Congratulations to President Obama!

Whoever the Republicans put up against Obama was going to have a tough time beating him and so, in my opinion, Romney was the perfect choice, a sacrifcial lamb, so to speak. Now, we don't have to listen to his version of America any more, as a presidential candidate, that is. I read that Romney's wife said he will never run, again, and I thought about the rest of the Republican candidates, whose political careers teetered, after losing the White House. Some people don't care what the loser has to say, after he has lost. I know I don't.

Obama doesn't have a bats chance in hell of solving this country's problems and at this stage of the game I seriously doubt if anyone can. This situation has been snowballing for about sixty years and now the bills are coming due. Oh sure, Obama and the Dems may be able to plug the dike with more taxes and more borrowing, but the laws of Economics are immutable and will always hold sway.

America has become an Entitlement Society, plain and simple. The ball really started rolling with FDR, picked up speed with Johnson and Nixon, Clinton and GW Bush added to it, now Obama's keeping it rolling. In an Entitlement Society, government largesse is traded for votes. People blame politicians for government excesses, but politicians are only responding to their constituents needs, wants and desires. We have no one to blame but ourselves for the mess we're in.

Social Security is, and always has been a Ponzi Scheme; it's just at the beginning under FDR there were about 12 workers to every retiree, now there are about 1 !/2 give or take. The Social Security Fund is a myth. Congress spent SS payroll contributions as fast as they came in, piling up IOU's that they'd pay back later; which of course never happened.

The War on Poverty was a horrendous failure; a classic example of idealisim run amuck and a seemingly good idea gone bad. It created a huge dependency class among Blacks, destroyed their cohesive society, destroyed the Black family unit, instilled a sense of failure in them in that they could not succeed without government help and made them little more than slaves of the government, not a plantation owner.

Politicians over these many years have learned to play the US population like Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello; fostering, catering and appealing to their base instincts including greed, envy, class hatred, sloth, racial hatred, ethnic hatred and most of all, fear. Fear of losing what the government gives them and they feel they're entitled to.

No one is entitled to anything. "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness" does not mean a guarantee of happiness, although politicians guarantee such a thing to their constituents (funded by the public purse) in the name of "fairness", "equality", "a fair share" and other such twaddle. That can't and never will be possible, but it sure brings in votes by the dump truck load.

America is on a collision course with economic disaster. We are in a race for economic and military superiority with the rest of the world with our shoelaces tied together. We spend more than we take in, we have more people riding in the wagon than pulling it, we refuse to develop our own natural resources in order to appease Nature and the rest of the world is laughing at us. We're a debtor nation, folks. The bill is coming due and continued pandering to the entitlement population will only make it worse.

Elsewhere in the world people are rioting in the streets because they're told they must accept austerity measures from an increasingly bankrupt government. The fact that they're receiving monetary assistance from other countries to supposedly alleviate their situation is the equivalent of putting a Band-Aid on a sucking chest wound. It's gonna happen here folks and the first rumblings have already been heard. When public employees storm a state capitol building and occupy it or take to the streets in protest because they're told they must pay for part of their benefits or take a pay cut because revenue is down, that's a soupcon of what's to come.

I'm sure Obama and Congress will kick the can down the road by borrowing, extorting and obfuscating just long enough to be out of office when the inevitable enforced austerities and shortages set our cities aflame.

We have met the enemy and it is us.


For the record, I'm a Libertarian, so no Republican cracks are necessary.


We now return you to your regularly scheduled celebration.

Wow. I didn't realize that was how YoYo Ma played the cello. Ya learn somethin' new every day.

AllardChardon said:

Whoever the Republicans put up against Obama was going to have a tough time beating him and so, in my opinion, Romney was the perfect choice, a sacrifcial lamb, so to speak. Now, we don't have to listen to his version of America any more, as a presidential candidate, that is. I read that Romney's wife said he will never run, again, and I thought about the rest of the Republican candidates, whose political careers teetered, after losing the White House. Some people don't care what the loser has to say, after he has lost. I know I don't.

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Nonsense. Obama lost 8 million votes he won in 2008. His popularity is in free-fall. Nancy Pelosi failed to capture the House. And the GOP gained one governor....30-20 now.

Nope. What happened was GOP voters repudiated the RINO candidates, nutjobs, and Romney. He seriously pissed off the Tea Party and Ron Paul voters. They pounded a stake in Karl Rove's heart.

TE999 said:

America is on a collision course with economic disaster. We are in a race for economic and military superiority with the rest of the world with our shoelaces tied together. We spend more than we take in, we have more people riding in the wagon than pulling it, we refuse to develop our own natural resources in order to appease Nature and the rest of the world is laughing at us. We're a debtor nation, folks. The bill is coming due and continued pandering to the entitlement population will only make it worse.

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Thank you for putting this so well. The shoelaces tied is the countries refusal to be "mean" and fight a real war rather then be sitting ducks.

Yes more in the wagon, all on the Government teat which is exactly what Obama and others want. Can't take away freedoms and rights if people can stand on their own feet.

As for our resources, Obama is just carrying on what others before him did. Buying oil and watching gas prices soar when we have enough oil here to run the entire country for decades to come.

And thank you, again, because we have been a laughing stock for awhile and now have Obama the clown running the circus for 4 more years.

In his defense he, nor could anyone, fix this disaster in 4 years, but he isn't even capable of a slight turn around because he doesn't know how, nor does he care too.

Third world here we come.

Maybe we should go back to a three-party system, with a new party of the people working toward solving these problems. But the "powers that be" would probably crush it. How can any party uproot the ridiculously rich, who hold all the reins and are never in the public's view? In reality, there is only one party now, funded on both sides of the coin by the same unseen wealthy. They only let us think we have a choice, so we don't feel disenfranchised.

lovecraft68 said:

Thank you for putting this so well. The shoelaces tied is the countries refusal to be "mean" and fight a real war rather then be sitting ducks.

Yes more in the wagon, all on the Government teat which is exactly what Obama and others want. Can't take away freedoms and rights if people can stand on their own feet.

As for our resources, Obama is just carrying on what others before him did. Buying oil and watching gas prices soar when we have enough oil here to run the entire country for decades to come.

And thank you, again, because we have been a laughing stock for awhile and now have Obama the clown running the circus for 4 more years.

In his defense he, nor could anyone, fix this disaster in 4 years, but he isn't even capable of a slight turn around because he doesn't know how, nor does he care too.

Third world here we come.

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Hitler did, Germany had full employment 2 years after he was elected, and that was about 3 years before he started fucking the Jews, and using slave labor. He put everyone to work. He made Albert Speer his economy czar, and Speer unleashed German science, engineering, and German industry to create a glut of new technologies and appliances and synthetic materials.

Americans, on the otherhand, demand toys, and it makes them crazee if anyone makes a dime more than they have. The rich hate it when the peasants make a buck, and the peasants wanna take what the rich have. The rich think the peasants are shitheads, and the peasants resent it cuz they think theyre shitheads too.

So any time we wanna put aside the BS we can rock & roll to prosperity like we did last summer, eee ahhh!

Lovecraft, I knew you were not the brightest light on the Christmas tree-- but I am sorry to see that you are as ignorant a yahoo as you have shown yourself to be.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/opinion/obama-won-on-values-not-demographics.html?pagewanted=all

Uh, oh. Now you're in for it, Stella. Mrs. Lovecraft is going to come on in yet another new account name and bitch slap you with her claimed college certificates.

lovecraft68 said:

Thank you for putting this so well. The shoelaces tied is the countries refusal to be "mean" and fight a real war rather then be sitting ducks.

Yes more in the wagon, all on the Government teat which is exactly what Obama and others want. Can't take away freedoms and rights if people can stand on their own feet.

As for our resources, Obama is just carrying on what others before him did. Buying oil and watching gas prices soar when we have enough oil here to run the entire country for decades to come.

And thank you, again, because we have been a laughing stock for awhile and now have Obama the clown running the circus for 4 more years.

In his defense he, nor could anyone, fix this disaster in 4 years, but he isn't even capable of a slight turn around because he doesn't know how, nor does he care too.

Third world here we come.

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You're more than welcome, lovecraft68.

Going forth into the future wearing rose colored glasses and horse blinders is a recipie for certain disaster. I consider myself a student of history and economics and even a cursory examination of these disciplines would tell the average thinking person that we are on the downhill slope to dissolution and failure.

IMO the bulk of the current population would gladly accept an absolute dictatorship in order to maintain a reasonable semblance of their current lifestyles. Freedom is a precious commodity and becomes even more so when it is lost. Ask anyone who survived the breakup of the USSR; state managed economy and all.

There's an old parable about how to cook a frog. Place it in a pan of water, put the pan on a stove burner and gradually increase the heat. By the time the frog realizes the water's hot enough to cook him, he is. As I stated in my previous post, the water that is the US is simmering and will soon boil while we as a people splash merrily enjoying the warmth and ignoring all entreaties to jump out.

Fuzzy thinking idealism, living in the moment, an ingrained belief system and misplaced compassion may bring comfort to some, but when you ignore the past, you put your future in peril.


"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana.

TE999 said:

You're more than welcome, lovecraft68.

Going forth into the future wearing rose colored glasses and horse blinders is a recipie for certain disaster. I consider myself a student of history and economics and even a cursory examination of these disciplines would tell the average thinking person that we are on the downhill slope to dissolution and failure.

IMO the bulk of the current population would gladly accept an absolute dictatorship in order to maintain a reasonable semblance of their current lifestyles. Freedom is a precious commodity and becomes even more so when it is lost. Ask anyone who survived the breakup of the USSR; state managed economy and all.

There's an old parable about how to cook a frog. Place it in a pan of water, put the pan on a stove burner and gradually increase the heat. By the time the frog realizes the water's hot enough to cook him, he is. As I stated in my previous post, the water that is the US is simmering and will soon boil while we as a people splash merrily enjoying the warmth and ignoring all entreaties to jump out.

Fuzzy thinking idealism, living in the moment, an ingrained belief system and misplaced compassion may bring comfort to some, but when you ignore the past, you put your future in peril.


"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana.

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Since corporations are people, too, I hope you include corps in your tin-foil-hat ranting about sucking teet of the government.

RjThoughts said:

Since corporations are people, too, I hope you include corps in your tin-foil-hat ranting about sucking teet of the government.

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You appear quite fashionable in those rose colored glasses and horse blinders.

I challenge you to prove my statements incorrect. Snarky comments do not count, either.

TE999 said:

You appear quite fashionable in those rose colored glasses and horse blinders.

I challenge you to prove my statements incorrect. Snarky comments do not count, either.

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In the world in which I work, Information Technology, it is not the way things are done. You have to prove a theory, not disprove it. Please, show me facts which prove YOUR statement. I've always been interested why one side of the political discord uses words like "Dictatorship" and "Facism" and "Marxist" but never PROVE their opinons, and at this moment you're spouting opinions only.

Until you and your ilk can PROVE that half the country is willing to live with a dictatorship if it means they can have free things, the snark and sarcasm stays.

I think you're right about the Entitlement Society issue (although I suspect I might think there are more thinking they are entitled than just the groups you may be thinking of. I've lived much of my life abroad. I think most Americans have a grossly inflated view of both their entitlements and how much they are suffering about anything, comparatively speaking.) and that the economy is naturaly spiraling down. No society setup has lasted or is likely to last forever, and that of the United States has had a much longer run than most (although it has evolved more than I think you're giving it credit for--and not just in bandaid ways).

I don't see that it necessarily will collapse as soon as you apparently do--or as totally. The Constitution itself was a Band-Aid on the Articles of Confederation, so I can see Band-Aids and shifts carrying us along for some time yet. And I don't see any rosy other options that tell me that sticking with a bit of optimism and hope (and not going all Chicken Little on it) is any worse than anything anyone else is coming up with. I certainly wasn't fooled by what the Republicans were signaling they want to do about it.

I don't share your view that there aren't any short-term Band-Aids and that there won't be some accommodation to avert the cliff. The fact is, more than half of the voters did back doing more of the Obama fixes than the Romney fixes (and I believe that a good deal more than half of them are capable of backing sticking it to the rich more than anyone else at this point. And I think Boehner probably realizes that too).

I can wait and see for a while. I assume you can too, as I doubt you have a choice or that yammering about it is going to be any more than waste of your time and effort.

Something else I think is true here is that for anything to work, you've got to want something to work, even if it isn't your idea and isn't all about you, more than you want to hate.

RjThoughts said:

In the world in which I work, Information Technology, it is not the way things are done. You have to prove a theory, not disprove it. Please, show me facts which prove YOUR statement. I've always been interested why one side of the political discord uses words like "Dictatorship" and "Facism" and "Marxist" but never PROVE their opinons, and at this moment you're spouting opinions only.

Until you and your ilk can PROVE that half the country is willing to live with a dictatorship if it means they can have free things, the snark and sarcasm stays.

Click to expand...

To begin with, IT deals with quantifiable and physical absolutes; Physics if you will Theories can be advanced and either proven or disproven because the items under consideration are inanimate, comply with physical laws and sit still for testing. People are considerably more unpredictable and complex.

Disciplines such as Psychology, Sociology and the other Behavioral Sciences examine the vagaries of human reactions to various stimuli. History records said actions. People are essentially emotion driven motivated by the primary instincts that the clever throughout history have used to better themselves at the expense of others.

A Socialist government and a Feudal lord have much in common. They offer protection from enemies, adequate food, basic shelter and other necessities of life in exchange for unquestioning obedience. Most people would and will obey to survive. This is the direction in which the US is headed with its burgeoning dependency class.

I will not and do not have to 'prove' anything to you. Seek out the facts and draw your own conclusions. However, I am sensing your mind is made up and facts to the contrary are irrelevant.

TE999 said:

To begin with, IT deals with quantifiable and physical absolutes; Physics if you will Theories can be advanced and either proven or disproven because the items under consideration are inanimate, comply with physical laws and sit still for testing. People are considerably more unpredictable and complex.

Disciplines such as Psychology, Sociology and the other Behavioral Sciences examine the vagaries of human reactions to various stimuli. History records said actions. People are essentially emotion driven motivated by the primary instincts that the clever throughout history have used to better themselves at the expense of others.

A Socialist government and a Feudal lord have much in common. They offer protection from enemies, adequate food, basic shelter and other necessities of life in exchange for unquestioning obedience. Most people would and will obey to survive. This is the direction in which the US is headed with its burgeoning dependency class.

I will not and do not have to 'prove' anything to you. Seek out the facts and draw your own conclusions. However, I am sensing your mind is made up and facts to the contrary are irrelevant.

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Therefore, you're saying that your opinions are facts and I'm wrong.

Thank you for that knowledge.

sr71plt said:

I can wait and see for a while. I assume you can too, as I doubt you have a choice or that yammering about it is going to be any more than waste of your time and effort.

Something else I think is true here is that for anything to work, you've got to want something to work, even if it isn't your idea and isn't all about you, more than you want to hate.

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Finally, a halfway reasoned response. I disagree with some of your points, but that beats sophomoric wisecracks and insults.

Excuse me, but my 'yammering' is stating facts. As America will discover in time, Obama is not the solution, he's a continuing part of the problem.

Are you saying that if I disagree with Obama and his administration's policies I'm a hater? That's a classic Straw Man argument and not worthy of discussion.

RjThoughts said:

Therefore, you're saying that your opinions are facts and I'm wrong.

Thank you for that knowledge.

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As I said before, prove me wrong.

You're welcome.

TE999 said:

As I said before, prove me wrong.

You're welcome.

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And from my scientific and fatually-based background, you prove your theory to me, not me having to prove you wrong. Sorry, it doesn't float.

RjThoughts said:

And from my scientific and fatually-based background, you prove your theory to me, not me having to prove you wrong. Sorry, it doesn't float.

Click to expand...

Whatever. *shrug*

Nighty night.

TE999 said:

Whatever. *shrug*

Nighty night.

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Ah, just received the whatever

TE999 said:

Excuse me, but my 'yammering' is stating facts.

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I think your taking that attitude is one of the biggest reasons the economy isn't already back--because those with the responsibility to bring it back care less for America than they do about their own claimed "rightness" and such as you are the poster children for this attitude.

So, you're just part of a self-defeating prophesy--trapped by your own assumptions you have all of the answers.

TE999 said:

Finally, a halfway reasoned response. I disagree with some of your points, but that beats sophomoric wisecracks and insults.

Excuse me, but my 'yammering' is stating facts. As America will discover in time, Obama is not the solution, he's a continuing part of the problem.

Are you saying that if I disagree with Obama and his administration's policies I'm a hater? That's a classic Straw Man argument and not worthy of discussion.

Click to expand...

No, you are stating your opinion, pure and simple. History is a good gauge of things but it is not an answer to the future.

So, if Obama isn't the answer, what is?

Enlighten us.

Interesting-- Obama won eight of the nations ten richest counties.

Pretty decent numbers, too. Better than the national averages. Of course, we could expect that from Marin...

JAMESBJOHNSON said:

Hitler did, Germany had full employment 2 years after he was elected, and that was about 3 years before he started fucking the Jews, and using slave labor. He put everyone to work. He made Albert Speer his economy czar, and Speer unleashed German science, engineering, and German industry to create a glut of new technologies and appliances and synthetic materials.

Americans, on the otherhand, demand toys, and it makes them crazee if anyone makes a dime more than they have. The rich hate it when the peasants make a buck, and the peasants wanna take what the rich have. The rich think the peasants are shitheads, and the peasants resent it cuz they think theyre shitheads too.

So any time we wanna put aside the BS we can rock & roll to prosperity like we did last summer, eee ahhh!

Click to expand...

Hitler was spending borrowed money, some laundered through the Union Bank, to build the Third Riech. He had powers that dwarf those of Obama, if only that he was able to shoot his opponents.
He did focus German industry on stratigic programs and he employed a lot of people to build the Autobahns, on the government payroll.

So lets jut let Obama take charge?
oh yeah, he's a Chicago pol.
Crap!