Spurning the Siren Call of Socialism

by Rich Tucker - February 13th, 2009 - Townhall.com

“We remain a center-right nation in many ways -- particularly culturally,” Newsweek admits. “And our instinct, once the crisis passes, will be to try to revert to a more free-market style of capitalism -- but it was, again, under a conservative GOP administration that we enacted the largest expansion of the welfare state in 30 years: prescription drugs for the elderly.”

And that’s exactly the point. The Bush administration’s big mistakes were when it increased discretionary and entitlement spending. So, having said that, why would anyone believe that the answer to the financial crisis is more federal spending?

Like Obama, Newsweek actually argues just the opposite of what their statements about our history would suggest is obvious. Of course neither Newsweek or Obama expect that you will notice they are insulting your intelligence. They are also wrong when they say Bush was "a conservative GOP administration." In truth, George W. Bush and Karl Rove sold "compassionate communism" under the label "compassionate conservatism". That labelling did not make it conservative. Bush is just as much a socialist as Obama. He is simply an American socialist rather than being a global socialist like Obama. Little else differentiates them.

Obama also misreads the lessons of recent history [in Japan]. “If you delay acting on an economy of this severity [sic], then you potentially create a negative spiral that becomes much more difficult for us to get out of,” he told reporters. “We saw this happen in Japan in the 1990s, where they did not act boldly and swiftly enough and, as a consequence, they suffered what was called the lost decade, where essentially, for the entire ’90s, they did not see any significant economic growth.”

Again -- true enough. But the lesson is that, in the 1990s, Japan did just what Obama is proposing.

IT DID NOT WORK FOR JAPAN. How is proposing to do exactly what you argue has failed for others supposed to inspire anyone that you know what you are talking about? Once again, Obama simply thinks you are too stupid to realize this inconsistency. How much longer is this amateur going to get away with insulting the American people?