In “The Wrath of Khan” Spock saved the Enterprise and in so doing was mortally injured. As he lay dying he reached out to Kirk and said
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one”
Barack Obama is the anti-Spock.
Prior to the 2008 election, Barack Obama promised he would “fundamentally transform” the United States of America. Since then we have come to understand what he meant. He meant that he would disdain the Constitution and implement regulations and directives on his own in order to fulfill his personal agenda. He plans to force policies through the EPA and when that’s not possible he will issue executive orders with the likely justification that anything and everything he wants is a matter of national security.
Aside from the Constitutional violations and elevating the Presidency to a dictatorship, the problem is that Obama’s aspirations are not the needs of the nation. And there is no question which comes first.
Obama’s failed stimulus threw billions away on “green” failures that are backed by his big name donors. In an astonishing move Obama subordinated the US taxpayer to his donors during liquidation of assets of those green failures. Why Republicans sit on their rear ends and allow that to happen still boggles my mind. The failed stimulus paid lip service to the infrastructure needs of the nation, which would have created real jobs and seen this country actually get something for its investment. Obama chose to throw money at his donors instead. A nice summary of the Obama disasters can be seen here.
Obama did what he wanted to do, he did not provide what the country needed.
Now there are more threats to do the same.
Obama tests go-it-alone steps for U.S. economy
President Barack Obama launched the first in a series of executive actions on Monday aimed at bypassing Republicans in Congress to show American voters he is serious about tackling a jobs and housing crisis that endangers his re-election.
Obama: “Where Congress Is Not Willing To Act, We’re Going To Go Ahead And Do It Ourselves”
In an interview with KOAA-TV, a local news channel from Colorado Springs, Colorado, President Obama says if Congress is not willing to pass legislation he wants, he will do it himself in order to win another term.
In 2012, Obama to press ahead without Congress
In focusing on executive actions rather than ambitious legislation, the president risks appearing to be putting election-year strategy ahead of economic action at a time when millions of Americans are still out of work.
In each case, it’s all about him and his re-election. It is not about the good of the nation. It never was.
This is the guy who already considers himself a greater President than George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, behind only Johnson, Lincoln and FDR.
“I would put our legislative and foreign-policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president—with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR and Lincoln—just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history.”
Note: “Possible exceptions.”
Every now and then Obama hints darkly at what’s really in his mind:
“If only I was a dictator”
No kidding. And the Journal also made this observation:
Ego aside—or super duper ego aside—Mr. Obama’s claims are instructive because they explicitly reject any connection between his “accomplishments” and the economy that Americans elected him to fix.
Exactly.
When it comes to Obama, the needs of the many do not outweigh the needs of the One.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
The needs of the BHO outweigh the needs of our country. I’m not racist either.
Ignoring the prime directive……
http://i979.photobucket.com/albums/ae277/RAPH6969/ST.jpg
I’m not so sure that Ron Paul would approve of “The United Federation of Planets.”
(Courtesy: “The Volokh Conspiracy”) :
Podcast on the Politics of Star Trek
Ilya Somin • April 27, 2011 3:19 am
The Institute for Humane Studies has produced a podcast in which I discuss the politics of Star Trek, especially it’s favorable portrayal of socialism, which I previously wrote about here and here. I single out Star Trek: The New Generation as the Trek series most committed to socialist ideology and most unwilling to give any credence to criticisms of the Federation’s ideology, while noting that Deep Space Nine is much better about presenting alternative points of view in an interesting way, and raising questions about the Federation.
As a bonus, there’s a discussion of Star Trek’s replicator technology, and why it is that some things can be replicated while others cannot!
For a contrasting perspective on the politics of Star Trek, see this recent series of posts by science fiction critic Abigail Nussbaum, which analyze The New Generation ((like me, she is more fond of Deep Space Nine). Nussbaum makes many good points, but I disagree with her bottom-line view that the Federation is a “cultural imperialist” projection of present American and Western values into the future. She reaches this conclusion in part because she simply ignores the Federation’s socialism, which is of course antithetical to much of present-day Western society. Thus, for example, she argues that series is based on a Cold War analogy with the Federation playing the role of the US and the villainous Romulans that of the Soviet Union. But once you take due account of the fact that the Federation is socialist, while the Romulans have a relatively capitalist economy and a political system based on that of ancient Rome (the precursor of the modern West), it is far from clear that her analogy works.
Instead, it is the Federation that turns out to be a sort of kinder, gentler Soviet Union. Both are multicultural, federal, socialist states with an official ideology of egalitarianism. But the Federation lacks the Gulags, secret police, and mass murder (or at least we never see them on-screen!). Meanwhile, the Romulans represent several of the negative qualities that many leftists associate with the present-day West: elitism, arrogance, and intolerance for other cultures. The same can be said of many other Star Trek villains, such as the Ferengi, who represent the supposed evils of capitalism. At some level, of course, Star Trek is a projection of Western values. After all, egalitarian socialism is a Western ideology. However, Trek is far more hostile to the present-day West than Nussbaum and some other left of center critics recognize.
Despite these criticisms, I actually like several of the Star Trek series, and admire them for taking on some big issues. My beef with the producers’ approach to socialism is not so much that they take a more positive view of it than I do, but that they don’t even consider the possible problems with the system, despite its horrendous historical record.
@Nostradamus: Even before I became motivated to be active politically, I always wondered how it was that nobody on Star Trek ever had to pay for anything. I understood that the Enterprise and those who served in the Federation were the future of what was our modern day military. But in the few times that “civilian” culture was represented, no one had to pay for anything. The only exception (that I can recall) is Harry Mudd, who was a type of con man, and seemed to be capitalistic.
In the Star Trek movie where they come back to 20th century Earth (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home), Kirk is even heard to say they don’t have to pay for things in response to Dr. Gillian Taylor’s comment about who would pay for their food during the restaurant scene.
I love Star Trek and have always liked it much more than Star Wars, socialism be damned, I guess. *shrug* lol
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