For reasons fair and unfair, Obama, who inherited a bad recession and made it worse, every day looks more like a modern-day Hoover, whining about his problems, rather than an FDR cheerily getting things done. Inadequate to the task, Obama is discrediting the statism he was elected to restore.
If you put your faith in government and government isn't up to the task, whom do you turn to then?
I think Goldberg's a bit reticent to hammer the supreme deity in the liberal pantheon, FDR.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone deserves the lion's share of the credit for the Great Depression it's FDR. Goldberg's comparison of Obama to Hoover, because Hoover was whiny, misses the larger similarity between Obama and FDR: in the middle of a recession the piling on of taxes, regulation, government expenditures and laws that stifle the recovery. Obama, like Roosevelt, is simply incapable of re-examining his policies in the light of their failure insisting instead that they weren't sufficiently comprehensive or they haven't had a chance to achieve their desired effect.
On an old episode of the Simpsons, Bart destroys Krusty the Klown's stage, and becomes nationally known as the "I didn't do it" kid. I think we have a new successor.
ReplyDeleteBarack "I didn't do it" Obama.
You certainly don't turn to people who believe "government isn't the solution, government is the problem."
ReplyDeleteNo one who discredits the ability of the government to be effective should be given the task and privilege of running that very government.
When government exceeds its bounds, it's the problem. Government in general isn't the problem, government like we have, which can do whatever it wants despite what limits it's supposed to have, is.
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase Bill Clinton's lie about what he wanted with abortion, we want the federal government’s involvement with its citizens to be safe, constitutional and rare.
ReplyDeleteOh Mike, it's precisely people who believe "government isn't the solution, government is the problem" who ought to be turned too.
ReplyDeleteLike fire government's such a wonderfully flexible solution to so many problems among which is the foolish notion by some people that they're wise enough to handle their own affairs or participate in decisions of societal importance. Quite obviously those sorts of decisions ought to be left to those wise enough, compassionate enough, and possibly stylish enough, that it's clear that those wise, compassionate, stylish people are the rightful decision-makers for all.
Government provides the means for those who clearly exhibit the qualities necessary for leadership to, sometimes regretably, impose your views on your less-enlightened fellows.
This is a problem in a representative form of government because so many people who are clearly unfit to make socially-momentous decisions aren't prevented from doing so. Fortunately, it's quite obvious that in a representative form of government the more government the less representation and therein lies the solution. For you.
But I'm just not that enlightened and thus don't feel qualified to impose my views on my fellow citizens.
I'd just as soon, except where absolutely, positively unavoidable, mind my own business and expect the same consideration from my fellow citizen. Consequently, when it does become absolutely, positively necessary to make momentous, societally-pivotal decisions the decision-makers I'd feel comfortable enough with to vote for are the few who won't become fascinated with all the marvelous uses the power they've been entrusted with can be put.
Alas, Allen, you overreach with your libertarian utopianism when the desire to have government out of your life leads to extremism in places like Colorado where reactionary amendments will prevent the government from performing basic functions such as building of roads and schools, providing a court and prison system, and ensuring protections of those individual rights you value so dearly.
ReplyDeleteCertainly, and absolutely, the overreach of many in the Democratic Party should be reigned in. However, as I recently discussed with Darren, the problem with the GOP leadership is that it would counter that overreach by crippling the very nature of government that ensures the institutions of a free, safe, and prosperous society. That "ensuring" is the very nature of classical, Burkean conservatism.
Believing the "government" can't do anything right is as bad or, as history has shown, worse than believing government can do more than it should.