President Barack Obama downplayed the differences between capitalism and communism, claiming that they are just “intellectual arguments.”
He urged those at a town hall event in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Wednesday to “just choose from what works.”Obama said, “So often in the past there’s been a sharp division between left and right, between capitalist and communist or socialist.”
“And especially in the Americas, that’s been a big debate, right? Oh, you know, you’re a capitalist Yankee dog, and oh, you know, you’re some crazy communist, you know, that’s going to take away everybody’s property. And I mean, those are interesting intellectual arguments, but I think for your generation, you should be practical and just choose from what works.”
Obama then said, “You don’t have to worry about whether it neatly fits into socialist theory or capitalist theory. You should just decide what works.”
A**hole
If anyone actually believes such an insanely stupid position, despite the historical record, then why not have ourselves a national experiment? Let the blue states form a new nation and follow communist policy, and the red states form a capitalist nation. Equalize resources at the start as much as possible, though allowing citizens the choice -only at the beginning – of which nation they prefer to live. Then after 10 years or so we can evaluate the outcomes and see what differences there are.
Well, the way HE does it, there is very little difference.
It is impossible to designate anything Obama says, as anything, but absolutely idiotic diatribe.
And on this idiocy, to make matters worse, he is insulting the Nation which elected him FROM a foreign nation which has historically loved its dictators.
@Pete: Sounds like a plan. The left should be more than willing to go along with it since they believe capitalism is a bigger threat than everything this side of man-made global warming, a view shared by Marx and Lenin amongst others (although that scam wasn’t around back then). They’d also rid themselves of their most hated enemy- conservatives.
Thomas Sowell had an excellent article today that touches on the topic.
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/06/12/socialist_or_fascist/page/full
@another vet:
Thanks for linking to another brilliant piece by Sowell.
The irony of the left in assuming that they are intellectually superior to those who disagree with them is never so clearly demonstrated than in their stereotypical efforts to shut down any and all criticism of the cognitively irrational essence of leftist ideology. They do not see their utter lack of self-awareness in deriding as greedy those who resist having their wealth taken from them to enrich the left. Their self-perceived intellectual superiority prevents them from recognizing their foundational close-mindedness as they deride those who disagree with them. They operate under the adolescent fantasy that all generations that came before them were less intelligent than they believe themselves to be based on current technology, completely missing that our technology is built upon those who figured things out before their generation was even born. As an example, who is more intelligent? The current hipster who can do a google search to determine the diameter of the earth, or the ancient greek who observed the lengthening of a stick’s shadow over the course of a year, then mathematically calculated the earth’s diameter – without benefit of even a calculator?
Certainly technology and cultural opinions have changed over the millenia of recorded human history. But human intelligence has not increased. We still don’t know how the ancient Egyptions – without benefit of our level of machinery – managed to construct the pyramids that still stand after what, 4 or 5 thousand years?
@Pete: I saw an interview with actor Scott Baio (Chachi, “Happy Days”) the other day. When explaining why he is a conservative he made an excellent fundamental observation. He said, “Conservatives want you to live your life; Liberals want you to live their life.” That is reflected in their views of government, the economy, and just about everything else. Control, control, control. Yet they claim that that Fascism (which is based on control, control, control) is right wing and not left wing.
@another vet:
Insightful comment, concisely stated. Good for Mr. Baio. Fits right in with what we are saying, given that leftists are completely blind to the irony of calling conservatives “fascists” as they demand all of us be forced to submit to their progressive totalitarianism. It isn’t enough that the leftist recycle and sort his trash, he must FORCE everyone else to do it as well.
Obie ever get a clue as to which one of these has a first and second amendment right?