Saturday, September 27, 2008

Giving A Debate Away

I usually find that I can't stand to listen to politicians talk for more than a few seconds. I'm continuing, usually in vain, to hope they'll make their points quickly so I can change the channel. The current exceptions to this include Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin (so far), with whom I disagree profoundly on many premises. Newt Gingrich is very clever, has a good sense of humor and is consistent within the confines of his flawed principles. Palin is cute, has a very refreshing sincerity and has a delightful "Fargo" accent. We'll see what the Republican handlers do to destroy that!

That (about Palin) might sound a mite demeaning, but I'm just referring to listening to her speak, not the content of what she says. I'm sure I'll have more of substance to say about the content of her speeches very soon.

I watched/listened to the debate yesterday in spite of all that. My comments are very predicatable, in that the debate (using the term very loosely) taught me nothing I didn't already know: With every new Presidential Campaign, our choices get closer and closer together. More and more bland, yet more and more able to affect our lives negatively.

More and more like Mr Thompson of the novel, Atlas Shrugged.

Mr McCain gave the debate away with his very first utterances, as he decried and condemned the greed of bankers, financiers and Wall Street traders and called for prosecutions (persecution?) and punishment, showing that he equates seeking profit with criminality. He partially redeemed himself on a couple of occasions, but never fully washed away the stink of anti-capitalism from his presentation.

Mr Obama, for his part, spoke with more consistency within the confines of his basic premises. Again, they were all wrong, but he came off with a bit more believability than did McCain. Obama was very careful not to let us in on the extent of his planned socialistic programs, but made it very clear that he is for bigger, more restrictive government and that he's a major policy maker in the War on Productivity.

He wants to rob the productive and, after a small rakeoff--say, 50%--give to the non-productive.

McCain is, too, but has a different gang that he wants to bring into the Castle Court, while the rest of us are slaving away on our subsistence farms. Allow me to suggest reading the L Neil Smith novel Pallas, which describes the Greely Utopian Memorial Project in admirable detail, and the Frank Herbert novel Hellstrom's Hive, which admirably (and frighteningly) describes the socialist ideal, to which both of these candidates subscribe, though they won't admit it, and might not even fully realize it.

McCain wants to continue building the ultimate security state, in which everyone is under surveillance all the time, everything that's not mandatory is prohibited and the military is king.

One of the aspects of this debate that stood out even more than its content, was the fact that every time McCain offered a specific criticism of an Obama policy or an item of his meager record, Obama would, right then and there, interrupt in his own, usually disingenuously, defense. He cut into McCain's time repeatedly and unapologetically, and worse, Jim Lehrer, the alleged moderator, let him do it. At one point, Lehrer relented slightly and said he'd have to balance the time--I don't know if he ever did.

I silently felt as if I should give a bit of a cheer, the first of a couple of times as McCain actually interrupted Obama.

In summary, I don't think I actually learned anything new from this debate. They still seem to be what I've thought they were from the beginning: Obama a cloaked Marxist, McCain a largely unpredictable middle-of-the-roader. Both with the intent of increasing government's role interfering with the lives of the "productive class."

Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Col. H,

I cringed slightly when I read your wording, i.e. "Mr. McCain" and "Mr. Obama". Reminds me of the New York Times, and also the way people sometimes refer to vicious criminals in the news as gentlemen. McBama being vicious criminals, I sincerely hope you don't consider them gentlemen.

I wish you could attend the monthly anarcho-libertarian book club meeting Toni and I have been enjoying the past four months. I'm sure you would really enjoy it. Our latest read was "The End of America" by Naomi Wolfe. We strayed off the straight and narrow a-l path for this one, wanting to see what a left-libertarian (yes, there is such a thing) had to say. Her premise is that America has gone very far down the path to fascism, which I can't really argue with. She mostly gets it right.

Re Sarah Palin: I think she is being manipulated by McNasty's neocon handlers into saying a lot of things she doesn't really agree with. If McCain manages to win the election and then assume ambient temperature soon afterwards, we may have a female president who is at least semi-libertarian. She's the best of the four on the duopoly tickets, in my judgment.

All the best,
Kos

Anonymous said...

I didn't watch, you know past my bedtime (grins), but from what I gather I probably would have puked. Is it a democrat AND a republican requirement to be stupid? I swear these guys are as dumb as a rock. Or worse, they think we are dumb amd are playing down to us.

Like Kos the only reason I am in this thing is Sarah Palin. I didn't like the idea that the race was between teo Senators. Osamabama was more right than he realizes. McCain is part of the problem....but then so is Obama.

MathewK said...

By now i hope that most people have made up their minds who they are going to vote for. If the candidates are telling us new things about themselves at this point, something's wrong with their campaign.

Col. Hogan said...

Kos,

It's irony.

There's a pretty good anarcho-capitalist supper club, called the Karl Hess Club, down in Culver City, once a month. It was founded by the late Sam Konkin III and is often attended by writers J Niel Schulman and Brad Linaweaver. I don't get to go as often as I'd like because of the time and location. I go when I can.

IMO, the jury's still out on Palin. Her attitude about guns just about puts my vote in the GOP column, but I don't trust McCain as far as he can raise his arms.

Col. Hogan said...

Steve,

I don't usually watch these things, but I did this time, while writing the entry about Wasilla. I often wonder if these guys become politicians because they ain't good for anything else.

Col. Hogan said...

MK,

This is kind of an unusual election season because it's the first one that started the day after the Congressional election two years ago. It really sucks to be seeing these same faces on tv every day for two years.

Unbelievably, though, there are many political airheads who haven't even decided for whom they're going to vote as they enter the booth. Many more know little about the issues and vote according to all manner of irrelevant reasons, the best of which is who their friends like. It gets worse from there.

Anonymous said...

Col. says:

"Unbelievably, though, there are many political airheads who haven't even decided for whom they're going to vote as they enter the booth."

Really ;-) And this is where the polls are making news rather than reporting it. I went back to the 2004 election polls on RealClearPolitics.com and (I'm just recalling here so estimated..) from Aug. to the week before the election, there were 63 polls that had Kerry ahead and 13 for Bush. One had Kerry ahead by 15points. The last week polls 'closed in' with many on the Bush side (except Fox, oddly). And to those that you mention, Col., I think polls are a factor (unfortunately). I expect the same this time around.

On a side note via Bidinotoo blog, he linked to a good Boston Globe story on the bailout:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/28/franks_fingerprints_are_all_over_the_financial_fiasco/

The 'operative' paragraph here:

"Because while the mortgage crisis convulsing Wall Street has its share of private-sector culprits they weren't the ones who "got us into this mess." Barney Frank's talking points notwithstanding, mortgage lenders didn't wake up one fine day deciding to junk long-held standards of creditworthiness in order to make ill-advised loans to unqualified borrowers. It would be closer to the truth to say they woke up to find the government twisting their arms and demanding that they do so - or else."

And this goes right to the point, imo. Lenders weren't going to cut their own throats making toxic loans, if there weren't some gov't mandate that held the sabre above their heads if they didn't. If no toxic loans are made, then no packaging or leveraging of them by the 'greedy' businessmen on Wall Street. Not only were they acting in their own self interest, they were attempting to pass the old maid to someone else and it ended up as a gov't created ponzi scheme - like we haven't seen _that_ before - farm subsidies, FSLIC, medicare, medicade, welfare and Social Security.

What I suggest is that at least House Republicans and actual conservative Senators start using the usually 'off limits' term 'Socialist'. A few of them have already and it's refreshing to hear it frankly. The bailout is the socializing of one segment of the American economy - financing - which can undercut most other segments. Why 'nationalize' healthcare when you can just socialize it's cost?

They have to change the way people think about this deal - not a 'free market failure' but a giant leap toward socialism.

Kent C

Col. Hogan said...

Kent,

And occasionally, as Rush occasionally points out. people lie, or change their minds after as they enter the booth.

I haven't yet had time to read Bidinotto. Night work again....

The thing that needs to be done first, is to get the money for this "crisis" from those who made it, not from the productive. And that would be the elected politicians and appointed bureaucrats who skimmed the system. It's not hard to figure out who they are.

Anonymous said...

Col.,

"occasionally...people lie, or change their minds after as they enter the booth."

True - the same reason given why Obama won the causus states vs. primary voting ones.

I'd like to see the results of this poll:

If a candidate is leading in the polls, are you:

1. More likely to vote for them
2. Less likely to vote for them
3. likely to think where they are in the polls doesn't matter that much.

If for example there are more of the 'I'm going against the trend' types vs. the 'I'm going for the leader' types, it might cure the cooking of polls to the Left by the MSM pollsters :-) ... unless they do that just to reassure themselves! Which is entirely possible. lol

Col. Hogan said...

Kent,

Yeah, I don't trust these polls at all.

BTW, I'm just noticing that Fox News says that B Hussein has arrived in Washington DC. We're saved!