tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post1357106462796000112..comments2023-11-05T01:11:04.903-08:00Comments on Omniorthogonal: Fearful symmetrymtravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02356162954308418556noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-87893929577087142782012-11-11T14:36:59.624-08:002012-11-11T14:36:59.624-08:00@ "But he embodies larger historical forces t...@ "But he embodies larger historical forces than they did. He can’t help but be a landmark on the road from slavery to a truly inclusive society."<br /><br />There's one small problem with this reasoning - Obama's ancestors were never slaves, and neither their experience nor his own reflect the usual African-American experience. Some of his former opponents and past critics within the black community, like Bobby Rush and Jesse Jackson, pointed this out long ago. All he shares with the ordinary American Negro is the color of his skin, and the phenomenon of "race" - however you define it - involves much more than that. His attempts to identify himself with the American black community, such as joining Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church in Chicago, display a rather evident element of self-serving calculation.<br /><br />As for a "truly inclusive society," the welfare culture, with its housing projects, food stamps, and AFDC, has done no less, and perhaps more to segregate and ghettoize the American Negro population than Jim Crow ever did. An exponent of the programs that created the welfare culture, Obama wishes to continue the policies that have encouraged the present post-Jim Crow segregation. <br /><br />What has Obama ever said or done that suggests he has any ideas how to wean the mass of lower-class blacks from their dependency on government? That's a prerequisite to their developing self-sufficiency, which is in turn a necessary condition for full inclusion in the larger society.fsascottnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-30750015102309688192012-11-10T16:43:47.384-08:002012-11-10T16:43:47.384-08:00There was only one part of that last comment that ...There was only one part of that last comment that I found interesting, because it demonstrates that you didn’t understand what the point of the original post was:<br /><br /><i>"Obama embodies history," What twaddle. He has been much overestimated. I find it incredible that left-wing commentators seriously believe it when they praise him as the most brilliant, eloquent, and accomplished man ever to occupy the White House, or similar hyperbole. </i><br /><br />To say he embodies history is not to make any claims about his brilliance or greatness or even leadershp, just that he has managed to embody a certain part of the <i>zeitgeist</i>. As a very good politician, he’s created and packaged himself in such a way as to allow the hopes of a large number of people to be projected on him. In doing so, he makes himself about his times and his times about him. Reagan apparently did the same thing for the other half of the country back in his era, as did Kennedy for his times. I’m not sure Obama will be seen quite as era-defining as those two (who were also vastly over-rated in terms of their actual accomplishments, but we are talking political symbolism here). But he embodies larger historical forces than they did. He can’t help but be a landmark on the road from slavery to a truly inclusive society. mtravenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02356162954308418556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-33740435382474953332012-11-09T20:36:31.464-08:002012-11-09T20:36:31.464-08:00Although I do not agree with Obama and did not vot...Although I do not agree with Obama and did not vote for him, I voted for Romney with little enthusiasm. Obama's victory neither surprised nor devastated me. It was neither a triumph for him, nor a rout for the Republicans. What is remarkable about the election, now that the dust has settled, is how much everything is the same as it was before. Republicans still comfortably control the House, and Democrats have a majority in the Senate that is not filibuster-proof. Obama was re-elected to the presidency by a much smaller majority of the popular vote than he received four years ago - the first time such a thing has happened since 1916. It is usual for presidents to be re-elected, but much more usual for a president to achieve a bigger margin on re-election than on initial election. Anyone who claims that 2012 provided a clear mandate is kidding himself.<br /><br />"Obama embodies history," What twaddle. He has been much overestimated. I find it incredible that left-wing commentators seriously believe it when they praise him as the most brilliant, eloquent, and accomplished man ever to occupy the White House, or similar hyperbole. Really? More brilliant than Thomas Jefferson, who in addition to being a politician was an author, architect, and scientist? More eloquent than Abraham Lincoln, who while holding the Union together managed to infuse even his most casual utterances with a quality of expression that Obama couldn't approach on his best day with his platoon of speechwriters and a teleprompter? More accomplished than Theodore Roosevelt (whose accomplishments are too numerous to list)?<br /><br />Obama won in 2008 on a campaign of glittering generalities about hope and change. He wasted his first two years, when his party had a control of Congress it hasn't since the time of Lyndon Johnson. Instead of taking steps to restore the industrial economy, or mend the country's broken immigration policy, he spent them on a convoluted health-care bill the actual writing of which he abdicated to the Democratic Congressional leadership, which demonstrated by its work product the old wisecrack that a giraffe is a horse designed by committee. Its passage took place on a strict party-line vote that was successful only because several reluctant Democratic moderates were cajoled with concessions or browbeaten with threats to support it. <br /><br />A "shellacking" for Obama's party in 2010 was the consequence, and his victory this year has been only a weak recovery from that. He did not moderate or compromise then, but redoubled his demagoguery against business and "the rich." He will continue in this vein. It wouldn't be surprising to see Republican gains in the House and perhaps a Republican capture of control in the Senate in 2014. The likelihood is that he will leave office in 2016 with approval ratings on the level of Truman in 1952 or Johnson in 1968.<br /><br />@ "The one thing that unites conservatives is the sense of being unhappy with history and wanting to return to an earlier time, back before everything went wrong, a time which might be biblical Rome, 1776, 1950, or the Hollywood version of the Old West."<br /><br />The best responses to the above are several of don Colacho's aphorisms -<br /><br />"The reactionary does not aspire to turn back, but rather to change direction. The past that he admires is not a goal but an exemplification of his dreams."<br /><br />"The reactionary does not respect everything history brings, but respects only what it brings."<br /><br />"The reactionary does not yearn for the futile restoration of the past, but for the improbable rupture of the future with this sordid present."<br /><br />And, to your Twittering "Dear Republicans: the culture war is over. Culture won."<br /><br />The appropriate response is:<br /><br />"Anguish over the decline of civilization is the affliction of a reactionary. The democrat cannot lament the disappearance of something of which he is ignorant."fsascottnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-84627623375550787802012-11-08T16:49:07.207-08:002012-11-08T16:49:07.207-08:00Funny, since the folks I was reading were saying i...Funny, since the folks I was reading were saying it's the least important election since 1996.TGGPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11017651009634767649noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-71699772256183983452012-11-08T11:28:10.176-08:002012-11-08T11:28:10.176-08:00Do you really think the country is well served by ...<i>Do you really think the country is well served by having a single dominant party?</i><br /><br />No. I think it would be much better to have a conservative party that was not in thrall to the insane, the ignorant, the intolerant, and the greedy. <br /><br />It's not hard to imagine such a party in the abstract -- say, it promoted policies that were fiscally conservative, business friendly, somewhat libertarian, somewhat isolationist. This is not the Republican party we have, by any stretch of the imagination.mtravenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02356162954308418556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-17542778953030306022012-11-08T11:22:58.293-08:002012-11-08T11:22:58.293-08:00I suggest there was almost no practical difference...<i>I suggest there was almost no practical difference in the two candidates. </i><br /><br />Well, this post was more about symbolic than practical differences. <br /><br />It is true that there is not as much difference as I would like -- both parties are quite happy to maintain a bloated military and empire -- but there are manifestly important differences as well. mtravenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02356162954308418556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-78799108635324184572012-11-08T09:12:21.073-08:002012-11-08T09:12:21.073-08:00In re: the Coke party, I would suggest that people...In re: the Coke party, I would suggest that people and perhaps institutions change when they feel the flames, not before.<br /><br />Perhaps they felt them this time. If not they will eventually. <br /><br />Do you really think the country is well served by having a single dominant party? Do you think the problems of government admit of a closed form solution and therefore all we have to do is get the technocrats in place and everything will be perfect?<br />I think this is likely not the case.<br /><br />Do you really think there are no aspects of the conservative agenda that have merit? Personally, I see merit in the economic views of Hayek, and I think Thoreau was right in that that government is best which governs least.<br /><br />lightning bulb (aka ngvrnd)https://www.blogger.com/profile/16809379864442430402noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-5909311752116462082012-11-08T09:03:53.658-08:002012-11-08T09:03:53.658-08:00Au contraire, mon frere. I suggest there was almo...Au contraire, mon frere. I suggest there was almost no practical difference in the two candidates. <br /><br />In religion, the smallest doctrinal differences can lead to the most violent schisms. In the religion of democracy, we see this played out here. As Homer Simpson said, "Well, Obama promised me death panels, but Granpa Simpson's still alive ... And Romney, well, he invented Obamacare."<br /><br />The real process of government is pretty well captured by the unelected bureaucrats, so the Sturm und Drang of the presidency is unconstrained by practical considerations.lightning bulb (aka ngvrnd)https://www.blogger.com/profile/16809379864442430402noreply@blogger.com