Category Archives: Barack Obama

Does Obama Want To Lynch Rush Limbaugh?

BAB's A List, Barack Obama, Conservatism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Socialism

Our friend, economist George Reisman, is on a roll. Read about George in the previous post, “The Myth That Laissez Faire Is Responsible For Our Financial Crisis.”

Does Obama Want to Lynch Rush Limbaugh?
By George Reisman*

My answer to the question “Does Obama Want to Lynch Rush Limbaugh?” is, no. He and the rest of the Left just want to drive Rush Limbaugh off the air.

Obama has already used the prestige of his office to attack Limbaugh by name. According to The New York Post and Fox News of January 23:

WASHINGTON–President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.

“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,” he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

To get the silence-Limbaugh campaign going, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee yesterday (January 27) launched a petition drive urging people to “EXPRESS [THEIR] OUTRAGE ABOUT RUSH’S COMMENTS” that stated his hope that Obama’s socialistic plans will fail. This followed a warm-up led by assorted news anchors, pundits, and celebrities denouncing Limbaugh in the media.

Here’s is what Limbaugh actually said, back on January 16, and which led to the orchestrated campaign now being waged against him:

“I’ve been listening to Barack Obama for a year-and-a-half. I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don’t want them to succeed.

If I wanted Obama to succeed, I’d be happy the Republicans have laid [sic] down. And I would be encouraging Republicans to lay [sic] down and support him. Look, what he’s talking about is the absorption of as much of the private sector by the US government as possible, from the banking business, to the mortgage industry, the automobile business, to health care. I do not want the government in charge of all of these things. I don’t want this to work..… Why is it any different, what’s new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it? I don’t care what the Drive-By story is. I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: ‘Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails.’ Somebody’s gotta say it.”

Actually, as Limbaugh well knows, it’s really not necessary to hope for the failure of Obama’s socialistic policies themselves. If they are adopted, they will fail by virtue of their own nature. But it is perfectly reasonable to hope for the failure of Obama’s efforts to get his policies enacted and to hope that to the extent they are enacted their failure is recognized. This is what Limbaugh clearly meant.

The Left cannot tolerate criticism or dissent. A large proportion of its members are actually Stalinist in their mentality. (This is a far larger proportion than the members of the right who are in favor of the diametric opposite of Stalinism, namely, laissez-faire capitalism, which the Left attacks more and more stridently.)

Serious Leftists, i.e., those who want to establish and maintain actual government ownership or control over the economic system, are all implicitly totalitarians. On the one hand, they want to take total control over people’s lives under the pretext of improving and enriching their lives. But their policies are so bad, cause so much destruction and human suffering, that the potential is created for an explosive outburst of hatred and vengeance against them once the public draws the logically inescapable conclusion that it is they and their policies who are responsible. To stay in power and keep socialism in existence, they have to prevent this from happening by crushing all possibility of dissent.

Limbaugh is a major thorn in the side of the Left. They need to remove him, because his criticism serves to slow their advance and might even help to stop them in their tracks.

That’s why I’m for Limbaugh and I too hope Obama fails at every turn in his efforts to expand the powers of government.

*Copyright © 2009, by George Reisman. George Reisman, Ph.D. is the author of Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (Ottawa, Illinois: Jameson Books, 1996) and is Pepperdine University Professor Emeritus of Economics. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Goldwater Institute. His web site is www.capitalism.net. A pdf replica of his book can be downloaded to the reader’s hard drive simply by clicking on the book’s title Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics and then saving the file when it appears on the screen.

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Posted at George Reisman’s Blog on Economics, Politics, Society, and Culture at 1/28/2009 02:11:00 PM

Update V: NO Small ‘r’ republicans In The House

Barack Obama, Bush, Conservatism, Democrats, Economy, Israel, Media, Republicans, Ron Paul

It’s a chore to watch more than 60 seconds of this hypocrite unveil the carefully qualified Truth he never uttered while campaigning (and will forget if ever his faction is in power again). During his presidential campaign, Fred Thompson, and the rest of the Republican front runners, praised Bush’s three-trillion-dollar war.

Thompson and his ilk had no qualms about W’s warfare-welfare wantonness: his compassionate conservatism they touted endlessly, including Bush’s “ownership society” which amplified the mortgage meltdown. Where was cuddly Fred when,

To achieve his vision, Bush pushed new policies encouraging homeownership, like the “zero-down-payment initiative,” which was much as it sounds—a government-sponsored program that allowed people to get mortgages without a down payment.

Those who still choose to cheer for the GOP (RIP), and saddle Obama with its travesties, might wish to commit to memory (if only fleetingly) the fact that in order to privilege Hispanics (mostly illegal), Bush not only pushed for their amnesty, but worked overtime to incorporate them into the “ownership society.” Easy credit for minorities unworthy of credit was par for the course during the Bush years.

While campaigning, did fuzzy Freddy denounce, or even mention, Bush’s prescription-drug benefit that has added trillions to the Medicare shortfall? The unconstitutional campaign finance-reform bill and “Sarbanes-Oxley Act” (a preemptive assault on CEOs and CFOs, prior to the fact of a crime)? The collusion with Kennedy on education?

What is it about establishment Republicans that they will cover up for each other and for the crimes of their Leader for 8 solid years, and are still begged to come back for encores by their followers, none of whom is the wiser? (That’s a rhetorical question).

Why do the party parrots have no curiosity about the one man who has been correct for 30 straight years? Or about the few columns that have been predictive and always spoken truth to power? (Stephen Moore, of the Wall Street Journal, wrote a book titled Bullish on Bush: How the Ownership Society Is Making America Richer. This snake-oil merchant–and failed philosopher kings like him–are still touted as the crème de la crème of the American commentariat.)

Mencken explained this with reference to the genus called “Boobus Americanus,” but then today, in the Age of the Idiot, Mencken himself would be voiceless, unemployed.

Update III (Jan 25): Still fawning over Fred and the Republican phonies? In case you find it hard to believe Bush helped build the ownership society on quicksand, do read about the American Dream Downpayment Act of 2003. Did know-it-all Fred protest that when he had a chance to? Not on his life. He ought to leave “Economics in One Lesson” to the great Henry Hazlitt, who, like Mencken, would be unemployed or underemployed in the Age of the Idiot.

Update IV (Jan. 26): About the convergence of the Demopublican duopoly, Vox Day, my WND colleague, writes:

“[W]hen in power, the differences between the two parties are mostly illusory. Republican and Democrat are simply two different factions of the same ruling party, and their congressional battles are primarily over political spoils, not political ideology. This is why a ‘conservative’ president will immediately tack left upon taking office, while a ‘liberal’ president will tend to move to the right. We’ve seen this with Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43, so there’s no reason to expect a massive difference between the previous administration and the current one.”

As I have written, “Antitrust laws ought to be deployed, not against business, but to bust this two-party monopoly, which subverts competition in government and rewards the colluding quislings with sinecures in perpetuity.”

I do, however, hope Vox tackles the mindlessness of the parties’ respective followers.

Update V: To Myron. I thought the point I was making was obvious–or has responsibility (as opposed expediency) become such a vague term? The point is not whether Fuzzy Fred was present in the flesh when Bush did what he did; but this: The onus was on FF to articulate the principles he has only now discovered while vying for the Party’s nomination for president. It was THEN that FF ought to have disavowed the violation of these principles by Bush. But Fred denounces spending and cheap credit only now that a Democrat has taken over where Bush left off. It goes without saying that had the Republicans not been dethroned, they’d be doing exactly what the Democrats are doing–stimulating their packages–and their followers would be doing the same. (With one hand held out for their share of the loot.)

Update V: NO Small 'r' republicans In The House

Barack Obama, Bush, Conservatism, Democrats, Israel, Media, Republicans, Ron Paul

It’s a chore to watch more than 60 seconds of this hypocrite unveil the carefully qualified Truth he never uttered while campaigning (and will forget if ever his faction is in power again). During his presidential campaign, Fred Thompson, and the rest of the Republican front runners, praised Bush’s three-trillion-dollar war.

Thompson and his ilk had no qualms about W’s warfare-welfare wantonness: his compassionate conservatism they touted endlessly, including Bush’s “ownership society” which amplified the mortgage meltdown. Where was cuddly Fred when,

To achieve his vision, Bush pushed new policies encouraging homeownership, like the “zero-down-payment initiative,” which was much as it sounds—a government-sponsored program that allowed people to get mortgages without a down payment.

Those who still choose to cheer for the GOP (RIP), and saddle Obama with its travesties, might wish to commit to memory (if only fleetingly) the fact that in order to privilege Hispanics (mostly illegal), Bush not only pushed for their amnesty, but worked overtime to incorporate them into the “ownership society.” Easy credit for minorities unworthy of credit was par for the course during the Bush years.

While campaigning, did fuzzy Freddy denounce, or even mention, Bush’s prescription-drug benefit that has added trillions to the Medicare shortfall? The unconstitutional campaign finance-reform bill and “Sarbanes-Oxley Act” (a preemptive assault on CEOs and CFOs, prior to the fact of a crime)? The collusion with Kennedy on education?

What is it about establishment Republicans that they will cover up for each other and for the crimes of their Leader for 8 solid years, and are still begged to come back for encores by their followers, none of whom is the wiser? (That’s a rhetorical question).

Why do the party parrots have no curiosity about the one man who has been correct for 30 straight years? Or about the few columns that have been predictive and always spoken truth to power? (Stephen Moore, of the Wall Street Journal, wrote a book titled Bullish on Bush: How the Ownership Society Is Making America Richer. This snake-oil merchant–and failed philosopher kings like him–are still touted as the crème de la crème of the American commentariat.)

Mencken explained this with reference to the genus called “Boobus Americanus,” but then today, in the Age of the Idiot, Mencken himself would be voiceless, unemployed.

Update III (Jan 25): Still fawning over Fred and the Republican phonies? In case you find it hard to believe Bush helped build the ownership society on quicksand, do read about the American Dream Downpayment Act of 2003. Did know-it-all Fred protest that when he had a chance to? Not on his life. He ought to leave “Economics in One Lesson” to the great Henry Hazlitt, who, like Mencken, would be unemployed or underemployed in the Age of the Idiot.

Update IV (Jan. 26): About the convergence of the Demopublican duopoly, Vox Day, my WND colleague, writes:

“[W]hen in power, the differences between the two parties are mostly illusory. Republican and Democrat are simply two different factions of the same ruling party, and their congressional battles are primarily over political spoils, not political ideology. This is why a ‘conservative’ president will immediately tack left upon taking office, while a ‘liberal’ president will tend to move to the right. We’ve seen this with Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43, so there’s no reason to expect a massive difference between the previous administration and the current one.”

As I have written, “Antitrust laws ought to be deployed, not against business, but to bust this two-party monopoly, which subverts competition in government and rewards the colluding quislings with sinecures in perpetuity.”

I do, however, hope Vox tackles the mindlessness of the parties’ respective followers.

Update V: To Myron. I thought the point I was making was obvious–or has responsibility (as opposed expediency) become such a vague term? The point is not whether Fuzzy Fred was present in the flesh when Bush did what he did; but this: The onus was on FF to articulate the principles he has only now discovered while vying for the Party’s nomination for president. It was THEN that FF ought to have disavowed the violation of these principles by Bush. But Fred denounces spending and cheap credit only now that a Democrat has taken over where Bush left off. It goes without saying that had the Republicans not been dethroned, they’d be doing exactly what the Democrats are doing–stimulating their packages–and their followers would be doing the same. (With one hand held out for their share of the loot.)

The Big Lie About Obama And Race

America, Barack Obama, Race, Racism, War

The excerpt is from my new WND column, “The Big Lie About Obama And Race”:

“Allow me to put forth a simple proposition. The election of Obama is no racial milestone; it’s not that whites have come to their senses. But rather that African-Americans have finally done what’s right (to paraphrase the childish, churlish prose of one Rev. Lowery).

For the first time in a long time, the black community has put forward a candidate of caliber, a candidate the American people were only too willing to consider for the highest office in the land.

Until Barack, the black community had disgorged the likes of Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton. Be they black, brown, yellow or red (Rev. Lowery’s classification) – no sane American would elect those two phonies to serve on their local PTA board, much less in the Oval Office.” …

The complete column is “The Big Lie About Obama And Race”.