Friday, May 13, 2011

From Each According to Obama's Needs, To Each According to His Desires

There are two things about the market that are -- or might as well be -- magic. We discussed one of them in yesterday's alternately appearing and disappearing post: the "spontaneous order" that far surpasses the ability of any human -- or group of humans -- to allocate scarce resources with alternative uses in an efficient manner. The second is its godlike -- and I use that word advisedly -- ability to "create something from nothing."

First of all, there is no value in the absence of human beings. Because we value -- i.e., desire -- an economy comes into being. Now, desire is based upon a lack -- or perceived lack -- of some object, power, or state of being. A person who wants nothing engages in no economic activity.

It is through spontaneously trading with one another that aggregate value increases -- just as if something has been created from nothing. Note that this cannot occur if a central authority tries to undertake the fanciful project of determining peoples "needs," then providing for them.

"To each according to his need, from each according to his ability" is a recipe for stasis and impoverishment. For one thing, people do not value what is given to them, with the result that what they are given diminishes in value. What one is "entitled to" becomes simultaneously priceless and valueless, like soundwaves or gravity.

But there is also no increase in value without rules for gettin' it. This is why war and plunder do not result in increased value -- because they satisfy desire by simply appropriating value created by someone else, in a zero-sum game.

Our tea party-hearty founders were acutely aware of the long history of governments sustaining themselves in this manner through the power to tax -- which, in the wrong hands, is simply the power to get what one wants without having to undergo the formality of working for it.

Thus, the statist works a kind of counter-magic, in that he too gets -- but does not create -- "something from nothing" by purloining the slack of others. Instead of recognizing the market as the great generator of value, he uses it as a means to his own private ends -- for example, Obama's personal desire to provide healthcare to illegal aliens and to people who want to use their own scarce resources to satisfy other desires.

The latter may be stupid -- eg. omnipotent adultolescents who don't believe they'll ever get sick -- but why is this Obama's problem, much less mine? Unfortunately, the only way for an adultolescent to grow up is to learn the unyielding ways of the world. Shielded from these ways, he can stay a liberal forever.

Which I suppose is the point. Obama's ruling desire -- and the desire of the left in general -- is to see his ideology enacted into law and backed by the force of the state. This is a stance to which the believer in representative democracy can have no fundamental objection, for it is simply a case of the people getting what they deserve.

The problem is that the left uses democracy in order to put profoundly undemocratic policies into place -- similar to the "one man, one vote, one time" rule of pseudo-democratic tyrants.

After all, no living person ever voted for Social Security, and none of us have a say in various other leftist desires that have become our perpetual obligations, i.e., public employee unions, agricultural subsidies, state-run arts and media, the state education/indoctrination monopoly -- really, all of the countless extra-Constitutional activities of the federal government, which, once in place, are beyond the reach of citizens to eliminate.

The end result of leftist polices is the institutionalization of their desires, in a one way flow between citizens and statists. Yes, there is of course some incidental flow of value back to the citizenry, but usually much less than what was extracted from us. Few people deny that the citizenry gets good value from the legitimate activities of the state, e.g., police, military, public health, and, to a lesser extent, the judicial system.

Unfortunately, the latter has been systematically corrupted by leftist desire over the past fifty years, so it no longer provides the value it once did. A judge was once a figure of respect instead of likely ridicule, e.g., Sotomayor, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Kagan, O'Connor, Souter, and the rest of those dingbat tools of the left.

But this is no different from what Democrats have attempted to do to the judiciary from the very beginning of the country. Hamilton foresaw this in Federalist 78 -- that the judiciary was the weakest branch of government, and the most susceptible to populist and demagogic mischief. Slavery and Jim Crow were kept in place by Democrat presidents appointing Supreme Court justices who codified the desires of racists, just as today the institutional racism of the left undermines black progress.

The problem is that, while the Supreme Court is a coequal branch of government, it has no power except for the appeal to intrinsic rightness and truth. It has neither the executive sword to compel nor the legislative cash to bribe and seduce. Rather, the judiciary is there to protect us from these lesser forms of power through an appeal to truth and rightness only.

But what if people do not value truth and decency? Then truth has no voice in the judiciary, and your little experiment in representative democracy is over.

Note that when law is reduced to desire, we might as well concede that the game is lost. For there can be no compromise between what the Constitution says and what the left wishes for it to say. The latter is no longer the rule of law but the tyranny of unrestrained desire.

What is the origin of the rule of law? If we consider it only as the formality of arbitrary custom or "collective desire," we will eventually go off the rails, because customs and desires naturally change.

This is the whole basis of the left's argument that the Constitution doesn't really mean what it says, and even if it did, we don't have to pay attention to it, since today our desires are different. For example, we want the word "marriage" to no longer refer to the union of man and woman. Reality must bend to our desires.

Note the deep hypocrisy, for a liberal would never say this of laws he supports, such as the "right" to abortion, or the new constitutional "right to healthcare" discovered by Pelosi, Reid, and Obama. Likewise, don't even think about tampering with Social Security, for that is a sacred right of man!

This whole tyrannical enterprise is upside down, for the left has to undermine our legal foundation in order to compel us to build their beautiful penthouse on top. Through this sinister pettifoggery, our constitutional rights are transformed into unconstitutional obligations. Forever.

In real life, we cannot rely upon either the state or our fellow citizens to do right by us. Or, we can rely on them to the extent that they are bound by the rule of law. But the local rule of law is of no abiding value unless it is rooted in the nonlocal MetaLaw. Not for nothing does our Supreme Court building have a marble frieze of Moses the Lawgiver.

The Law behind the law is misleadingly referred to as "natural," but I would prefer to call it either the MetaLaw or perhaps the Cosmic Law, i.e., those laws that are authorized and handed down by our Creator.

For only if there is a Creator can there be any universally applicable law. Otherwise we are ruled by custom, opinion and convenience, which in the end devolves to power, not truth.

Truth subordinated to power ends in Crucifixion. Conversely, power subordinated to Truth is Resurrection.

So here is my desire: let us rededicate ourselves to the unfinished work for which our vertically living predecessors fought and died herebelow. Let us never, ever allow their selfless defense of our noble ideals to have been in vain. For if we permit this to happen, then government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall have perished from this bitter earth.

97 comments:

dloye said...

Powerful ending. (oh, other than the link which seems to go nowhere) Bill Whittle did a great short vid of the creating something from nothing of our markets. How oh how do you educate those who would learn where truth lies, and what is the proper subordination. Our exceptionalism teeters on the brink, and so few seem to notice or care. Prayer is all well and good, but your "voice in the wilderness" is much more effective in the herebelow with voters.

Gagdad Bob said...

Which link? I don't see one.

dloye said...

video now shows up.

mushroom said...

For one thing, people do not value what is given to them, with the result that what they are given diminishes in value.

It's in the Bible. People got sick of manna.


The latter may be stupid -- eg. omnipotent adultolescents who don't believe they'll ever get sick -- but why is this Obama's problem, much less mine?


All too true. It's been made our problem by the statists who decided to provide Medicaid as a fix for the uninsured. Because a bad system is funded with taxpayer money, fixing it become a matter of "public interest". They can now tell us we have to wear helmets and seatbelts and buy messiah-brand adult diapers.

Oh, yeah, and now they have to eliminate the "free" market entirely because it's working since they broke it.



The end result of leftist polices is the institutionalization of their desires, in a one way flow between citizens and statists.

In the modern state there now exist only two parties: citizens and bureaucracy -- DC

mushroom said...

I'm glad blogger's back, but it looks like yesterday is gone.

Gagdad Bob said...

maybe it's somewhere in the cacher's mitt...

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"Truth subordinated to power ends in Crucifixion. Conversely, power subordinated to Truth is Resurrection."

Voice in the bewilderness indeed!
A modern day B'ob the baptist. :^)

mushroom said...

Should read "NOT working since they broke it".

But maybe it is working the way the bureaucrats intended.

I used to read Gogol and be amused at the byzantine and pointless nature of Russian bureaus.

At this point, life imitates Kafka

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"Obama's ruling desire -- and the desire of the left in general -- is to see his political preferences enacted into law and backed by the force of the state."

And, needless to say, perpetuated until their fauxtopia is realized.
Which is anti-paradise despite what their closed circuit eyes tell them.

Also, the left needs to grow to survive and what better way than to indenture tens of millions of illegals (who are used to bureaucratic corruption and servitude to the State) and young adults stuck in perpetual adolescence?
Not to mention the rest who will be indentured by crushing debt.

Simply force everyone to be dependent on the State.

And eventually, most likely by Czar fiat, confiscate guns and finally kill what's left of that pesky golden goose.

Make no mistake, the statists want us to be in debt even if most of them don't realize it.

'Cause their mean always justifies our end.

Of course we aim to misbehave. :^)

Fat Feddy Freeks said...

We, the untelling, led by the clown of unknowing are passing the impassable for the despiteful. We have been pissing down your back for so long that we even think it's raining.

Van Harvey said...

♫ ♪Yesterday's gone? Yesterday's gone!
Don't stop, thinking about tomorrow....♪ ♫

Going to find milk to spill and cry over. Back later.

William said...

"The problem is that the left uses democracy in order to put profoundly undemocratic policies into place "

Yea? Consider where we stand as a nation on abortion, but that won't stop the fetus fetishist anti-women GOP from trying to force their theocratic based ideology into our laws... would it now?

The game plan is the same. The Racists and Regressives, once Dixiecrat, now GOP, have always used communist, socialist, terrorist or other vile name calling to portray the progressives as anti-American. Back in the days of the civil rights fights, they tried to tie Dr. Martin Luther King to communists.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

We don't hafta portray you as anti-American, William, you doi a stellar job of that yourselves.

Very telling that you equate our love of life n' babies as a "fetus fetish."
Very pro "choice." Choice meaning death in this case.
Yeah, very "american" of you.

BTW, you might wanna wipe off that spittle on yer computer screen.

Cousin Dupree said...

I wonder why MLK hated women so much, since he was staunchly opposed to abortion? Maybe because he knew that the most dangerous place in the world for a black person is inside their mother's womb.

For the left, wanting fewer black babies aborted = racism.

Skully said...

Neocoms are always trying to connect dots that don't connect.

Cousin Dupree said...

AKA the paranoid style.

Cousin Dupree said...

Taranto has had some good stuff lately on why the false imputation of racism is so critical to the leftist's self-image. Beats thinking, I guess.

FBAye Profiler said...

Never play connect-the-dots with a paranoid loonytic pscho...I mean leftist.

Anonymous said...

"Obama's ruling desire -- and the desire of the left in general -- is to see his political preferences enacted into law and backed by the force of the state."

That's horrible. To think that a politician would want to get his preferences enacted into law and backed by the state! What is the world coming to> Back in the old days politicians were pure, ethereal, disembodied spirits with no preferences of their own, certainly not ones they wanted to have backed by the state.

Gagdad Bob said...

Actually, we want fewer laws and more freedom. Other than that, good point!

Van Harvey said...

wilian said "...other vile name calling to portray the progressives as anti-American"

To be American, is to hold those ideas which have drawn people from around the world to our shores for centuries, such as 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness', the concepts of which are derived from ideas of natural law and rooted in property rights.

Blogger's still anti-linking, so I won't, but try Adams 'Defence of the Constitutions Vol. III cont’d, Davila, Essays on the Constitution' at 'Online Library of Liberty',

"The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thou shalt not covet," and "Thou shalt not steal," were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free."

He goes into a detailed examination of history to support that, you ought to have a look - or just excuse your chosen ignorance with a snarky comeback.

To presume that you can hold any idea you want, and not have some of them construed as anti-American (which would include any idea or ideology that is fundamentally opposed to property rights IOW any variant of leftism), is to presume the meaning of being an American to be based in something other than ideas. Unfortunately for you, that leaves only blood and geography to base your identity upon, aka race and nationhood, which of course again self-defines the leftist as being fundamentally racist and nationalistic in their views.

Surprise.

Skorpion said...

OT, kinda:

Superb takedown of the latest *magnum opiate* from Scientistic Flatland.

Anonymous said...

I love driving my fast car back here to my awesome house, giving my hot wife a kiss, and getting on the computer to find that a doofus like "Van" is claiming that people who vote Democrat are "fundamentally opposed to property rights".

Yeah, okay guy.

And, as we learned from Bob earlier this week, we "leftists" don't want to work either! Go ahead and pleasure yourself to thoughts of me getting everything I own from welfare; you're welcome.

flunky said...

Did you know that the first major public works project was the Union Canal, chartered by the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1791? George Washington himself turned the first shovel full of earth. By its completion in 1828, the canal had 93 locks, elaborate pumping systems, and an 800 foot long tunnel considered an engineering marvel at the time.

The canal allowed for the dramatic expansion of anthracite, lumber, and many other industries aiding in the growth of Philadelphia and the other coastal cities.

flunky said...

Good God I’ve just had an awful ephiphany.

Global warming wasn’t caused by the scientists. It was caused by the doogooding public works builders. Freeways, power plants, airports... in exchange for a few luxuries we now take for granted, the statists are causing our doom.

And now they want us to tax us even more to fix what they’ve already taxed us for!

John Lien said...

'Splain me this Bob. Given the economic system you have laid out these past few posts, how does all this free stuff we get on the internet fit into the system? I get free stuff from you daily and I value it greatly. We have access to free software, instructions, entertainment. This used to cost us. As a recipient, I feel I have an obligation to produce something someday and give it away on the web although it may never happen. What kind of payment are these producers getting? Satisfaction of giving something to better the world? A bit of an ego boost when they are thanked and praised? (not that there is anything wrong with that, in moderation) I wonder if this situation is an anomolous blip in the free market system and we will someday have to pay for all this free stuff (Oh man, that would suck.) FWIW, In addition to wanting to read your book, I bought your book because I wanted to pay you something for your efforts.

To Anon with the hot wife and fast car. Are you familiar with statistical distributions? We are discussing the behavior of the Left and Right "on average" (but you must have known that and just wanted to tweak us). What makes you lean left other than pulling Gs on a right turn in your fast car?

Anonymous said...

aka; the nude fat beeotch sitting in front of her computer in her efficiency aprtment.

Van Harvey said...

aninnymouse brayed “...iving my fast car back here to my awesome house, giving my hot wi...”

You mistake possessions and glittery baubles for property. You’re not alone. Most primitives do.

Personally I’d eagerly trade whatever heaping pile of wampum you might possess, for the ownership of a shack I knew to be rightfully mine.

Without batting an eye.

A wise man knows what his values are and what is required to retain them... and to give you one more hint you’ll never comprehend, neither the shack, nor all the glittering gold of all the barbarian kings would I trade for what I value, and no matter how much sparkly stuff you might possess, you’ll never be as rich as I am.

Van Harvey said...

flunky and lean,
No time but time for bed, but to leave you with a thought for the morning, only an idiot, a libertarian or a troll, thinks government isn't needed, or that value and trade require a financial transaction.

Morons.

Van Harvey said...

John Lein... Sorry if I included you too quickly with the funky flunky... Sleep typing....

stanky said...

I lean the same way Van does. I would happily trade my fast wife and golden wampum for a shack that excludes morans so I can feel morally superior to the statists.

I’m afraid of the people who believe that power is the only real possession. But they can’t take away my health can they?

JP said...

One of the problems in healthcare is that you get billed $100,000 for ER care if there is surgery.

You didn't cosent to be billed $100,000 and lose ever piece of cash that you saved over the years.

Where's the contract? Where's the offer and acceptacne? There is none. You just get billed and lose your savings.

This actually came up in the recent 4th Circuit argumet a little while ago.

Health care insurance doens't even make economic sense beyond the catastrophic problems. What are you insuring? Everyone is going to get sick and eventually die. The chances of death are 100%

JP said...

JL says:

"'Splain me this Bob. Given the economic system you have laid out these past few posts, how does all this free stuff we get on the internet fit into the system? I get free stuff from you daily and I value it greatly. We have access to free software, instructions, entertainment. This used to cost us."

People are also required to perform their creative purpose in order to ascend.

So, it's an outlet for creative purpose.

The Internet is people.

It's also dependent on cheap energy.

In addition, to the extent that the Internet is a giant shopping mall, you can view it as a giant shopping mall emerging out of the ground.

You're free to window shop at the mall without paying. You can wander around all day.

JP said...

It would be good if we had a positive vision for goverment that works better in the 21st century.

And by positive, I mean "this is what it does and does well and this is where it needs to leave well enough alone."

Libertarianism is just delusional and the GOP has no actual plan except for cutting spending and taxes. That's nice, but it's not a plan.

Gagdad Bob said...

John:

Good questions. I don't have a ready answer, because the coffee hasn't yet kicked in, but off hand, I would say that the spiritual economy is just like the material economy, only inverted.

In other words, there is a constant flow of goods and services, except that they are "free" (and priceless) on the one hand (e.g. grace), but on the other hand only cost one "everything" (i.e., ego -- which is also an existential "nothing").

And just as a computer is of no value to a primitive, my writing is of no value to the troll, the anti-Bob, the Darwinian DNA host, the sleepwalking idiobot. Pearls, swine, etc.

Now, what do I get out of this verticalisthenic exercise? Well, for starters, I get myself. No less than my most enthusiastic reader, I just can't wait to get up in the morning and find out what Bob thinks! Otherwise I would never know. It's not as if I "know something" and then decide to propagate it. Not at all. I only find out about it as it is being written.

But that's not all I get out of it. There is also a primordial joy involved in genuine soul-to-soul contact. Indeed, I think that this is precisely what we're all looking for in life, in one way or another. So when I produce something from the inner reaches of my Bobspace, and it actually touches someone else in a deep way, well... Really, the only analogy is sex, but transposed to a different key.

I am reminded of Dennis Prager, who has had such a huge impact on my life. Every birthday he asks readers to call in and tell him how his program has changed them. It's extremely moving -- both for him and for the listener -- to hear of the positive influence he's had in creating good people that might not otherwise have existed. It's more than a little like being a father, only on the spiritual plane.

Clearly, he doesn't do this for narcissistic reasons, as if he needs an ego boost. I too love to hear from readers how my writing has affected them for the better. It's like the confirmation that it's all real, true, and efficacious -- not me, but Truth. It's like I could never repay Prager -- and other nonlocal mentors without whom I would not be myself -- except by doing the same thing in my own way.

I'm sure I could think of other reasons, but perhaps this will spark a discussion....

stanky said...

Eating right, limiting vices, and staying fit are key. But since I don’t have any genetic defects that I’m aware of ninny ninny boo boo to you who do. Well, that's what I'd say if Jesus wasn't keeping me safe. Now, I'm told that Jesus wanted people to do good to others. Yet holding people in power to that higher standard leads to Godless Communism, so I dunno.

Speaking of which... Rome’s power was built on its roads. Maybe some aqueducts, breads and circuses, catapults, cool uniforms... But they sure did dominate Grecian ass, didn’t they? But then those Goddamned Goths took em down with not much more than bad attitude and black lipstick. Now, somewhere there in history is gonna be a lesson. I sure as hell don’t know what it is. Maybe Van can explain?

Gagdad Bob said...

Speaking of change, being changed, and gratitude. The story is always the same and different.

Gagdad Bob said...

I also think of the trolls, who somehow need me, even while I have no need of them. As such, I am valuable to them, if only as a receptacle for toxic projections. But from my end of the exchange, the only response can be, "I can see that you're pretty fired up about something, but I wasn't talking to you, so you can let it go."

JP said...

I find it particularly difficult to differentiate between natural law and custom. in the sense, that I want to come up with the correction *moral* action for every situaion in which moralitiy is implicated.

I also have a problem differentiating between the micro human transactions (at the human level) and macro human trancactions (at the state/institution level). Part of it is that I want to bring the macro transaction down to the micro level, which of course doesn't work because individual people don't think like institutions.

I have noticed that most people seem to care about what they are doing on a particular day (such as who they are meeting with and what they are going to have for dinner) whereas I want to spend all my time thinking about macro problems, mostly because they are much more interesting that anything that I would ever experience on a day to day basis.

Anonymous said...

I also think of the trolls, who somehow need me, even while I have no need of them.

Really? Where would you be without "the left" as a boogeyman, a repository of all the qualities that you don't like? You wouldn't be able to get through a single one of these posts.

"I can see that you're pretty fired up about something, but I wasn't talking to you, so you can let it go."

You are talking about us (well, sort of -- it's actually some kind of projection of your fevered brain that doesn't have much to do with reality). Don't you think that gives us a reason to be here and respond? If I was to start a blog that featured daily ravings about the evils of rightwing religious psychologists, don't you think you might take an interest?

Gagdad Bob said...

Only one way to find out.

Brazentide said...

"I can see that you're pretty fired up about something, but I wasn't talking to you, so you can let it go."

Exactly. Why all the fuss?

Who is B'ob that Trolls should be mindful of him?

Gagdad Bob said...

Re what we get out of this, I just read a passage from Pope Benedict:

"We have received the faith to give it to others.... The only thing which remains forever is the human soul, the human person created by God for eternity. The fruit which remains then is that which we have sowed in human souls: love, knowledge, a gesture capable of touching the heart, words which open the soul to joy in the Lord.... Only in this way will the earth be changed from a valley of tears to a Garden of God."

And a couple of aphorisms of Don Colacho:

"There exists no truth in the humanities that does not need to be rediscovered each week."

and

"Intelligence is enabled to discover new truths by rediscovering old truths."

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

That was a superb reply, Bob.

Seems to me that the more free the market is the more it encourages charity.

Certainly, not everyone will give, or give as much but statistics show Americans are very giving.

But the more government grows and intereferes with the free market the more I would expect to see charity decline, at least on average.

There's plenty of democrats for instance that are just itching to put a tax on the internet.

Only those without good character and without respect for life, liberty and property would seek to tear down what the US was founded upon.

Yes, I know there are exceptions, such as apathetic folks or people who don't care about politics not to mention those who are simply too damn busy (and make no mistake, the nanny state will take more and more of our slack if they can get away with it).

But really, ain't apathy a sign that there is a decline in not only good education, but good morals and good character?
Also, a lack of discipline and guidance (both external and internal).

It seems an awful lot of folks are misled, by the media, statist indoctrinators, hollywood and entertainment, etc., that is mostly regressive, partly, no doubt due to a bad education and a severe vitamin Truth deficiency, but I can say from experience it's also due to a desire to take the easy way out or difficulty accepting that many politicians and their minions are no better than the mafia and often much worse in the damage they cause.

We probably all have relatives that are mostly conservative (believe in the ist, 2nd ammendments, property rights, liberty, etc., but who still vote for democrats and when was the last time you saw a conservative democrat politician? Zell Miller?

And no matter what you tell these relatives or friends they poo poo the truth as hyperbole or mere partisanship.
Surely there can't be this conspiracy to alter America into a socialcommie hell.
Why would the media or politicians or hollywood stars ever wanna do that?

Because they believe that hell is actually paradise.

These same relatives complain about inflation, unemployment, falling property values, more red tape, etc., but they vote for the very dirty rotten scoundrels that are the cause of it!

I used to be politically apathetic myself, but like that most excellent movie They Live I woke up and saw the alien vampires who are sucking our will to live free or die hard.

With the help of those special sunglasses (or Songlasses to be more precise, ie grace and the indwelling of His Spirit, I was able to see begin to see through the illusion and see the raw truth.

Breitbart is right, the culture war is just as vital as the political war, and I might add this doesn't preclude spiritual warfare.

I would say it's all one war between Good n' evil but with many fronts.

Bob and One Cosmos, and all my brothers under the pelt (and sisters) were and are a big part of my quest for truth, justice and the American way.

And they ain't shy about usin' a cluebat on me if I need one and that is comforting to me. :^)

Anonymous said...

"Van" doesn't even try to be subtle about it when he moves the goalposts.

Anonymous said...

If I were to start a blog that featured daily ravings about the evils of Bob's commenters, I'll bet Bob would be transfixed.

Anonymous said...

It's an interesting contradiction. Bob claims to be speaking capital-T Truth, but when challenged on falsehoods, he retreats to a positively postmodern position that he's only speaking a specialized language to a private audience and nobody else should care. Well, which is it? Cosmic, Absolute, universal, or just a private joke for a little club of sniggerers?

Van Harvey said...

I was going to fill up the comment box, but Gagdad's reply & Ben's "Seems to me that the more free the market is the more it encourages charity." make it unnecessary.

BTW, follow through on Gagdad's link, through to the Weekly Standard article on Mamet, it's a winner.

"His fame was enough to fill the stalls of Memorial Hall at Stanford University when he came to give a talk one evening a couple of years ago. About half the audience were students. The rest were aging faculty out on a cheap date with their wives or husbands. You could identify the male profs by the wispy beards and sandals-’n’-socks footwear. The wives were in wraparound skirts and had hair shorter than their husbands’.

Mamet had been brought to campus by Hillel, and the subject of his talk was “Art, Politics, Judaism, and the Mind of David Mamet.” There wasn’t much talk of Judaism, however, at least not explicitly. He arrived late and took the stage looking vaguely lost. He withdrew from his jacket a sheaf of papers that quickly became disarranged. He lost his place often. He stumbled over his sentences. But the unease that began to ripple through the audience had less to do with the speaker’s delivery than with his speech’s content. Mamet was delivering a frontal assault on American higher education, the provider of the livelihood of nearly everyone in his audience.

Higher ed, he said, was an elaborate scheme to deprive young people of their freedom of thought. He compared four years of college to a lab experiment in which a rat is trained to pull a lever for a pellet of food. A student recites some bit of received and unexamined wisdom—“Thomas Jefferson: slave owner, adulterer, pull the lever”—and is rewarded with his pellet: a grade, a degree, and ultimately a lifelong membership in a tribe of people educated to see the world in the same way.

“If we identify every interaction as having a victim and an oppressor, and we get a pellet when we find the victims, we’re training ourselves not to see cause and effect,” he said. Wasn’t there, he went on, a “much more interesting ... view of the world in which not everything can be reduced to victim and oppressor?”

This led to a full-throated defense of capitalism, a blast at high taxes and the redistribution of wealth, a denunciation of affirmative action, prolonged hymns to the greatness and wonder of the United States, and accusations of hypocrisy toward students and faculty who reviled business and capital even as they fed off the capital that the hard work and ingenuity of businessmen had made possible. The implicit conclusion was that the students in the audience should stop being lab rats and drop out at once, and the faculty should be ashamed of themselves for participating in a swindle—a “shuck,” as Mamet called it.
"

Van Harvey said...

aninnymouse said ""Van" doesn't even try to be subtle about it when he moves the goalposts."

Nope. I just pointed out that this is a Football field you're playing on, and that crap assed game 'soccer' won't be tolerated here; we've cut down your nets and are simply enjoying stomping your ass into the grass.

Leftists are fundamentally racists and nationalists, in the crudest most tribal sense, because like all ignoble savages, they have no comprehension of Truth as being higher than seemingly disintegrated facts... but being less than beasts, they don't have the excuse of simple ignorance, their stupidity is built upon a willful denial of all that is good, beautiful and true.

As evidenced again by none of 'you' even attempting to refute what we've said. Insult, misdirection and other Non Sequitur's are your only excuse for trying to excuse your desire to ignore reality and impose your fantasies upon it.

It's stupid, disgusting and ugly and is most definitely is not allowed here.

But have a nice day.

Anonymous said...

Hypocrite "Van" is hypocritical. Now I'm a racist!

Van Harvey said...

Dear aninnymouse, no need for the quotes, Van is my real name. Last name Harvey, if you're going to continue with them.

Nothing like accusations of hypocrisy from an anonymous ninnymouse to experience guffaws of natures best medicine.

Thanks.

Van Harvey said...

Btw, the only way a leftist can avoid being a racist, is through inconsistently adhering to their beliefs.

So... if you claim you are not a racist, you can only do so by proclaiming you are a hypocrite.

Gotta love good comedy.

Atlantis Purple Crystal Hoard said...

The leftist functions as a way for us to feel superiour. Without them any claim to high ground would be lost.

If they should get God and level the playing field it would be a calamity.

One might think leftism and God would be mutually exclusive but that may not always be the case.

The leftist has a certain plasticity in his belief system that leads to flakiness, quacks, and gullibility, but a certain percentage of the time he'll hit upon certain things that are in the bailliwick of God.

Shamanism, "The Secret", TM, hypnotism, past-life regression, the Akasha, and other things like this represent a sort of geek-like hacking into God's mainframe.

A certain percentage of the time the leftist is the one out ahead of the Raccoon, farther up the vertical axis. Do you want this state of affairs to exist?

God's allowing it and I'm saying the furry horde better get on board or you'll be made obsolete.

The raccoons need a functioning mystic branch in order to keep up with the current edge of evolution.

Regular prayer, morality, and intellectual pursuit are not gonna do 'er. You need transcendence to make your bones. Otherwise you lose.

Think it over.

Anonymous said...

"Van", please explain in a paragraph exactly how "leftists" are "fundamentally opposed to property rights". No changing the subject, no being vague, no acting condescending, no calling me a racist. Just very clearly explain your assertion.

Thanks in advance!

stanky said...

I have noticed that most people seem to care about what they are doing on a particular day (such as who they are meeting with and what they are going to have for dinner) whereas I want to spend all my time thinking about macro problems, mostly because they are much more interesting that anything that I would ever experience on a day to day basis.

Congratulations, you are an INTJ! IMO, a type this world needs more respect for but tends to reward less. Hint: your mind is geared more for practicalizing theory than the acquisition of power and hot chicks.

stanky said...

Because like all ignoble savages, they have no comprehension of Truth as being higher than seemingly disintegrated facts... but being less than beasts, they don't have the excuse of simple ignorance, their stupidity is built upon a willful denial of all that is good, beautiful and true.

Wow. I’m gonna remember that one. A bit Hitlerian, but the gang at Toastmasters are gonna flip.

stanky said...

Speaking of good, beautiful and true... You into Jesus or still searching?

flunky said...

As far as racism goes, I’ve always considered Affirmative Action to have been a consolation prize to silence minority leaders about all the good ole boy cronyism amongst (the then) white elites. The real issue was leveling the political playing field which had been unbalanced by years of common vernacular such as “Iron Chink” and realities such as half the Founders owning slaves.

As it is today, AA likely causes more problems and solutions than it used to. The Murphy’s Law regarding complex issue solutions thing always applies. My take is that if Christian values had not been forced onto leadership at the time, we’d still be having many racial issues.

Van Harvey said...

Anonymous said "Van", please explain in a paragraph exactly how "leftists" are "fundamentally opposed to property rights".

In a paragraph. Me. You’re new around here aren’t you? Somewhere Lance is LHAO at the thought of me confining my longwindedness to an answer on property rights to one paragraph.

It’s difficult to take your question as anything other than a troll drive by... but... Lucy, Charlie Brown... here I go again.

Probably the better reply, would be how can you possibly, with a straight face fronting a mind at least partially informed, believe that leftism isn’t entirely opposed to property rights? Name me a foundational leftist thinker who wasn’t explicitly opposed to property rights? Rousseau considered property rights to be the fundamental error of civilization. Jeremy Bentham considered property rights, and indeed all natural rights, to be ‘nonsense on stilts’, Marx summed his entire position in chp 2 of his Communist Manifesto: ""In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. ", I could go on and on, but you get the point... hopefully.

I’d supply the links, but I’m tired of having to repost things... google this site or mine (Blogodidact) for “Van” and “Property Rights” and you’ll find more explanations than you’d ever care to see from me. But the nugget is, to claim that the state can do with what is not its property, as if it were, is a fundamental negation of property rights, it is the negation of all rights, and the declaration of replacing the Rule of Law, with the Whims of powerful men.

Here’s a quote from Locke that might lead you down the right track (you can find it, and complete original sources, at the “Online Library of Liberty”)

"The law, that was to govern Adam, was the same that was to govern all his posterity, the law of reason. But his offspring having another way of entrance into the world, different from him, by a natural birth, that produced them ignorant and without the use of reason, they were not presently under that law; for no body can be under a law, which is not promulgated to him; and this law being promulgated or made known by reason only, he that is not come to the use of his reason, cannot be said to be under this law; and Adam’s children, being not presently as soon as born under this law of reason, were not presently free: for law, in its true notion, is not so much the limitation as the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper interest, and prescribes no farther than is for the general good of those under that law: could they be happier without it, the law, as an useless thing, would of itself vanish; and that ill deserves the name of confinement which hedges us in only from bogs and precipices. So that, however it may be mistaken, the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom: for in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no freedom: for liberty is, to be free from restraint and violence from others; which cannot be, where there is no law: but freedom is not, as we are told, a liberty for every man to do what he lists: (for who could be free, when every other man’s humour might domineer over him?) but a liberty to dispose, and order as he lists, his person, actions, possessions, and his whole property, within the allowance of those laws under which he is, and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own."

flunky said...

Van Harvey? Whenever somebody says “Van Halen”, does your eye twitch a little?

flunky said...

But seriously, if property rights are so important, wouldn’t the maintenance of property rights for at least some, be more important than allowing property monopolies for a few?

Anonymous said...

You see, if you guys get to claim victory when someone brings up Hitler, we deserve the same kind of thing for Marx et al. That I vote Democrat does not mean I endorse the Communist Manifesto, and the idea that Barack Obama is a socialist is trite and absurd. Capitalism has had a social element since the days of Adam Smith.

Do you believe Barack Obama (or Nancy Pelosi, or fill in whatever name you like) wants to take your house away?

Van Harvey said...

Anonymous said "You see, if you guys get to claim victory when someone brings up Hitler, we deserve the same kind of thing for Marx et al. "

That's called changing the subject.

"That I vote Democrat does not mean I endorse the Communist Manifesto"

That's called irrelevant.

" and the idea that Barack Obama is a socialist is trite and absurd."

That's called beside the point.

"Capitalism has had a social element since the days of Adam Smith."

Sigh. Smith, to the shock and horror of most who claim to be proponents of the free market, made many, many, positions which were anti-thetical to the free market, adn to property rights. It might interest those who rely upon Smith as a magic talisman in all economic discussions, to keep in mind that he was the one who advised Lord North to cure Englands financial woes by taxing the American colonies. That worked out well for them, didn't it? IOW, Smith isn't my go-to guy on policy issues. I do give Smith a pass though, as you must give to any pioneer - it's enough that he either discovered or pointed the way, for property identifying the free market. That, and the fact that his best friend was David Hume... that he managed to make any coherent statement at all, is a phenomenom all it's own.

BTW, the original term was 'Free Market'. Marx didn't orginate the word 'capitalism', but he seized on it as a way of renaming and attacking that which he hated.

If you want useful interpretation of economics, you're better off with Jean Baptiste Say ('Law of Markets' or 'Say's Law') and Frédéric Bastiat. Both also available at the same site ref'd above.

"Do you believe Barack Obama (or Nancy Pelosi, or fill in whatever name you like) wants to take your house away?"

What does it matter what their intentions were? I personally presume that they are operating under the very best of intentions... problem is that Hell is still the destination most often arrived at when following the path of good intentions... whether they deliver us there with good or bad intent, matters very little.

Does it really matter whether obamao (tweak) personally comes for my house, or that because of his actions, the economy is destroyed and my house is lost as a result (and btw, for all the slinging of 'fascist' at George W. Bush, the one fascist thing he did do, enabling Paulson to force banks to 'sell' their shares to the Govt, and more, not a single peep was heard from the left against him)?

The real fundamental question is, does your philosophy respect, or eliminate, the sanctity of property rights? I rarely bother with the socialist, communist, marxist labels, because at root they are all fundamentally the same in their opposition to property rights, and differ in little more than how they stylize those beliefs. How they sell their poison, or whether it kills you in the next minute, next month, year or decade matters little, the charge will still be Murder.

William said...

The culture of life.

Anonymous said...

Does it really matter whether obamao (tweak) personally comes for my house, or that because of his actions, the economy is destroyed and my house is lost as a result

Well, yes. You can have the opinion that Obama will destroy the economy, but that's a whole lot different than him being "fundamentally opposed to property rights". And if you do indeed believe he acts with good intentions, it's hard to believe he'd want you to lose your house.

The real fundamental question is, does your philosophy respect, or eliminate, the sanctity of property rights? I rarely bother with the socialist, communist, marxist labels, because at root they are all fundamentally the same in their opposition to property rights, and differ in little more than how they stylize those beliefs. How they sell their poison, or whether it kills you in the next minute, next month, year or decade matters little, the charge will still be Murder.

Perhaps Karl Marx wouldn't want me to own a home, but you have yet to make the case that any current, relevant, American "leftist" takes any issue with it. If we were so fundamentally opposed, it seems like that would be easy for you to do. We could easily discuss liberals' real beliefs without needing to talk about Karl Marx.

johnsal said...

Do leftists "want to take your house away." You betcha. Kelo vs the City of New London. Who were the five Justices who voted in favor an expanded definition of eminent domain? What political ideology do they hold?

And, in case anyone is unaware, here is a quote from the Wikipedia entry on the subject. "In September 2009, the land where Susette Kelo's home had once stood was an empty lot, and the promised 3,169 new jobs and $1.2 million a year in tax revenues had not materialized. The land was never deeded back to the original homeowners, most of whom have left New London for nearby communities.

As Roseanne Roseannadanna once said, "...Never mind."

But, to answer your rhetorical question directly. You betcha... if it will reward a voting constituency or bring in campaign cash.

Van Harvey said...

swillian linked to "Bill Maher: If you rejoice in revenge, torture and war …you’re not a Christian"

If you look to bill maher for any opinion or justification of Christianity... then, well, it should go without saying, but seeing as though you're a dumb as a post-modernist, it does need to be said "you don't know what you're talking about to begin with".

flunky said...

And here I’ve been thinking the economy was almost destroyed by encouraging “property rights” to where things become overheated and/or abused by a powerful few. It’s been really been Obamao (as bad as Mao because he wants to manage the behavior of the few) all along?

Anonymous said...

Props to "johnsal" for being good enough to provide an example. Eminent domain is covered in that noted communist doctrine, the United States Constitution. Yes, right and left have disagreed on some specific applications.

So that's what "fundamentally opposed to property rights" really means, huh? Van?

Van Harvey said...

Anonymous said "If we were so fundamentally opposed, it seems like that would be easy for you to do. We could easily discuss liberals' real beliefs without needing to talk about Karl Marx."

You can, but by pretending you can discuss policies without understanding and taking into account the principles they rely upon, or negate, you will just be passing wind.

The problem is, that people like you, and that includes a majority in the republican party too btw, think you can take particular actions, without endorsing other actions, and that is entirely wrong - a result of a long line of leftist thinking (and implicit in nearly every college course you can take), which culminated in pragmatism.

I've got my middle son rushing around readying for Senior prom, my oldest is back in town for a few days before deploying to the Arab Emirates for 6 mo's, so please excuse me if you don't get my full attention this weekend.

But if you're interested in the why's behind what I say, as I said, there are a gazillion comments here and on my site where I've made the case, and you can easily google them up.

Here's one post, assuming it survives blogger, looks like swillian's did, so here it goes, responding to another like you who thought you can just do this and that, no biggee

You can't.
(annoying anti-longwinded blogger break)

Van Harvey said...

(cont)

Or this one

"The first, "Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge Company" was argued as a case which highlighted the importance of Property Rights by the great lawyer Daniel Webster - which he lost. After the decision against his case, he and other prominent lawyers were heard to say that 'That's the death of property rights', or as Chancellor Kent said in The New York Review, that

"A gathering gloom is cast over the future. We seem to have sunk suddenly below the horizon, to have lost the light of the sun."
I'll give you a hint - they were not concerned about their wallets. These were men who believed that property rights formed the very foundation of a republican government and in the view of Natural Law, were the political anchors of all of our individual rights.

If you disagree with that, then you likely agree with the view that our rights have an evolving nature, and as the needs of men change over time, so then we must adjust what are seen as rights, so that 'The Law' can uphold the needs of the 'greater good'. Such was the meaning of the decision against Webster's case, as delivered by Justice Taney when he said,


"While the rights of private property are sacredly guarded, we must not forget that the community also have rights, and that the happiness and wellbeing of every citizen depends on their faithful preservation."

, upholding the defense of the 'greater good' over the mere rights of individuals.

The other case I'd direct your attention to, was one that was decided some years later when that same Justice, Roger B. Taney, had become the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and that is the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford, where he made the argument, which men like Webster & Kent knew must come, that individual rights, all individual rights, must be secondary to the interests of the community and that of the state and the greater good - and that in such a view, slavery should be seen as a 'constitutional right' - the 'evolving nature of rights' had evolved to the point of justifying one man owning another.

If you oppose property rights, then you oppose the principle of all individual rights - Daniel Webster knew it, and so did Roger B. Taney.

Do you?
"

If that's not enough for you, click on the 'Greatest Hits" tab on my page, and knock your socks off trying to knock mine off.

P.S. For whoever asked the Van Halen question, no, doesn't bother me a bit, I spent the 80's travelling the left coast playing Van Halen & others and doing my best to get to their position - failed, but loved doing it, always brings a smile. And that 'always' happens quite often.

stanky said...

my writing is of no value to the troll, the anti-Bob, the Darwinian DNA host, the sleepwalking idiobot. Pearls, swine, etc.

Actually, I do appreciate what Bob is trying to do here. As I perceive it: weave common threads between objectivism and Christianity. Selfishness and altruism? A tough project to be sure. Me, I woulda claimed there’s merit/truth to each or both, depending on context and other variables of course, and quit right there. People are just too complex in and of themselves, let alone the human race as a whole.

stanky said...

Now I’m really confused. Is a slave a property right? Seriously, if we reinstituted it in the form of, say indentured servitude for immigrants, we’d out compete China.

I don’t like China cause they’re mostly atheists.

Van Harvey said...

Ah... friggin' blogger... Gagdad, any chance you can rescue the previous comment from the spam filter?

Van Harvey said...

funky stank said "I’ve been thinking"

Now that's funny!

Anonymous said...

The death of property rights! And yet, a few hundred years later, anyone with the money can own their own home. Who knew?

ge said...

Bob I imagine Mamet has zip on you as an articulator alligator of politiconversion...it wouldnt astonish if he were a covert 'coon

Van Harvey said...

aninnymouse said "The death of property rights! And yet, a few hundred years later, anyone with the money can own their own home. Who knew?"

Lucy pulls the football... Charlie lands on his back again. Surprise.

If what you possess can be taken without your consent, then the property you possess is in your possession only because someone more powerful than you hasn’t decided to take it. It’s your ‘property’ only because it’s still in your possession, not because you have a Right to it.

Which means that you have zero legal defense against any of the wealthy and powerful who might take a cotton to what you possess.

What the emotionally leftist (never really thought about their positions) doesn’t grasp, is that property rights are the only real defense the 'common man’ has against the wealthy and powerful. Once you grant that your possessions and your decisions must yield to whatever is determined to be for ‘the greater good’, you are powerless to those with the wealth and influence to sway what is considered to be ‘the greater good’. And if you really think that any leftist policy is hurting the proregressively inclined wealthy... you are naïve beyond measure... that’s like thinking that the truly wealthy are hurt in the least by the income tax – they don’t work, they don’t have income, and what might fall under it in one regulation or another, is easily ‘relocated’ with a call to one politically connected lawyer or politician or another.

That ‘greater good’ measure of who gets to retain possession of what, was precisely the view of the south, and Justice Taney used it to justify possessing other human beings, and it could not be made while respecting property rights or natural rights, which they abandoned in favor of the ‘custom’ and ‘needs’ basis of ‘rights’.

That is what Webster and others cried out over, not who can be allowed, normally, to retain possession of what.

It should be plain enough from the bogus claim of ‘states rights’ and the fact that the Constitution makes no mention of states rights (States have powers only, only people have rights), that they, and that view, have nothing to do with individual rights, and are only frustrated in their designs by them, as is still the case with the left today.

Btw, when an issue is clearly vital to the rights and interests of the entire community, that the property or safety of all might be infringed upon by neglecting an issue (draining a malarial swamp which sickens the surrounding community), then it justifies the use of 'eminent domain', which was it’s original understanding(see Blackstone).

Principles are no mere categorical imperatives, such literal interpretations are the fig leaves of fools, idiots and kantians; principles require prudence to be understood and applied. Even Property Rights must yield in some situations where the implications imperil the very existence of property and life, but suffice to say, that using it to take the property of another in order to give it to someone else to build a baseball stadium or anything else, is a violation, even an assault, upon the concept of rights as such.

Anonymous said...

Van inanely babbled: If what you possess can be taken without your consent, then the property you possess is in your possession only because someone more powerful than you hasn’t decided to take it. It’s your ‘property’ only because it’s still in your possession, not because you have a Right to it.

Try not paying your property taxes and see what happens to your inviolable property.

Or try being the Native Americans who previously occupied the piece of land you call your property what they think of your inviolable Right.

Odds are, someone stronger will come around and push you off something you think is yours, or your descendents. You can babble about Right all you want when that day comes. But since the Mexican/Chinese annexation is probably a little way off, maybe you can imagine being unable to work through an accident or something, so being unable to pay your taxes and mortgage, and being thrown off your inalienable Right. That's a bit closer in possibility, unless you happen to be independently wealthy.

The point is, your precious Right was created by violence and will one day be destroyed by violence. That's the way the world works, like it or not.

Anonymous said...

Btw, when an issue is clearly vital to the rights and interests of the entire community, that the property or safety of all might be infringed upon by neglecting an issue (draining a malarial swamp which sickens the surrounding community), then it justifies the use of 'eminent domain', which was it’s original understanding(see Blackstone).

So we both agree the government can sometimes take property from you, we just might disagree on a few particulars.

This is a long, long way from anyone being "fundamentally opposed to property rights".

Van Harvey said...

aninnymouse inanely gabbled "The point is, your precious Right was created by violence and will one day be destroyed by violence. That's the way the world works, like it or not."

Why do I ever bother trying to make a point to a troll? As if they could even see it, let alone discuss it. To the troll, thoughts are disconnected things, meaningless except as tokens of one power or another.

Call in the billy goats.

Cousin Dupree said...

Learning about Christianity from Bill Maher is like learning about sex from Rosie O'Donnell.

Anonymous said...

Why do I ever bother trying to make a point to a troll? As if they could even see it, let alone discuss it.

Well, I made a point and you seem either unwilling or unable to discuss it. Do you see it? Probably, but you may be unable to admit it to yourself. Hence the projection and wussing out.

Anonymous said...

Why do I ever bother trying to make a point to a troll? As if they could even see it, let alone discuss it. To the troll, thoughts are disconnected things, meaningless except as tokens of one power or another.

For the record, the anonymous you're in the "violence" conversation with is a different anonymous than I am (the one who has been discussing eminent domain).

Troll? I'm not sure you understand what trolling is. People who actually disagree with you are not "trolling".

Van Harvey said...

someone said "I'm not sure you understand what trolling is. People who actually disagree with you are not "trolling"."

Here's a tip, if you don't want to be lumped in with the anonymous aninnymouses under the trolls bridge, pick a nic.

Disagreement I enjoy; arguments where a position is explained and its coherence attempted to be demonstrated, and more importantly, how your own position might be mistaken, offering you a chance of improvement if so. Such a thing requires actual thought, demonstrating how the conclusions follow from a premise, which is supported by a principle that can be shown to be true. If you look on the links I gave to my posts, you'll see some extended and interesting disagreements - even if I don't agree with the person I'm arguing with, Lance for instance, I always learn more from them, and value the process.

Dealing with disintegrated statements, arguments from authority, politically correct preening, are of no interest to me. There is no possibility of gain or benefit.

Anonymous said...

Dear other Anonymous: if you haven't figured it out, Van is a nitwit who couldn't produce a coherent thought if you paid him. When confronted with one, he starts gabbling incoherently at great length, as if quantity was a substitute for quality.

John Lien said...

Thanks Bob and fellow Coons for the thoughtful replies. (...digesting...rumble...urp!) Ok, I was lumping two different economies here on the internet. I like this spiritual economy idea with the inverted payment system. One gets the goods for free from Person A. The recipient then, maybe, pays forward to Person B with what he learned from A. Person A dosen't care because it is a work of love. The more the merrier. This can cover the sublime to the mundane (One Cosmos to, I dunno, something mundane). Just sharing what one loves with like-minded folks is payment enough.

flunky said...

couldn't produce a coherent thought if you paid him

Apparently, Van’s a fan of Andrew Breitbart AND George W. Bush.

Maybe BigGovernment + big government = small government?

Van Harvey said...

nihilaninny said "When confronted with one, he starts gabbling incoherently at great length, as if quantity was a substitute for quality."


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Anonymous said...

"I worked for a lot of these guys [8 Presidents]. And this is one of the most courageous calls, decisions that I think I've ever seen a president make. For all of the concerns that I've just been talking about. The uncertainty of the intelligence. The consequences of it going bad. The risk to the lives of the Americans involved. It was a very gutsy call"

-- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Obama's decision to get Bin Laden

Anonymous said...

VERY gutsy, because if the intelligence had been wrong, it would have proved that Obama lied us into the operation.

Anonymous said...

Obama had no other choice. What was he going to do, not let Delta go in and let Bin Laden catch on and slip away? There were CIA watching him for months and hundreds of people knew of the operation.

Anonymous said...

And still it took the Metro-man 16 hours to make it.

Anonymous said...

It was only "gutsy" to the extent that the intelligence could have been wrong. Otherwise it takes no testicular fortitude to order another man's assassination.

And if the intelligence had been wrong, you can be sure that Obama would have said that it was because "torture" doesn't work. It only works when liberals use it.

Anonymous said...

Folks--the presidency is a desk job like thousands of others in the U.S.

It has inflated to mythic proportions, but it does just boil down to basic executive responsibilities.

So Obama did his schtick and no further comment need be made.

He ain't bad, he ain't good, he's just the man wearing the hat on that given day.

Dougman said...

"...like learning about sex from Rosie O'Donnell."

That almost made me puke. Seriously, I could taste it!
:-0

Anonymous said...

"He ain't bad, he ain't good, he's just the man wearing the hat on that given day."

A Cowboy Hat?

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