[Rhodes22-list] Politics - Spread the Wealth?

[Brad Haslett]

Herb,

Here is an analysis from Bill Whittle, a former fighter pilot turned writer.

Read the whole thing carefully folks!  Is this really what you want?

Brad

--------------------

October 27, 2008, 7:00 a.m.

Shame, Cubed
Three separate reasons to be appalled, each more disgusting than the last.

By Bill Whittle

The Drudge Report this morning led off with a link to audio of Barack
Obama on WBEZ, a Chicago public radio station. And this time, Barack
Obama was not eight years old when the bomb went off.

Speaking on a call-in radio show in 2001, you can hear Senator Obama
say things that should profoundly shock any American — or at least
those who have not taken the time to dig deeply enough into this man's
beliefs and affiliations.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Barack Obama, in 2001:

    You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the
civil-rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I
think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously
dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I
would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I
could pay for it, I'd be okay, but the Supreme Court never entered
into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic
issues of political and economic justice in this society.

    And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to
characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break
free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding
Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it's been interpreted, and
Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the
Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [It] says what the
states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to
you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state
government must do on your behalf.

    And that hasn't shifted, and one of the, I think, the tragedies of
the civil-rights movement was because the civil-rights movement became
so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track
of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground
that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through
which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still
suffer from that.

A caller then helpfully asks: "The gentleman made the point that the
Warren Court wasn't terribly radical. My question is (with economic
changes)… my question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative
work, economically, and is that the appropriate place for reparative
economic work to change place?"

Obama replies:

    You know, I'm not optimistic about bringing about major
redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn't
structured that way. [snip] You start getting into all sorts of
separation of powers issues, you know, in terms of the court
monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative
and takes a lot of time. You know, the court is just not very good at
it, and politically, it's just very hard to legitimize opinions from
the court in that regard.

    So I think that, although you can craft theoretical justifications
for it, legally, you know, I think any three of us sitting here could
come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through
the courts."

THE FIRST CIRCLE OF SHAME
There is nothing vague or ambiguous about this. Nothing.

>From the top: "…The Supreme Court never entered into the issues of
redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political
and economic justice in this society. And uh, to that extent, as
radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it
wasn't that radical."

If the second highlighted phrase had been there without the first,
Obama's defenders would have bent over backwards trying to spin the
meaning of "political and economic justice." We all know what
political and economic justice means, because Barack Obama has already
made it crystal clear a second earlier: It means redistribution of
wealth. Not the creation of wealth and certainly not the creation of
opportunity, but simply taking money from the successful and
hard-working and distributing it to those whom the government decides
"deserve" it.

This redistribution of wealth, he states, "essentially is
administrative and takes a lot of time." It is an administrative task.
Not suitable for the courts. More suitable for the chief executive.

Now that's just garden-variety socialism, which apparently is not a
big deal to may voters. So I would appeal to any American who claims
to love the Constitution and to revere the Founding Fathers… I will
not only appeal to you, I will beg you, as one American citizen to
another, to consider this next statement with as much care as you can
possibly bring to bear: "And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think
people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical.
It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed
by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it's been
interpreted, and [the] Warren Court interpreted it in the same way,
that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties:
[it] says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal
government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal
government or the state government must do on your behalf.

The United States of America — five percent of the world's population
— leads the world economically, militarily, scientifically, and
culturally — and by a spectacular margin. Any one of these
achievements, taken alone, would be cause for enormous pride. To
dominate as we do in all four arenas has no historical precedent. That
we have achieved so much in so many areas is due — due entirely — to
the structure of our society as outlined in the Constitution of the
United States.

The entire purpose of the Constitution was to limit government. That
limitation of powers is what has unlocked in America the vast human
potential available in any population.

Barack Obama sees that limiting of government not as a lynchpin but
rather as a fatal flaw: "…One of the, I think, the tragedies of the
Civil Rights movement was because the Civil Rights movement became so
court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of
the political and community organizing and activities on the ground
that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through
which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still
suffer from that."

There is no room for wiggle or misunderstanding here. This is not
edited copy. There is nothing out of context; for the entire thing is
context — the context of what Barack Obama believes. You and I do not
have to guess at what he believes or try to interpret what he
believes. He says what he believes.

We have, in our storied history, elected Democrats and Republicans,
liberals and conservatives and moderates. We have fought, and will
continue to fight, pitched battles about how best to govern this
nation. But we have never, ever in our 232-year history, elected a
president who so completely and openly opposed the idea of limited
government, the absolute cornerstone of makes the United States of
America unique and exceptional.

If this does not frighten you — regardless of your political
affiliation — then you deserve what this man will deliver with both
houses of Congress, a filibuster-proof Senate, and, to quote Senator
Obama again, "a righteous wind at our backs."

That a man so clear in his understanding of the Constitution, and so
opposed to the basic tenets it provides against tyranny and the abuse
of power, can run for president of the United States is shameful
enough.

We're just getting started.

THE SECOND CIRCLE OF SHAME
Mercifully shorter than the first, and simply this: I happen to know
the person who found this audio. It is an individual person, with no
more resources than a desire to know everything that he or she can
about who might be the next president of the United States and the
most powerful man in the world.

I know that this person does not have teams of highly paid
professionals, does not work out of a corner office in a skyscraper in
New York, does not have access to all of the subtle and hidden
conduits of information … who possesses no network television
stations, owns no satellite time, does not receive billions in
advertising dollars, and has a staff of exactly one.

I do not blame Barack Obama for believing in wealth distribution.
That's his right as an American. I do blame him for lying about what
he believes. But his entire life has been applying for the next job at
the expense of the current one. He's at the end of the line now.

I do, however, blame the press for allowing an individual citizen to
do the work that they employ standing armies of so-called
professionals for. I know they are capable of this kind of
investigative journalism: It only took them a day or two to damage
Sarah Palin with wild accusations about her baby's paternity and less
time than that to destroy a man who happened to be playing ball when
the Messiah decided to roll up looking for a few more votes on the way
to the inevitable coronation.

We no longer have an independent, fair, investigative press. That is
abundantly clear to everyone — even the press. It is just another of
the facts that they refuse to report, because it does not suit them.

Remember this, America: The press did not break this story. A single
citizen, on the Internet did.

There is a special hell for you "journalists" out there, a hell made
specifically for you narcissists and elitists who think you have the
right to determine which information is passed on to the electorate
and which is not.

That hell — your own personal hell — is a fiery lake of irrelevance,
blinding clouds of obscurity, and burning, everlasting scorn.

You've earned it.

THE THIRD CIRCLE OF SHAME
This discovery will hurt Obama much more than Joe the Plumber.

What will be left of my friend, and my friend's family, I wonder, when
the press is finished with them?

— Bill Whittle lives in Los Angeles and is an on-air commentator for
www.pjtv.com. You can find him online at www.ejectejecteject.com.

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 1:13 AM, Herb Parsons <hparsons at parsonsys.com> wrote:
> You know, when I was responding to Ben's moronic posts about the
> nobility of the positions of the Obama campaign and supporters (and it
> MUST be true, Powell said so, and that's good enough for him), I didn't
> try to put together a list of the more reprehensible things that they
> left came up with.
>
> I'm going pull them from McCaffrey's article, so the "debaters and
> thinkers" among us don't have to waste time reading the whole article,
> they can see the summary of attacks by the "colleagues" in a condensed form:
>
> * They attacked her hair
> * They attacked her voice (and speech patterns, my addition there)
> * They attacked her motherhood
> * They attacked her personal hygiene
> * A left-support performer advocated Palin be "gang raped, (without
> opposition by the audience or hosts)
> * The Daily Kos ran articles suggestion that her husband had had sex
> with their young daughters
> * The Daily Kos (and other left wing sites) reported that her Down
> syndrome child really was that of her teenage daughter
> * One columnist called for her to submit to DNA testing to prove her her
> son was hers virtue
> * Attendees at Obama rallies shouted "stone her." (without interruption
> by any of the speakers)
>
> Yes, this is the noble campaign against Palin by the debaters and thinkers.
>
> Makes being a redneck look good, and I'm not even from western Pennsylvania.
>
>
>
> Brad Haslett wrote:
>> First, here's a tape from The One a few years ago.  You listen and
>> decide on your own.
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iivL4c_3pck
>>
>> I'm not quite sure what to say about this second one, a video.  Adult
>> Warning! This is not pleasant.  Sarah Palin is fair game, I don't have
>> a problem with that.  Since I now have a daughter, I'm a bit more
>> sensitive about some things, and frankly, I'm not comfortable with
>> this.  I cancelled my long-term subscription with the Atlantic Monthly
>> four years ago and now that they keep Andrew Sulliven in their employ,
>> that was a good decision.
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evafgvrMci8
>>
>> Now on this last issue, Palin deserves investigation and she shouldn't
>> be "protected".  That said, my attitude as father of a daughter is
>> "let's hit everyone with the same weight club in politics".
>>
>> http://www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20081026_Palin_deserves_our_respect.html
>>
>> Girl Power!  (thank goodness I didn't develop this until late in life)
>>
>> Brad
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