
I left the silly “hate” charge out of your quote. I don’t hate your superciliousness. However, I do fail to admire your intransigent belief that you have, as yet, unrevealed superior ideas.
Please, your holiness, inform us so we can worship at your feet and soar into a better world for one and for all.
I am prepared kiss your hem.
Comment by Heliotrope — February 29, 2012 @ 12:28 pm - February 29, 2012
Both.
How so? The use of emotional venom can be perfectly rational in the right scenarios.
Possibly. You see, this is why I like not being an American. If I were, I might feel compelled to defend the Constitution despite my misgivings. As it is, it’s a foreign document and don’t need to feel I’m betraying anything by giving it less than full respect.
All well and good. I’ve said before that the United States was the birthplace of the modern liberal democracy, and just about every nation can now find links to the Constitution ratified then in their laws. That still doesn’t necessarily make it the best set of laws ever, nor does it make it immune to criticism.
Some UN and EU laws are worth looking at, but the Constitution of South Africa is a good example in my opinion. The country itself may be going to hell in a handbasket, but I think they created something pretty special with their constitution.
No, time to improve on their ideas. They may have been great men, but they didn’t know everything and we’re always learning as a people. Standing on the shoulders of giants is how we advance.
I don’t claim to personally out think them (though the idea that people were smarter 200 years ago is ridiculous on its face), I claim they have been out thought. What you’re saying is a strawman, and who exactly was the strawman for? Certainly not me, I didn’t buy it for a second. Not anyone else, everyone else here is either too smart to fall for it or on your side anyway. Yourself then? Insecure much?
Now you’re sounding like me. Using sesquipedalianism to mask anger. It’s a good tactic, glad to see you’re learning.
Comment by Serenity — February 29, 2012 @ 11:11 pm - February 29, 2012
Typically, Propensity believes she has taught us something. What does that child put on her cornflakes?
Comment by Heliotrope — March 1, 2012 @ 11:22 am - March 1, 2012