Tuesday, December 11, 2012 at 04:20PM In a time when America can lead the world in energy and food production, two areas of production that are vital to everyone with a heartbeat, thus putting many unemployed people to work with good paychecks, California is "progressively" leading the way to economic destruction. It truly boggles the mind -- truly.
Monday, August 30, 2010 at 05:00PM No, the left has not turned libertarian, they are crying for more statism. Ezra Klen and others on the left have criticized the filibuster because t doesn't allow majority rule in the Senate, and now in comment section after comment section of blogs and online newspaper articles I hear the left call for Obama to use any means necessary to get what he wants passed.
The building pressure among progressives for Obama to get tough and make things happen is worrisome. According to the progressives the stimulus was not big enough, the healthcare plan didn't contain a public option, and the financial bill was too soft on banks, plus cap and trade has not been passed, as well as cardcheck for unions. Obama has passed more sweeping statist legislation than any president since FDR, and the progressives are complaining he hasn't done enough.
How can Alan Wolfe-type liberals sit by silently while the progressives push for more government control? Liberals have got to stand down the progressives if they don't want to be pushed into dangerous territory which will ruin the Democrat Party for years to come. Liberals can spend their energy worried about conservatives, Tea Parties and Glenn Beck if they want to, but in the meantime they are being associated with the progressive push to turn our government into a statist nightmare.
Obama, cap and trade, conservatives, filibuster, healthcare, liberals, progressives Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 09:07AM Portland, Oregon, not exactly a hotbed of conservatism, is reopening the investigation of charges that Al Gore assaulted a woman giving him a massage.
The account given by the victim seems plausible, especially since the initial report was filed at the time of alleged incident. There must be quite a bit of believable evidence for the police in Portland to reopen the case. It also seems plausible that liberal friends of the victim convinced her to back off after the incident because of the importance of global warming and how this could hurt the cause.
We don't know why the victim is now changing her mind, but all this will come out in the investigation, hopefully. I've always thought Al Gore was a timebomb of volatile emotional immaturity. Gore is an example of power bestowed on someone with very little humbling life experiences to prevent power-madness.
Privileged power has historically caused a lot of problems, and it's one more reason for limited government which avoids the abuses of power. Our society has a perverted since of priorities when it comes to celebrities and powerful politicians -- they're placed in a magical category which is out of touch with reality. These flawed men and women often are granted an unearned status of importance and even greatness which is ridiculous in light of their actual character and contributions.
Al Gore rose in politics with connections and single-minded pursuit of power. Gore's hypocritical lifestyle is at serious odds with his professed concern for the planet -- Gore stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars if cap and trade schemes are passed, and his wasteful, opulent lifestyle violates all the principles he champions. Al Gore is a fraud, an emotionally stunted, privileged ego-maniac who has never had to face the reality of his dishonesty and basic lack of integrity. If the liberally biased press does't hold him accountable, if he's guilty of these charges, it wil be one more sign that the MSM has died, but just hasn't yet been buried.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 01:36PM The proposition that Obama is not a socialist-leaning progressive because no major progressive policies have passed is a non sequitur. As I've stated before, Obama and other progressives must be judged by what they have proposed and what they would do if they had unlimited power.
Obama has stated on record he is for a single payer system and that he favors cap and trade. Obama favors heavy regulation of industry. No one can doubt that Obama is a progressive and would pass sweeping, statist policies if he was unopposed. Just the fact he is for single payer puts him in the progressive camp. His efforts to empower the regulatory power of the EPA regarding carbon emissions is more proof.
The argument that Obama is a centrist because no sweeping progressive policies have been passed is like having a son living in your home who has a drug problem -- you have locked up everything of value so he can't possibly get to any of it, then when asked how the son is doing, you say he's doing good because nothing has been stolen lately. The only difference is we haven't locked everything up and the Obama adminiatration may yet pass some form of healthcare that eventually leads to single payer.
It's like an argument I had earlier this week with someone who is unconcerned about a more powerful state because the state is not abusing power -- I disagree with the caim the state is not abusing power, but the point is that the state will abuse power if not opposed. Once people become apathetic and begin trusting politicians to use power wisely, the people will eventually find power being abused.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 08:14AM If the opposition to progressivism would chill out and accept enough of the main tenets of progressivism, the progressives would compromise marginally so that the opposition could get some of the things they want -- what these would be are not certain, because I'm not sure anything has been offered except the reward of being seen as enlightened and non-oppositional. Perhaps if a few Republican's voted for healthcare reform, their states would benefit from a little pork thrown their way, and perhaps they could negotiate in terms of how much of healthcare the government controls right now, slowing down the march to single payer.
Actually, Republican cooperation with this Democrat majority congress and a Democrat/progressive president would mean being a part of a progressive agenda. The Democrats have no motivation to allow Republicans to change the basics of their agenda, so if Republicans work with Democrats it would be to help curb the excesses, but the policies would be implemented basically the same as Democrats propose. So, what would that be like?
We would have healthcare reform pretty much along the lines of the House bill, without a public option. The exclusion of the public option would be about all the Republicans could get, because if the Republicans got too many changes, then progressives would buck, but they could all agree on healthcare reform without the public option as long as something similar could replace it to compete with private insurance. The Republicans could possibly get something on abortion to appease their constituents. As long as government's role in affecting prices and delivery of services is significant, they could get a bipartisan bill passed.
The same with cap and trade. The Republicans could lessen the negative effects on businesses and the price consumers pay for energy, but the only way bipartisanship could work is if Democrats get most of their plan implemented.
These two major changes would significantly enhance government's ability to engineer society in the progressive direction. Then, all that representatives would have to worry about is whether the public is happy with these changes. Undoubtedly, there would be Republicans who refuse to help pass the progressive agenda and when they came up for reelection they could run on the fact of their opposition. Their opponents would frame them as obstructionists and claim that the Republican candidate is using "progressive agenda" as a scare tactic and point to the Republicans who voted for healthcare and cap an trade to show how some Republicans didn't think there was anything wrong or nefarious about these policies.
This tactic would either normalize progressivism or it would force voters to consider the question if these new changes in government involvement or wise and desirable. This would force all representatives running in areas where there is opposition to progressive policies to choose between more government involvement in the economy or less. Even Democrats who are in purple states would be conflicted.
It all depends on the national reaction to healthcare reform and cap and trade. The progressives are stating and betting that the public will accept these changes and realize they are necessary. Let's imagine for a minute that bipartisan efforts did take place. This would mean that Republicans are working with Democrats on Obama's ambitious agenda -- much of this agenda would become a reality with Republican cooperation, even if in a less severe or extreme form. The question is if this is what the American people want -- was there a national mandate for the progressive agenda? Before anyone accuses me of trying to demonize Obama's agenda with the word "progressivism", I'm only using his term, and the term used by Democrats who call themselves progressives -- so, let's not try to wiggle out from under the term in order to normalize these proposed changes -- even if it can be shown that Republicans have supported progressive policies in the past, this doesn't change anything.
The question remains, how would the public react to bipartisanship efforts which passed most of the agenda pushed by Obama, Reid and Pelosi? Or does the public's reaction matter?
