I've never liked the idea of saying things like "Barak Obama hates America" How do you know what he hates or doesn't hate? It's my experience that no one, not even the most evil people, believe they're being evil. They believe they're 'doing what they must' or 'just protecting themselves' or even worse, doing something for someone else's own good. Hitler may be reviled by history, and if there's one guy who pretty much everyone agrees was evil, it's him. But at the time I'm quite sure he thought he was on the right track.
For the record, I'm not comparing Obama with Hitler. I'm just saying that to convince yourself that you know what he (or any other politician) does and doesn't "really care" about is nonsense. To be fair, it's a nonsense that liberals are far more guilty of than conservatives. But both sides are at least minimally guilty of it. To say something like that you have to know someone really intimately, and even then it's still just an educated guess. No one ever really knows what's in the heart of someone else.
But there are things you can say are true about all people - even politicians. For instance, while a politician may or may not actually care about solving other people's problems, they certainly care about solving their own. They may not be capable of it, but the desire will certainly be there. I don't think anyone on either side of the aisle would dispute that.
Right now, it is safe to assume, that what Barak Obama "really wants" is to get re-elected. (A conjecture true... but a nearly universally held one - one which he might even admit in public.) And right now, the principle obstacle to that re-election is not Mitt Romney but the high unemployment rate. In that regard it's his problem now, whether he wants to blame someone else for creating it or not. No amount of verbal wrangling or obfuscation will change that. And yet, month, after month, after painful month, the unemployment rate continues to be uncomfortably high.
Since that problem is not getting solved, and it is reasonable to assume that Obama would solve it if he could, it also is reasonable to assume that this is a problem that the Obama administration does not know how to solve. That's strict empiricism... no conjecture there. If he could he would, but since he hasn't, it probably means he can't. This says nothing about what he cares about, or what he thinks is important. It relies exclusively on the universal desire of all humans to solve their own problems and achieve their own goals.
So if he has already demonstrated that he can't solve this problem, a problem by the way which has dire consequences for a great many more Americans than just the President, then why in the world would anyone let him keep trying?
Maybe you are one of those people who doesn't like Mitt Romney. You think he's boring and stiff, or you don't like his wife's horses, or the fact that he's a Mormon. Maybe you think any profitable business is evil and think the world would be "better" if it were organized differently. But even if all that is true, you still have to admit that a high unemployment rate is real a problem for real people. So why would you go out and vote for Obama, when he has proven that this is a problem that's totally beyond the ability of his team to solve?
This seems genuinely rudimentary to me. I'm not saying you shouldn't vote for Obama because he doesn't care, or that he hates something. I'm not calling him a bad person or criticizing his vision for America. All I'm saying is that if he can't solve his own obvious problems, then how can you expect him to solve anyone else's?
11 comments:
Tom..You hit the nail squarely on the head. I had dinner last pm with a friend who has 2 daughters--27 and 31 and both live in Chicago. They are very conservative and both very smart hard working women.
They look around at their friends and say exactly what you just said. 50% of kids coming out with a degree and alot of debt are either underemployed or unemployed and yet theyl give him 4 more years????..
What spell has he cast that they will sign up for another 4??? Student loan debt is the next big bubble so I told this friend just wait till October and if BHO is behind he will exec order some kind of debt forgiveness for student loans...
I understand it a different world from Clinton days but when he and Newt closed the doors they beat the shit out of each other and came out of the room with a compromise and good policy.. BHO cant compromise. Hes never had to . He doesnt know anything other than "my way or the highway".
Just saw a Claire Macaskill? commercial on tv and she is back peddling from BHO...She trails miserably in polls...
Tom I think you have a very bright group that works with you on this blog. I also think your followers are bright.We all know why the unemployment rate is 8.2 and not 11.. Mitt needs to explain to people is a soft voice about people leaving the work force and why the rate is only 8.2%
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/06/texas-am-students_n_1653002.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D17660
And then I see this and have hope for our youth......
Just finished HBO's John Adams for the 2nd time... God has blessed me throughout my life...
One of the things I took away(again) from the show was that God had put me in contact with more wonderful women than I can count. Many were beautiful, intelligent and would have made great mothers. Yet something just never clicked in my brain .
For those of you who have found an Abigail Adams you should count yourselves as lucky men..To have a woman that raises and protects your children . A sounding board for your ideas and thoughts..A foundation that maybe has allowed you to be more successful than you ever thought you could be..
Sorry.. sometimes I look back and think there were a couple that I shouldnt have let go of.. For those of you who realized what you would be missing if you hadnt congrats...
Obama believes in wealth redistribution, government control and kicking back to his political supporters. What he can't figure out is how to improve the economy while holding to these basic beliefs - assuming he really does care, which I doubt.
I agree that's probably why he can't figure out how to solve the problem. I've been saying that everything he learned about modern economics he learned in a union hall, and there is group of people who are more totally economically illiterate than union organizers.
But all that's just a guess.
Either way though, I think at this point it's a problem he really does want to solve - for his own sake if no-one else's.
Jesuit high school 1969. Hard hats and hippies beating the shit out of each other in a union stronghold - St. Louis. My history teacher, Mr. Calacci, asks me how the people are going to vote. I say lots of folk hate Vietnam War. He looks at me matter of factly and says people have money in their pocket, so status quo will hold. Still true. So is the converse. Unemployment stays where it is, election may give Tom his veal pounded out pretty thinly.
Unemployment doesn't matter. FDR is proof. As nutty as the New Deal was, FDR was a leader and many followed and believed. Til this day, fruit-loops out of the box latch onto FDR's charisma in obfuscated view to his results.
What stands in BHO's way for re-election is leadership.
He is incapable of leading and that is why red-state democrats are running for the hills.
He is skinny, sweaty, graying rapidly and sounds like a pitch-man with a defective sample.
His only leadership opportunity was the death of OBL, and he squandered that as well.
You know Ikaika, I think your comment and it's view differing from my piece illustrate a separate point. "We vote for people who remind us of ourselves." Or said more accurately, we vote for people who seem to posses the virtues we admire (hopefully in ourselves), and lack the vices that we despise.
It looks to me that since you think you possess "leadership" (I don't dispute it... just making a point) you weight that characteristic more heavily.
I on the other hand, am much more concerned with objectivity than most people (in ways that make me odd and prickly to deal with) so I think looking at the results of what he's done will be more persuasive than any aspect of his personality.
Neither of these is bad, and both are (I believe) correct as far as the President is concerned. And we come to a similar conclusion - proving that there is more than one way to skin a Democrat. But obviously, we are seeing the decision making process differently.
I'm drawing a conclusion based on history with regard to how it was perceived by contemporaries. People suffered horribly during the FDR years, but he was a charismatic Leader compared to his opposition. They "believed" that he would Lead them out of the manure.
Now Carter was weak. Reagan thumped him hard because Carter began to resemle the caricature of Carter.
Ordinary people don't vote for economics. "It's the Economy Stupid" was an easy catch phrase for people to latch onto a reason to vote for a charismatic Bill Clinton or get fired-up on Ross Perot.
HW Bush just stared at his watch and became the person that Dana Carvey made him out to be.
"Ordinary people don't vote for economics."
I think this is a conclusion that tries to steal a base. I think you support it well but it's unproven. I think there are a lot of ordinary unemployed people who will vote for the person they think will be likely to help them see work again.
But I don't dispute your broader point that much of presidential politics is based on charm.
Combine both analysis = Advantage Mitt.
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