President Barack Hussein Obama spoke to his party and his country last night. Here are the smartest, sharpest lines from the leader of the free world:
On what Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan promise for America:
They want your vote, but they don't want you to know their plan. And that's because all they have to offer is the same prescriptions they've had for the last 30 years. Have a surplus? Try a tax cut. Deficit too high — try another. Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning [President Barack Hussein Obama, speech, Democratic National Convention, Charlotte, NC, September 6, 2012].
On Team Romney's foreign policy chops:
My opponent and his running mate are new to foreign policy. But from all that we've seen and heard, they want to take us back to an era of blustering and blundering that cost America so dearly. After all, you don't call Russia our number one enemy — not al- Qaida, Russia — unless you're still stuck in a Cold War mind warp. You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can't visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally.
The single line that wins President Obama Florida and Four More Years:
I will never turn Medicare into a voucher.
And the bigger thesis statement that tells us what this election boils down to:
Over and over, we've been told by our opponents that bigger tax cuts and fewer regulations are the only way, that since government can't do everything, it should do almost nothing. If you can't afford health insurance, hope that you don't get sick. If a company releases toxic pollution into the air your children breathe, well, that's the price of progress. If you can't afford to start a business or go to college, take my opponent's advice and borrow money from your parents.
You know what, that's not who we are. That's not what this country is about. As Americans, we believe we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, rights that no man or government can take away. We insist on personal responsibility, and we celebrate individual initiative. We're not entitled to success. We have to earn it. We honor the strivers, the dreamers, the risk- takers, the entrepreneurs who have always been the driving force behind our free enterprise system, the greatest engine of growth and prosperity that the world's ever known.
But we also believe in something called citizenship — citizenship, a word at the very heart of our founding, a word at the very essence of our democracy, the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations.
We believe that when a CEO pays his autoworkers enough to buy the cars that they build, the whole company does better.
We believe that when a family can no longer be tricked into signing a mortgage they can't afford, that family's protected, but so is the value of other people's homes — and so is the entire economy.
We believe the little girl who's offered an escape from poverty by a great teacher or a grant for college could become the next Steve Jobs or the scientist who cures cancer or the president of the United States, and it is in our power to give her that chance.
The President then makes my favorite point: We are the government.
We don't think the government can solve all of our problems, but we don't think the government is the source of all of our problems any more than our welfare recipients or corporations or unions or immigrants or gays or any other group we're told to blame for our troubles — because America, we understand that this democracy is ours.
We the people recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which asks only, what's in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.
As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It's about what can be done by us, together — through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. That's what we believe.
The Republicans want you to believe that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are running against Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky. President Obama's words last night make clear that he is running against John Birch and Ayn Rand. You can't have rights without responsibility. You can't have liberty without community. You can't have democracy without government.
Update 07:17 MDT: President Obama and former President Clinton have driven Ed Randazzo and Gordon Howie to such political apoplexy that they can't even offer a coherent argument against the hard truths from Charlotte. But Ed Randazzo can still alliterate, referring to President Obama as "the most disingenuous, deceptive and overtly dishonest rogue ever to darken the American presidency."
The President is no radical leftist, that's for sure. In fact, there were several lines that made me wince: like the line about America as the largest war machine in human history, for instance.
40% of the IRS take goes to militarism: that's unacceptable to this leftist especially when global warming is the greatest threat to our species.
"If you can't afford health insurance"
Can a federal government with trillions in debt and exploding out of control? Can your children afford it as we pass the responsibility on th them in the form of federal debt?
"You can't have rights without responsibility. You can't have liberty without community. You can't have democracy without government."
Responsibility, tell it to the sluggards on welfare who are walking around with a cigarette in their mouths and cell phone in their ears find out out when and where is the next party. And is responsibility passing the costs of your health care onto children in the form of federal debt? You can have liberty in a log cabin on a mountain Cory. And America was founded as a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy.
The debt means a cheap dollar, Steve. You know: so we can sell more weapons to Saudi Arabia who sells their old stuff to Iran and Syria.
For my dime, I thought it was a great speech. Expressing the values I have and the values I believe America should have. As for Sibson, watch your mouth, I've had family on welfare and if you care to say nasty crap, you need to do it to my face and be prepared.
Were I come from we don't talk that way unless your prepared. As far as I'm concerned you maligning my people and I will not stand for it.
The Republicans offer nothing and that is why they will not win back the White House. Mitt Romney in the Oval Office: a pipe dream that isn't going to happen and have no doubts most Americans know who has been working in D.C. in the past four years and who hasn't.
Steve, still wrong. You may have "natural liberty" when you withdraw from society to your mountain cabin, but Rousseau says that natural liberty stinks. Outside of the social contract, you also have no morality or property:
"The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked. Then only, when the voice of duty takes the place of physical impulses and right of appetite, does man, who so far had considered only himself, find that he is forced to act on different principles, and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations. Although, in this state, he deprives himself of some advantages which he got from nature, he gains in return others so great, his faculties are so stimulated and developed, his ideas so extended, his feelings so ennobled, and his whole soul so uplifted, that, did not the abuses of this new condition often degrade him below that which he left, he would be bound to bless continually the happy moment which took him from it for ever, and, instead of a stupid and unimaginative animal, made him an intelligent being and a man.
"Let us draw up the whole account in terms easily commensurable. What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses. If we are to avoid mistake in weighing one against the other, we must clearly distinguish natural liberty, which is bounded only by the strength of the individual, from civil liberty, which is limited by the general will; and possession, which is merely the effect of force or the right of the first occupier, from property, which can be founded only on a positive title.
"We might, over and above all this, add, to what man acquires in the civil state, moral liberty, which alone makes him truly master of himself; for the mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty" [Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762].
G-Man, we've still got to get that message out... and make sure the people who get that message get up and vote! Spread the word!
Obama knows about Liberty? Seriously Cory?
Let me guess, you are an anti-choice "Libertarian" that also believes we should fill our jails up with drug addicts and prostitutes?
Oh you are the Ron Paul guy. Maybe you do know something about libertarianism.
It's too bad his economics are a disaster, I would be far more supportive of him if he was less interested in returning to the gold standard based on century old Austrian theory with no basis in empirical data.
His son scares me, too. He is the farthest thing from a Libertarian there is. He'd love to turn our codified law into a reflection of the Bible. I don't know how you could be Ron Paul's son and believe the crap Rand believes.
From what I heard of Obama's speech, he made great sense. Perfect sense. And I think he means what he says, and he means well for everyone. I will confess that I did not hear all of his speech.
The trouble is, thinking noble thoughts is one thing, saying noble words is one thing, writing noble prose is one thing. Turning all that noble theory into noble reality is quite another thing.
The system is full of less-than-honorable types who would take Obama's good intentions and twist them into a totalitarian or feudal nightmare. Obama will have to be strong indeed to resist those villains without becoming a villain himself.
I do believe that Barack Obama tends toward socialism. But cooperation (if you want to call that "socialism," be my guest) will serve as the norm for the new society, the "son of man," in my opinion. The kill-or-be-killed mentality will die off; all of its adherents will both kill and be killed, precisely according to their mantra.
Now I'd like to hear our President say something like that! But nooooo ... hope bleeds eternal, and bleeds and bleeds ...
@Justin You know that Dr. Jeff Miron PhD the Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Department of Economics at Harvard University is an Austrian Economist right? Keynesian Economics is completely flawed and even John Maynard Keynes joked openly and publicly that his theory of economics could only work in a perfect situation with no downturns. Also Paul Krugman the current champion of the Keynesian system actually said we should fake a space alien attack to ramp up military spending to solve our current problems. The fact of the matter is Keynesians got us into our current problems with their flawed thought process and the Austrian system has succeed when used and the data actually says the gold standard works (by the way gold and silver are also the only legal form of currency in the US check the Constitution). These two videos will show you why the Keynesian system is so flawed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erJEaFpS9ls&list=PLD78A4CA3338CFA7E&index=3&feature=plcp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkyBnaYCUhw&feature=relmfu
@Cory I think Obama has a winning ad with this one lol. http://gawker.com/5941293/icymi-the-daily-shows-larry+david+narrated-barack-obama-retrospective-it-could-have-been-worse
Yes, and Greg Mankiw is the head of the Economics department.
Harvard's economics department is the least regarded among top economists. Cross-town MIT is the most regarded. U Chicago is probably second. Neither of them support supply side theory.
Come back to me when you find an economic result based on empirical data that shows tax cuts "pay for themselves".
It doesn't exist, which is why Mankiw has developed a "roulette style" model to explain his supply side theory.
I studied economics under one of W's former Chief Economists, (who left when they renewed the Bush tax cuts and is a Republican who thinks Supply Side is the biggest sham ever perpetuated on public policy). I don't want videos, I want stochastic research, which is how economists prove things.
The great irony is that supply side economics is based on Keynesian theory as well. The modern misconception is that Keynesian theory is pro-spending and supply side economics is pro-tax cuts and they are mutually exclusive. In fact, the vast majority of economists believe that neither have the multiplier effect to "pay for themselves". Keynes suggested both could potentially have that ability, but that tax cuts were less effective based on the fact that they circulated in the economy one fewer time.
But I was ribbing you on the Gold Standard. For which there is also no empirical data to support a return to that. Gold has no intrinsic value. Our current system instead relies on the intrinsic value of the full faith and credit of the American Treasury. Which is why the GOP threat to default on our debt was so idiotic.
The fact is we need to balance our budget, and call tax cutting your way out of it our spending your way out of it, it will never work. Paul Krugman doesn't believe we can spend our way out of a deficit, to suggest such with a quote that says no such thing is misrepresentation and factually incorrect. He was illustrating the preposterousness of supply side theory by applying it to the other side of the budget.
By the way, what did Greg Mankiw say in his widely sold Macroeconomics text about the supply side theorists in the Reagan administration? He called them "charlatans".
Also, Daniel, as a supporter of Ron Paul and apparent opponent of "Keynesian economics", (which you don't actually understand) how can you rationalize spending hundreds of billions annually on the military above what the Joint Chiefs want when we are hopefully exiting the wars we shouldn't be in?
How can you rationalize the fact that Ryan/Romney now want to take $700 billion of Medicare "savings" in their budget and spend it instead so they can say that Obama is shorting the elderly, not them?
If we elect Romney/Ryan, we will be better off if we are hit by an asteroid.
Austrian economics: not even Austria believes in it.
Yes, Daniel, Barack Obama understands liberty... specifically, that the radically deregulated, Randian world about which you fantasize would seriously degrade liberty.
Sibby your point above is not lost in the national shuffle. (Though I know some really great folks who because of Obama's warped policies cannot find a job in the private sector and are now on welfare, though they would rather not be.) We will under Obama begin to have a national interest debt which eats up every tax increase and spending cut congress can muster; leaving zero for any new spending on helping people. (Or we will be printing billions of worthless Franklins causing inflation to skyrocket.) We should be talking about interest free loans to college students, securing our border to the threat of terrorists bringing harbingers of death across them, increasing worldwide and opening up trade with places like Cuba which has starving people, promoting the great Clinton era idea of welfare to work, working hand in hand with power companies in producing low cost clean coal and natural gas energy, going back to the constitutional concept of Federalism and turning those powers taken, back onto the States, etc., etc., etc.
But what we see are cute bits of delusional rhetoric from our President showing he does not have a clue what truly makes America tick. Our only hope and prayer is that if Obama wins the White House that the GOP takes back the Senate and remains in control of the US House forcing him to the middle similar to when we dragged Clinton there during his presidency. But honestly what floors me more than what Obama wants us to believe is the Democratic base hollering out louder and louder against placing God and Jerusalem into the DNC platform. But then Cory you would have been hollering with them is my guess knowing your atheist viewpoints. Yes we are different, and love the battle, but in the end my side is going to win the war my friend.
Charlie: could you describe the audience for whom you write? cuz it ain't us.
Ha ha Larry; that is why I write here. They say never give up hope on another human being someday doing the right thing. You do have a heartbeat right??
Go over to the Decorum Forum and help Newland draft legislation that makes you look less (Les?) like an idiot.
Whoa, Charlie: I want to see the clear link between Obama's policy and specific people who cannot find work.
The situation Charlie describes of national debt interest eating up all tax dollars and eliminating our ability to help people is exactly the plan of the Norquist GOP. They want to drown government in the bathtub of debt. Romney and Ryan make it worse by cutting taxes.
But wait a minute: is this Republican Charlie Hoffman advocating no-interest student loans? That sounds like a liberal handout to me. Fighting terrorism? Mitt Romney said he didn't want to go after bin Laden in Pakistan; Obama bagged that terrorist threat. Free trade with Cuba? Holy cow, Charlie, didn't you just get back from Florida, where that proposal is political suicide and maybe the only reason the GOP gets Hispanic votes in Miami? Welfare to work—isn't that what President Obama is promoting by giving states more flexibility (at the request of Republican govenrors like MItt Romney) to try programs that have better work outcomes?
If you want to talk "delusional rhetoric," Charlie, you need to look no further than the comment you just made. Your words are totally detached from the reality of the policy actions carried out by our President and those advocated by your own party. Obama understands that society works by cooperation, not the Ayn Rand fantasies that Paul Ryan consults for legislative guidance. And heck, President Obama is the one who ordered "God" and "Jerusalem" put back in the platform.
Oh no, Larry, We are Charlie's audience. I don't believe in segregating audiences. We should all be one audience. I welcome Charlie's contributions, even when he is dead wrong.
Larry, get some meds man.
Rasmussen: Barry ahead of Willard.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
Cory I honestly don't have time to bring the past four years of Obama to the table. Telling us he is going to cut four trillion dollars after having blown over five trillion in less than four years would be the first argument against believing anything else he has said. But for a supply sider I would argue that for a President to actually say "The Private Sector is doing fine , it is the Public Sector which is hurting." ., might just trump the deficit spending he condoned. Sorry, gotta run.
The Bush regime caused the evaporation of at least 52 TRILLION in global wealth:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/355/the-giant-pool-of-money
What's gonna happen if Charlie gets his way: President Romney and a GOP senate and house? They will cut taxes and that national debt they pretend to care so much about will skyrocket. They will repeal PPACA (Obamacare) and insurance premiums will revert to their prior 20% a year annual increases while people with pre-existing conditions will be back out of luck (President Obama should run commercials with people who have benefited from "Obamacare" and would have been facing death or bankruptcy otherwise). They will follow through on turning Medicare into a voucher program thereby shifting costs away from government and onto the backs of senior citizens. They will start a war with Iran and/or Syria - (paid for by your grandkids of course like their last 2 wars). And they will destroy the Republican party guaranteeing the Democrats a long-term return to power beginning in 2014.
...speaking of an alternative universe....
The bs argument about the debt is just that. B.S.
Not one of you complained about the debt under Bush. When things went to hell economically, then you got excited. No, actually I'm not even giving you that bit of refuge.
It's really the only thing you have to attach yourselves to to try to sound competative. In this insane political atmosphere, and Obama had actually had the economy in which to reduce the deficit, you'd still be b*tching that you didn't get the gauge of rope you wanted to hang yourself with.
Charlie, quick quiz...how much of that debt you speak of did Paul Ryan vote for?
(I'll use him as an example since he is the famed budget and deficit hawk and young gun savior of the GOP.)
I'm not sure that Grover Norquist will give the GOP their spine and b***s back to do anything significant to add revenue to the spending cuts.
@Justin You are right about you are right that Greg Mankiw is the Chair of the Dept. but that isn't what I said Jeff Miron is the Director of Undergrad Studies in the Dept. link so you can check the info: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/staff Also Justin W was a Keynesian and so was his Econ staffers so wrong again. Hayek (Nobel Prize for Econ) one of the biggest Austrians in history taught at the University of Chicago and they still follow his Austrian models so wrong again. Also Gold and Silver are the only legal form of money in the US unless you have the power to rewrite the Constitution? Every President from Nixon on is violating the Constitution by not placing the US back on the Gold Standard and FDR broke it also. America's credit with its debt is well questionable at best and the US Treasury not the Federal Reserve is the only institution in the US allowed by the CONSTITUTION to print money backed by gold or silver so all of those Federal Reserve notes in your wallet are actually worthless according to the law of the land. Justin I fully understand Keynesian Econ and you clearly don't understand it or Austrian Econ. Justin you have shown no proof of your "theories" I however give you examples of how your wrong. Justin, Paul Krugman is crazy and yes he has actually said hundreds of times we can spend our way out of our problems and yes even other Keynesians think he is crazy. Justin tax cuts have actually helped in improving our money issues and you are right in saying we have a budget problem that needs to be looked at I agree with you on that but we also have a spending problem. Now onto the Ron Paul stuff and saying I believe or like Romney/Ryan. Well, Romney and Ryan are both jokes neither are the fiscal hawks they claim to be and will destroy our economy just slower then Obama. You did guess correct in saying I like Dr. Paul but what you don't get is Dr. Paul and myself are against the out of control military spending and wars (also I'm an actual combat veteran and have seen what war really is unlike 99% of you). You might want to watch this and actually learn what the Austrian school is about: http://www.learnliberty.org/videos/schools-thought-classical-liberalism-part-4-austrian-school?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social%20referrals%2013%20&utm_content=What%20is%20the%20Austrian%20School?%20Dr.%20Nigel%20Ashford%20discusses%20in%20his%20%22Schools%20of%20Thought%20in%20Classical%20Liberalism%22%20series
@Cory Sorry but I have the nations founders on my side on this one. They believed in small, limited government just like I do.
I told you, I studied economics. I know what the Austrian school is about.
I do get that you and Dr. Paul are against the military spending. I like that a lot. I don't see how you could vote for Romney given that. I like everything about Ron Paul other than his economics. Having studied under some incredible economists and believing firmly that the only real economic effects are those that are proven using empirical data and applied math, I am not a fan of Austrian theory, which is just that theory. Schumpeter is the best of a bad lot there, IMO.
I don't know that W was a Keynesian, I don't think he had the first clue about economics. He certainly spent a lot of money. He also made huge tax cuts that were meant to appease his supply side donors. How did those huge spending increases and tax cuts work? Three straight years of decreased revenue out of the box, not even adjusting for inflation.
If W was a Keynesian, so was Ronald Reagan. They had the exact same strategy. Except Reagan actually increased taxes 7 times after the first cut. W's taxes have never been adjusted, and now as we are at the lowest tax rate in modern history with horrible economic growth, doubling down on the tax cuts that didn't work and still aren't working is the worst possible economic policy.
I'll stick to reading my economic research from economists with statistical results, not MDs, thanks.
Jiminy Crickets, Daniel. The Founding Fathers gave your small, limited government a spin. They called it the Articles of Confederation. It sucked. George, Jim, Tom, Ben, and the boys reread their Rousseau and traded that lemon in for a bigger, more powerful centralized government enshrined in the Constitution. The Founders are with me... those darned socialists.
Btw, in order to keep Ron and Rand separate, you may not want to refer to him as Dr. Paul, maybe Dr. Ron Paul.
Rand Paul is about a shade off of Michele Bachmann.
What I really want to know is if tax cuts are going to increase productivity, why are the "job creators" so lazy and not creating any jobs with the lowest tax receipts as a % of GDP in modern history?
@ Cory, the founders never believed in "a bigger, more powerful centralized government enshrined in the Constitution" and the Constitution unless you are reading a different one then I am limits the federal governments powers and control. Maybe you have the double super duper top secret version everyone hears about but have never seen. ;)
@ Justin, I would rather take Econ advise from Dr. Ron Paul MD because even most economists say they knows and understands economics better then them.
@ Justin, I don't think I have ever said I would vote for Romney and if you even know the slightest bit about Ron Paul and his supporters you would know they or he himself would never vote for Romney. Even Cory knows myself and his "crazy cousin" (Cory's words) are no fan of Romney, heck Cory was harassing me on twitter a month ago telling me to vote for Gary Johnson or don't vote at all. Remember Cory true dat
@Justin, I have studied economics for sometime now and hold several degrees in both economics and finance. I have learned from some of the best economists our nation has to offer and they continue to say Austrian Economics is the best and only viable solution for our nation at this current time. I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
Sorry, I've never heard an economist say Ron Paul knows more than they do. If that's what that sentence was meant to imply.
Btw, the founders also supported slavery and voting only for white male landowners. I hope that isn't also part of the plan. Hopefully execution of gay men and destruction of the nose cartilage for gay women also isn't part of the plan. The Founders created a system for a living Constitution, which is the sole reason for their success in creating the longest living (written) Constitution on the planet.
The whole concept about the gold standard was and will always be a ridiculous campaign platform. The government we have is based on our living Constitution. No place in that Constitution is the President a dictator. Even if Ron Paul were elected President he wouldn't be able to take us back to the gold standard.
If you are an economist, you should write some research proving the theories with econometrics.
Daniel, the proof is in the pudding: no nation has chosen to follow the principles of Austrian economics. They know its ideas, like full-reserve banking, don't work. None of the "best economists" of any nation say Austrian economics is a great idea.
And history is clear. America started with a much more decentralized government. It didn't work. The Founders crafted a Constitution that moved toward a stronger federal government. That doesn't mean the Founders believed in absolute rule from Washington, but it does show them rejecting your Randian, Paulian, Norquistian anarchy in favor of something much more resembling President Barack Obama's vision of an America that works together as a unified community to solve real problems.