PDA

View Full Version : Thomas Sowell: Obama "arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous"



Little-Acorn
04-29-2008, 10:59 AM
"...virtually everything [Obama] says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s. "

Sowell nails it again. Some Dems say that McCain wants to "turn the clock back" to the 1980s. Well, at least we were getting stronger and more prosperous in the 1980s. Is there really anything new about the "new change" Obama wants to bring? Or is he merely a reincarnation of the old-time liberal extremists who brought so much pain and destruction to our society in the 30s and 60s?

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

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/04/29/an_old_newness?page=full&comments=true

An Old Newness

by Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Many years ago, a great hitter named Paul Waner was nearing the end of his long career. He entered a ballgame with 2,999 hits -- one hit away from the landmark total of 3,000, which so many hitters want to reach, but which relatively few actually do reach.

Waner hit a ball that the fielder did not handle cleanly but the official scorer called it a hit, making it Waner's 3,000th. Paul Waner then sent word to the official scorer that he did not want that questionable hit to be the one that put him over the top.

The official scorer reversed himself and called it an error. Later Paul Waner got a clean hit for number 3,000.

What reminded me of this is the great fervor that many seem to feel over the prospect of the first black President of the United States.

No doubt it is only a matter of time before there is a black president, just as it was only a matter of time before Paul Waner got his 3,000th hit. The issue is whether we want to reach that landmark so badly that we are willing to overlook how questionably that landmark is reached.

Paul Waner had too much pride to accept a scratch hit. Choosing a President of the United States is a lot more momentous than a baseball record. We the voters need to have far more concern about who we put in that office that holds the destiny of a nation and of generations yet unborn.

There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous as Barack Obama should become president -- especially not at a time when the threat of international terrorists with nuclear weapons looms over 300 million Americans.

Many people seem to regard elections as occasions for venting emotions, like cheering for your favorite team or choosing a Homecoming Queen.

The three leading candidates for their party's nomination are being discussed in terms of their demographics -- race, sex and age -- as if that is what the job is about.

One of the painful aspects of studying great catastrophes of the past is discovering how many times people were preoccupied with trivialities when they were teetering on the edge of doom. The demographics of the presidency are far less important than the momentous weight of responsibility that office carries.

Just the power to nominate federal judges to trial courts and appellate courts across the country, including the Supreme Court, can have an enormous impact for decades to come. There is no point feeling outraged by things done by federal judges, if you vote on the basis of emotion for those who appoint them.

Barack Obama has already indicated that he wants judges who make social policy instead of just applying the law. He has already tried to stop young violent criminals from being tried as adults.

Although Senator Obama has presented himself as the candidate of new things -- using the mantra of "change" endlessly -- the cold fact is that virtually everything has says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s.

Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive and subsidizing those who are not -- all this is a re-run of the 1960s.

We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed, in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment. During the 1960s, ghettoes across the countries were ravaged by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day.

The violence and destruction were concentrated not where there was the greatest poverty or injustice but where there were the most liberal politicians, promoting grievances and hamstringing the police.

Internationally, the approach that Senator Obama proposes -- including the media magic of meetings between heads of state -- was tried during the 1930s. That approach, in the name of peace, is what led to the most catastrophic war in human history.

Everything seems new to those too young to remember the old and too ignorant of history to have heard about it.

avatar4321
04-29-2008, 11:18 AM
i really liked that article. He is absolutely right. Obama's issues are straight out of the Democrat playbook which hasnt been updated in decades. Is this really the change we need? especially when those policies are what has caused most of the problems we deal with.

Pale Rider
04-29-2008, 11:34 AM
i really liked that article. He is absolutely right. Obama's issues are straight out of the Democrat playbook which hasnt been updated in decades. Is this really the change we need? especially when those policies are what has caused most of the problems we deal with.

I just wish there was a way to make the lemmings that blindly follow him aware. Maybe a nation wide leaflet drop.

midcan5
04-29-2008, 12:21 PM
There is so much stupidity in that single article it is hard to know which dumb thought rates a comment.

First, the baseball piece is cute but irrelevant.

The 'unborn'? huh? is he saying the policies of republican conservatism are better than supporting the living person? It would seem so given Bush's only veto was against children. And it is too easy to rail against abortion, you don't have to do anything or sacrifice anything. Fluff, no substance.

"There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous as Barack Obama should become president." Boy, talk about a clever analysis of key issues and positions! More meaningless spin, no substance. Did that just pop into his head I wonder.

I wonder if this fool realizes if it weren't for so called constructionist judges, he could still be a slave or at least a poor uneducated niggra. It is the controversial court rulings that gave him and the rest of us our freedoms not the narrow minded likes of scalia or thomas.

"Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive and subsidizing those who are not -- all this is a re-run of the 1960s." Huh? They were, coulda fooled me I was alive then serving this country. And does he think voting rights, equal rights, the greatest decease in poverty don't count. The end of a senseless war by the people, these things mean a lot. And writing "increasing government spending" today with a straight face takes a hypocrisy too great to measure.

"We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed..." Again was this man born yesterday? It wasn't till Reagan started the destruction of the middle class and Black progress, that this would even make sense. Again for those of us who lived it this man is a fool - actually just a partisan bigot but that sounds too fancy. See http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2008/01/slowing_of_blac.html

"Hamstring police," damn definitely a fool. Everything was tried during the 90's? and it ? I'm sorry folks but anyone who can read this guy does not know any history.

April15
04-29-2008, 12:33 PM
Bush, arrogant, foolishly deviant and ultimately dangerous, is what he should have wrote 8 years ago!

glockmail
04-29-2008, 12:42 PM
....I wonder if this fool realizes if it weren't for so called constructionist judges, he could still be a slave or at least a poor uneducated niggra. ...... Can you expand on that please? I'm interested to know just who these judges were.

Hobbit
04-29-2008, 01:53 PM
Can you expand on that please? I'm interested to know just who these judges were.

Uh oh, didn't you know that pointing out the truth that it was a properly voted on Constitutional amendment that ended slavery and a law passed by congress that put the legal rubber to the road in civil rights constitutes hate speech? Next thing you know, you'll be pointing out that the judges were the ones who BLOCKED initial attempts to end slavery and bring about civil rights.

semi liberal girl
04-29-2008, 02:30 PM
I just wish there was a way to make the lemmings that blindly follow him aware. Maybe a nation wide leaflet drop.

Will not work. They are totally drunk on the Kool Aide and they are oblivious to the truth

Facts do not matter to these people - only the bumber sticker slogans and feel good talking points

midcan5
04-29-2008, 02:50 PM
Can you expand on that please? I'm interested to know just who these judges were.

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,840195,00.html

2) Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which outlawed racial segregation in the public schools. Separate schools for Negroes were "inherently unequal," ruled the court, because the system generates feelings of inferiority in the black children "that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone." Brown helped to prepare public opinion for a long series of civil rights bills and later court rulings that enforced laws against discrimination in voting, public accommodations and housing.

retiredman
04-29-2008, 02:50 PM
Next thing you know, you'll be pointing out that the judges were the ones who BLOCKED initial attempts to end slavery and bring about civil rights.

Plessy v. Fergeson ring a bell?

glockmail
04-29-2008, 03:03 PM
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,840195,00.html

2) Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which outlawed racial segregation in the public schools. Separate schools for Negroes were "inherently unequal," ruled the court, because the system generates feelings of inferiority in the black children "that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone." Brown helped to prepare public opinion for a long series of civil rights bills and later court rulings that enforced laws against discrimination in voting, public accommodations and housing.

I'm curious, who was the Chief Justice who wrote that decision? What was his political affiliation? What president appointed him?

avatar4321
04-29-2008, 03:53 PM
There is so much stupidity in that single article it is hard to know which dumb thought rates a comment.

First, the baseball piece is cute but irrelevant.

The 'unborn'? huh? is he saying the policies of republican conservatism are better than supporting the living person? It would seem so given Bush's only veto was against children. And it is too easy to rail against abortion, you don't have to do anything or sacrifice anything. Fluff, no substance.

"There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous as Barack Obama should become president." Boy, talk about a clever analysis of key issues and positions! More meaningless spin, no substance. Did that just pop into his head I wonder.

I wonder if this fool realizes if it weren't for so called constructionist judges, he could still be a slave or at least a poor uneducated niggra. It is the controversial court rulings that gave him and the rest of us our freedoms not the narrow minded likes of scalia or thomas.

"Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive and subsidizing those who are not -- all this is a re-run of the 1960s." Huh? They were, coulda fooled me I was alive then serving this country. And does he think voting rights, equal rights, the greatest decease in poverty don't count. The end of a senseless war by the people, these things mean a lot. And writing "increasing government spending" today with a straight face takes a hypocrisy too great to measure.

"We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed..." Again was this man born yesterday? It wasn't till Reagan started the destruction of the middle class and Black progress, that this would even make sense. Again for those of us who lived it this man is a fool - actually just a partisan bigot but that sounds too fancy. See http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2008/01/slowing_of_blac.html

"Hamstring police," damn definitely a fool. Everything was tried during the 90's? and it ? I'm sorry folks but anyone who can read this guy does not know any history.

perhaps you could point out any court case that settled the matter of slavery.