Excellent article by Victor Davis Hanson, as usual, today about the Obama message and how in the world we have arrived at being close to electing a man with “no experience as either an executive or national legislator, replete with ratings and rankings that suggest he will be about the most liberal Presidential candidate since George McGovern.”
There are plenty of reasons, and some fault must be layed upon the feet of the Republicans, but his description of what we can expect from a Obama presidency is dead-on:
At home, there will be an increase in taxes—income, estate, payroll—to fund more government health care, education, and general entitlement programs. The old Reaganesque notion that government subsidies can make one more dependent, angrier, and envious is forgotten, along with the notion that lower taxes stimulate economic growth and encourage risk-taking, innovation, and independence. I worry especially about the lifting of income caps (how far?) on social security taxes inasmuch as they were part of the original covenant justifying the caps on benefits paid out.
NAFTA and other free trade agreements would be repealed; illegal immigration would either not be an issue, or more a problem of finding the right way, with borders still open, to grant amnesties. Appointments would hinge on a belief in bigger government and the theme that the individual is currently suffering due to reactionaries in government and corporations, barely housed, fed, or educated, and deserves more federal dollars appropriated from others who either don’t need all their income or didn’t deserve the compensation they were given.
Abroad, there is a general argument that things are going terribly. Forget that the Taliban and Saddam are gone. Forget that we have not suffered another 9/11 attack. Forget that there is far more democratic promise in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Lebanon than was true in 2001. Forget that the Merkel and Sarkozy governments, along with Eastern European leaders, are more pro-American than their predecessors in 2001.
Instead, we are disliked by everyone, and for good reasons. The fact that Iranian mullahs, the House of Saud cousins, Hugo Chavez’s communists, European mullahs, and the Arab street don’t approve of America says more about us than it does them. The solution is to follow more the dictates of European Union and United Nations, where sophisticated internationalists can guide us through the maze of global power, instructing mostly ignorant Americans how and why we tend to cause so many of the world’s problems. Misunderstanding and our own obtuseness explain global tension, not the agendas of enemies who know exactly what they want and how to get it.
Our military is not so much an offensive force, designed to defeat and kill our enemies, that needs support and constant honing; better to see it as a large social organization that we must look at in terms only of proper rotations, health care, and benefits. We are to support the troops not in the sense of doing everything we can to ensure they win, and gain the proper recognition for their courage and sacrifice, but rather in consideration of their victimhood, offering proper sympathy and remediation for the defeat in Iraq, the unwise use of their skills, and the needless loss of their lives.
I really fear for this country if this man is elected. I was 9 when Jimmy Carter was elected and really have no recollection of that part of history but if this man is put into office those of us too young to remember the late 70’s will have our own vivid history lesson….in real time.
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