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Samizdata quote of the day So there are many women voters who do indeed want to vote for a women. Just as there are many black voters who want to vote for a black person. After all Senator Obama does not get 90%+ of the black vote because most of these people say to themselves “I really like Barack’s interpretation of Karl Marx via Saul Alinsky and Bill Ayers, it is much better than the interpretation of …”
I doubt that one voter in a hundred even knows that Senator Obama is a Marxist – certainly the mainstream media have not informed of this.
– Paul Marks
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Pulling the trigger on the Paul Marks link takes us back to the “Palin Candidacy.”
What we now have is someone who can make the case that this election should be Run Against Congress.
Since all the rest of the candidates have been part of Congress, it is very difficult (and in two cases undesirable) to point out how they would undertake one of the main functions of the Presidency – to counter balance (not amplify) the excesses of the legislative branch.
If McCain/Palin, probably as Palin/McCain, run against Congress, Obama will self-destruct if he tries to defend Congress. O will also have the task of differentiating his “philosophy [?]” from the dominating trends of the legislative branch over the past 12 years.
In what sense is Obama a Marxist?
Even correctly applied that label can mean a lot of different things: the most effective advocates of personal liberty in the UK are the soi-disant Marxists of the Institute of Ideas/Manifesto Club, etc.
Moi, je suis Marxiste, tendence Groucho.
On Paul’s main point that most voters don’t necessarily read the entire party manifesto before casting their vote, but tend to pick a winner for complex reasons then rationalize their decision afterwards, and that those complex reasons may boil down to things as trivial as gender, race or even looks. Well, probably.
I rather suspect that, despite being damaged goods, if ‘that nice Tony Blair’ were to return to lead his party in their hour of need, NuLab would still get a hefty bounce in the polls.
On Obama’s Marxism. Nah. If he’s anything, he’s a Leninist/Stalinist fascist. The State runs everything and the Party is the State.
I say “If he’s anything” because I’m not sure he has anything resembling a political philosophy to his name.
Sure, he’s a red diaper baby who hung out with revolutionaries and terrorists and attended a Black Liberation Theology church for twenty years.
But if you look at his record in the Senate, or in the Illinois state senate before that, he’s done absolutely nothing that can be labelled Marxist. (Well, he’s done absolutely nothing, period).
Either he’s been biding his time, waiting ’til he’s President before unleashing his ideology on an unsuspecting world or he’s an empty narcissist who’s sole preoccupation is Barack Obama.
Now Michelle. She’s another kettle of fish entirely.
Three hours political education a day (from his most early years) from his mother with help from “family friend” Frank.
Then on to work with the Comrades in Chicago (when he went there from Columbia in New York), then a break at Harvard, then back to work with the Comrades again.
Guy, Barack Obama has a Marxist background going back from when he was a small child – and right through his 20 years in Chicago.
“But he does not go around saying he is a Marxist – he even denies it”.
Not using the M word (or even the word “socialist”) is straight from the Saul Alinsky play book – indeed the guys who founded the A.C.L.U. wrote letters to various people as far back as the 1920’s saying that it must never be mentioned that they were socialists or…….
And Senator Obama only sort of denies it.
In his book “The Audacity of Hope” (the title is taken from his Liberation Theology cleric – Dr Wright) Obama says that Alan Keyes called him a Marxist “because I supported better benefits” or some such words.
That is a lie – Keyes may be a hothead, but he knows an “academic Marxist” when he meets one, although these days academia is stiff with them (they normally call themselves “critical” somthing or other). Even the study of Ancient Greece and Rome has come under the influence of the Marxists.
You mean your Democrat friend never told you any of the above?
Most of them do not even know it. Their attitude towards books like “Obama Nation” or “The Case Against Barack Obama” is that they are all lies – just like “liberals” in the 1930’s denounced attacks on the Soviet Union as “lies” and “liberals” in the 1960’s and 1970’s denounced attacks on Red China as “lies”.
Although I suspect that some of the Democrats know the above as well as I do – in fact rather better.
For example, there was an article in the “Independent” where some man with a beard (a television actor I believe) was going on about how the Obama gathering was the “seminal event of our time” and so on.
All that for just a normal corrupt Democrat who is just going to increase government spending a bit?
I rather doubt it.
The children of Hell know how high the stakes are.
This is their chance to reverse their strategic defeat at the end of the 1980’s – with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
99 out of 100 supporters may not know what they are involved in – but that does not matter.
Once in power the first step will be to eliminate what is left of dissenting media.
Not “paranoia” the “diversity” plans have already been carefully made.
What amuses me most is the number of rich people (indeed billionaries) who are involved in this.
You like talking French Guy – so you do not need me to tell you what happened to the richest man in France. “Citizen Equality” as he called himself.
Fixed.
Grow a clue.
If these people are so ‘effective’ why have I not heard of them?
Trust me when I say it can get worse, if you think traditional Marxist historians are bad you need to check out the post-modernist historians. Never has there been a more wretched hive of sixties new left scum and villainy.
Under Obama’s National Service proposals all public middle and high school students MUST perform community service, such as picking up trash, for 50 hours a week every year.
Then the ‘Americorps’ are to have their sizes TRIPLED.
Not only do young people belong to the state but apparently so do your tax dollars to fund the second coming of FDR’s New Deal.
Nope. Not a marxist at all. If “Obamacans” exist, they do so because no one has done their homework about what Obama really believes (what, you expect him to tell you?)
JLS, I commented up thread, (but I got smitten so it’s only just appeared), that I thought O! might be more a Lenin/Stalin kind of guy, but now that you remind us of his plans for ‘community service’ I need to add in Mao and, who knows, Pol Pot as well.
“These claims about Senator Obama are all lies – I have been to social events on both coasts with cultured, nice people who have told me…..”
I am waiting for someone to come out with the above.
As for Obama:
Remember the Berlin speech – the parody of the speeches by Presidents Kennedy and Reagan.
Not “tear down this wall”, but “tear down the wall between rich and poor” and “between nations”.
He did not add – “in line with the principles of the Communist Manifesto of 1848” but he did not have to those who knew what Obama was talking about are either Comrades themselves (in which case they will support him) or hate the Comrades – in which case we can be dismissed as “paranoid”.
“You are misinterpreting”.
Do I also misinterpret the plans to de facto ban home schooling and private schools that do not tow the line – the Californian courts rather let the cat out of the bag on that one.
Or do I misinterpret the “Diversity” conference held a few months ago in Chicago – where it was made perfectly clear that the Orwellian definition of the word “diversity” is that no nonleftist media outlet will be allowed.
If Rupert M. (the owner of the Wall Street Journal) does not play ball he will find himself in the next cell to Conrad Black (the exowner of then anti leftist Chicago Sun Times – these days there are so many “laws” that everyone is “guilty” of something (if people with power want them to be).
There are plenty of moderate (even exteme – like the person who wrote the favourable review of M. Moore’s “Sicko” on the Fox website) leftists on Fox News – there may even be more Democrats on the staff than Republicans. But it does not fit the mold – so it will be castrated or it will go.
As will everything else – from conservative talk radio, to those internet sites that are supposed to be impossible to remove.
There will be world agreement on this – for who will dissent if the United States aggrees to banning such “hate speech”. Will China step up for free speech?
“Total paranoia”.
I may not be a cultured or well brought up person – but I know what I am talking about. And I can smell cong.
Sadly a lot (although not all) of my betters do not seem to have this ability – which is unfortunate.
Yes, and no. Democrats routinely score more than 80 percent of the Black vote. So, really, you’re only able to show that about half of the remaining Black population is voting on race.
Which is a shame, sure, to those of us who really feel that race is an idea whose time passed sometime around the invention of agriculture.
What would be far more interesting – not that it will ever happen – is to get feedback from the other 10% of Black voters who refuse to vote on race. Ask them why they aren’t supporting Obama and compare their answers to a random sample of the ones who are. Then judge them for clarity of thought and reason.
I’ll back Paul Marks on this one. Whatever label you want to put on totalitarian statism, Marxist not being a particularly bad one, Sen. Obama should wear it.
Guy:
At least in the part of the US where I went to school, Socialists are our European friends, Communists our old Cold War enemies, and Marxists are the unreconciled government worshipers who believe that if only they had the right Government, run by the right Priests, Utopia would dawn. (Leninist and Stalinist being too pejorative to apply to anyone who wasn’t actually a Soviet Russian during their respective reigns.)
“Yes, and no. Democrats routinely score more than 80 percent of the Black vote. So, really, you’re only able to show that about half of the remaining Black population is voting on race“.
Isn’t the appropriate metric to find out what is the proportion of US citizens that vote on the basis of race? Surely, it cannot be that in 2008 race is suddenly the thing and only because it appears to be that for black people it is more consolidated on the side of Obama?
Race in politics did not pass with agriculture at all and the US history as recently as the 1960s shows that.
My question remains unanswered. If by “Marxist” you mean someone whose political views, or some parody of them derived from other opponents, you despise, then I suggest it is not useful even as a term of abuse.
Knowing something about Marxism is not the same as being a Marxist. Knowing Marxists personally is not the same as being a Marxist. To be in favour of some of the same policies as some Marxists is not to be a Marxist. (As my Institute of Ideas example was intended to show.)
My question rephrased: Where is there any evidence that Obama has himself at any point in his life adopted Marxian analyses or categories?
I’d be happy with a passage from a law-school essay and would accept for the sake of argument your hidden assumption that that would be the mark of the devil, a taint that could never be excised, that people never either change their views nor are capable of intellectual games using models they don’t accept.
The thread above wouldn’t be out of place in one of Michael Moore’s diatribes were only some of names and labels altered. Whatever happened to the critically rational individulalist perspective?
Guy, this is a very good point. But the problem is, what do you do when a person, especially a presidential candidate, is someone who throughout his life made a conscious effort to conceal the extent of the extremeness of his ideology, as Paul seems to be suggesting? I would back your approach 100% if we were merely discussing calling some person a Marxist. Or if, for example, you were a dean of a private college, and had to decide whether to hire Obama as a professor, it would be quite reasonable to give him the benefit of a doubt, until during his lectures he proved Paul to be right. But when it comes to a POTUS nominee, isn’t it reasonable to take a more “if it walks like a duck” approach?
No. Less reasonable. The higher the stakes the less it makes sense to rely on rumours spread by enemies.
Whatever the accusation I still want evidence. And extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
As Guy has kindly pointed out knowing something about Marxism and knowing Marxists personally is not the same as being a Marxist. Not that I expect certain posters to understand that distinction.
Even if were true though, Obama is (at least rhetorically) infinitely closer to genuine libertarian values than Palin/McCain, or even in many respects Barr and Baldwin. Far from being a downtrodden minority (as Rand often fantasized), big businesses, especially in corporate form, live off of privilege and subsidy and are the chief agents behind the very regulations libertarians find so repugnant, precisely because those regulations (contrary to the claims in popular propaganda) serve big business interests by reducing competition and further limiting liability (beyond the basic LL for shareholders). Regulations and other government interventions on behalf of the privileged wealthy interests mean both fewer self-employers, and fewer jobs, which means a larger supply of wage labor coupled with a smaller demand for the same, driving down wages and opportunity and shifting the balance of power towards capital and away from labor.
Given that corporations are inventions of the state, and can only maintain their scale with various privileges and subsidies, a consistent application of libertarian theory as regards the origins of legitimate property claims requires the rejection of all corporate claims, and worker takeover of those organizations and their assets. That is the consistent free market position, both in the Lockean/Rothbardian labor-based theory of ownership, and in the Tucker/Proudhon use-based theory of ownership.
Of all the candidates, at least Obama acknowledges the very real issues of suffering amongst, and economic exploitation of, the poor and middle class by wealthy interests, and recognizes the fact that the poor and middle class are in desperate need of help. At least he correctly recognizes that the present system is indeed screwing over the vast majority of people in this country. Most of his solutions may be fundamentally flawed, in that they attempt to treat only the symptoms, poverty and despair, rather than the disease, the state, which causes those conditions, but that’s a hell of a lot better than pretending there’s nothing wrong and then using free market rhetoric and arguments (which do not apply to present conditions) to defend presently existing corporatist capitalism as some sort of just or equitable economic order.
Guy:
I will attempt this again. Memes which were birthed in Soviet Russia and techniques for spreading those memes fine tuned by Stalin and his apparatchik spread across the University level in the US under the label of Marxism in the 1950s and 60s. I was being a bit droll with my previous formulation, but remember that at the start of this time period in the US things like HUAC and Sen. Joe McCarthy’s Committee were still going strong.
Statists who practiced techniques such as attaching themselves to, subverting and radicalizing legitimate minority grievance causes, who sought to incite class struggle, and who sought to undermine a culture of responsibility with a culture of entitlement flew under the colors of Marxism in the US. Because Marx was an economic philosopher whose work had been subverted by the Communists. And ironically, he was once again the Trojan Horse for these same ideas. Some of the groups that emerged from this were SDS and their offshoot the Weathermen. Both groups advocated violent overthrow of the US government to replace it with world communism. Another group with roots in those camps and the International Socialist Movement was Liberation Theology.
Perhaps this use of Marxist is no longer in common usage, or if you’re in Britain, perhaps it never made the jump. However, I understood Paul Marks’ comment to mean Obama is closely associated to people (admittedly a half generation or perhaps a full generation ahead of him) with ties to International Socialism, and professing belief in many of the ideas are also associated with same.
I apologize if this still seems to be heaping abuse on a much misunderstood philosopher. Again, the short version is that Marxist is American slang for fellow traveler with the International Socialist Movement.
No, it isn’t. So what you’re saying is that it’s preferable to vote for a man whose stated policies would enormously fortify the disease (if all the libertarian theory that you cite isn’t mistaken) that you correctly diagnose, simply because he realises its symptoms are causing problems?
I think the only rational response to that is LOL.
I don’t think the term Marxist is at all misapplied here (let alone an “extraordinary” claim), but if it makes some people uncomfortable just use Radical. The fact is that, for the first time, the Liberals who still form the overwhelming majority of the Democratic Party have allowed someone who is entirely from the non/anti-Liberal* Radical Left to run under their banner for President.
Frankly, I don’t believe that a statement from Obama indicating Marxist beliefs would be any more persuasive to the sceptics than his history of working with, being funded by and employing Marxists. It would just be laughed off as a youthful indiscretion. Some people can smell em and some people either can’t or won’t.
Anyway, Guy, shouldn’t you be busy discussing with your mates how hard done by Slobo was and how much more sophisticated you are than all those hick conservatives for reasons that I’m sure are entirely clear to you.
*(Liberals are basically like normal people: they care about justice, fairness, poverty etc. Just instead of brains, they appear to have a wet towels between their ears or something. Radicals are power crazed pyschopaths, every single one of them. That includes the ones who trade under the name “Libertarian”)
Yes, people who want a much smaller less powerful state that is capable of less civil coercion in everyday life are craaaaaaazed psychopaths.
Other than that a fairly sensible comment.
Under Obama’s National Service proposals all public middle and high school students MUST perform community service, such as picking up trash, for 50 hours a week every year.
I’d rather do public service by getting filthy rich and providing jobs.
Just when I found myself in the unusual and uncomfortable position of agreeing with Gabriel, out comes a bizarre zinger like that. I feel so much better now.
Abject nonsense. (I am tempted to use the adjective “risible”, a very popular term in these parts.) Certainly, corporations are “inventions of the state”, but so what? To the extent that some of them receive “privileges and subsidies” it is due to the hijacking of the legislature; it is not an inherent attribute of the corporate form and is certainly not necesary condition to their continued existence. Corporations arose to fill a legitimate need: the ability to aggregate large amounts of capital for business purposes. Some enterprises simply need large amounts of capital; you can’t start a car factory (for example) without it. That capital may be held in a corporate vehicle, but that doesn’t make it any less the property of its contributors (the shareholders). And the fact that some of the stewards of that capital (i.e., management) misuse the power it affords (an entirely human action) doesn’t render the corporate form illegitmate or inherently evil; it simply means that we need a better class of legislator who will resist the temptations.
hennesli is clearly a Marxist (apologies to Guy), attempting to hijack the libertarian name for his purposes without even an understanding of libertarian principles.
Guy, I have already conceded on the lack of evidence, but ‘accusations’? It’s not as if anyone is suggesting that O be put in jail on suspicion of being a Marxist.
Now let me see if I understand you: are you taking an issue with a person simply being called a Marxist without evidence, or with his presumed and unproven Marxism as a reason for not voting for him?
Laird:
You accept too easily the canard that perpetual institutions (Corporations) are “inventions of the State.”
Perhaps the best description of the development of perpetual institutions and their role in an “Open Access” society (such as those of the Western Experience) is found in the work of Douglas North et al. summarized in NBER Working paper 12795. Take a look if there is time.
And – there is still this mystifying reification of “The State,” as if it were some sort of organic being capable of procreation, thought, ideas, interests, etc., let alone imagination needed to “invent.”
When that term was used to represent the effective coalition of the dominant (usually by capacity for violence) members of a social organization, it could be used as “short-hand” for the interests and actions of the coalition and its principals, who were indeed quite organic in their existence (well noted by Louis XIV’s Bon Mot).
“Where is there any evidence that Obama has himself at any point in his life adopted Marxian analyses or categories?”
That question simply cannot be taken seriously.
Growing up in South Wales in the 50s
I was up to my armpits in Marxists.
All different shades
One schoolfriend was named Maxim, by his Marxist Trade Union official parents.
And it wasn’t short for Maximillian either
It stood alone Jeeves!
But the crazy thing is, I used to find, is that most Marxists have never read Marx.
They’ve read someone writing about Marx, but never the fella himself.
So they just trot out an up the workers, slack brained no nothing about economics, the State knows best, it can solve all our problems rubbish over and over again.
Split hairs if you like, y’all
Obama is so far to the left as to make Tony Blair look like Ronald Reagan.
He needs very careful watching.
RRS, I don’t “accept too easily” the statement that corporations are creations of the state; that’s just historical and legal fact. The first corporations were created by kings and national governments (i.e., the East India Tea Company). Governmental action is required to organize a corporation, as opposed to older business forms (sole proprietorships and partnerships) which can be created unilaterally by individuals. Admittedly, the incorporation process has been greatly simplified in recent decades, so today it is just a ministerial function, not an Act of Congress or the state legislature, but it’s still “state action.”
Also, originally ordinary corporations did not automatically have perpetual life. Within living memory (of some older lawyers) the norm was that a corporate charter expired after 50 years unless it was renewed.
I was objecting to hennesli’s other points, but not to his description of corporate provenance. That’s simple fact.
I find that in most cases it is best to look at people’s attitude and philosophical approach rather than their precise policies. (Obama is a case in point, I doubt he has any specific policies that he would stick to if it proved inexpedient). Some people absolutely can’t stand any form of authority, no matter how mild, whilst simultaneously betraying a lust to boss everyone around. I knew who these people were at school and I know who they are now. The most important work I ever read for my political development (scripture excepted) is Lord of the Flies.
Some of these people are self-described “Libertarians”. That I hold to. Obviously, I wasn’t claiming that all Libertarians are. I don’t even allege that of the commentators here, even JP, though the comment boxers are another story. Guy Herbert isn’t either, he just thinks that fraternising with such people and flaunting it is a mark of urbanity.
Well, if hennesli speaks for Obama – then the proof is in hennesli’s comment. It is very explicit.
I, of course, haven’t wasted my time looking for Obama’s opinions in detail, it would be probably a difficult task, as he mostly utters meaningless platitudes. But hennesli, an admirer, has probably done that, and did us a service by enlighting us on the matter.
Totally wrong.
Marx was a political agitator. Read the “Communist Manifesto” – the first thing he wrote.
His “learned”, “economic philosophy” was just an attept to rationalize his quest for power.
That he failed, himself, to grab power doesn’t mean he was an harmless intellectual. He laid a detailed road map for violent revolution. The Russian communists (and others elsewhere) just implemented it. (He probably was impractical, personnaly).
If one was to argue that Obama isn’t a Marxist because he doesn’t advocate a violent proletarian revolution, and dictatorship, one would have a point.
Obama seeks dictatorial powers through legislation – this is a litlle bit different from the Marxist programme.
Yes, and no. Democrats routinely score more than 80 percent of the Black vote. So, really, you’re only able to show that about half of the remaining Black population is voting on race.
I think we saw most black voters desert Mrs.Clinton for Obama. I think we can guess about 80% or more voted just on race.
Bill and Hillary had long histories of being very generous to blacks. Bill was called our first black President by blacks.
They deserted Hillary, and villified Bill, in droves when a brown face appearing in the race.
Like Adolph Hitler exhorted his followers: “Think with your blood!”
That’s our current reality. I don’t like it either.
Laird:
My apologies for apparently upsetting you.
However, at 84 with over 55 years at the bar, I am one of those “older” lawyers, with an extensive background in the laws of business organizations, both historical and functional.
Let me suggest that we consider how modern corporations came to have perpetual existence available, as part of an evolution from, say, the Massachusetts Business Trust, or the earliest forms of the Joint Stock Companies of the Dutch.
The role of perpetual institutions was not derived from the “State,” be it Louis XIV or the Republic of Venice. It derived from the composite actions of individuals, who were equally the force behind their evolving legal status (and sometimes demise).
We might as well accept that the Church was invented by the heirarchy of the various priesthoods.
Apologies again for the pedantic tone.
Brett L is right…we use marxist/socialist as a shorthand for ‘STATIST’ because no one really uses that term here in the U.S. (the media not being smart enough or honest enough to want to use it since statists are “normal” and everyone to the right of them are a part of the “vast right-wing conspiracy”).
Use it and you end up in arguments you don’t have time for. A Statist will just argue back rubbish and waste your good capitalist time.
But use Socialist, and you won’t get so much backsass from your Statist friends because they don’t mind being socialists—it sounds SO euro-weenie and cool to them.
Go figure. I do what works.
RRS, I don’t see any use in getting into an extended discussion on the history of the corporate form, and frankly I don’t see what we’re arguing about anyway. The point was just a throwaway, not particularly important to my argument, and I defer to your knowledge of history and your years at the bar (far more than my own). But still, the fact remains (and you don’t dispute) that one cannot form a corporation without filing the necessary documents with the Secretary of State, and every one of its powers and perogatives is defined by statute, all of which is the very definition of state involvement. That is all I meant.
(Oh, and don’t worry; I’m not the least bit “upset”. Just kind of surprised at this stange little detour we’ve gotten onto.)
Jacob,
I, of course, haven’t wasted my time looking for Obama’s opinions in detail,…
Well that is what I am complaining about here. A lot of the above is condemning the man on the basis of a firm view of his opinions and motivation not derived from any examination of what they actually are but from third party interpretations and guilt by association.
You provide a case in point, Well, if hennesli speaks for Obama – then the proof is in hennesli’s comment.
There’s nothing in what hennesli says to indicate either that he speaks for Obama or that he thinks he does. In fact hennesli makes it clear that he does not agree with Obama. He praises what he takes to be the Senator’s (standard for a Democrat or any form of populist) attention to the interests of the lower classes, but he doesn’t think Obabma’s position is one of principle:
Of all the candidates, at least Obama acknowledges the very real issues of suffering amongst, and economic exploitation of, the poor and middle class by wealthy interests, and recognizes the fact that the poor and middle class are in desperate need of help. At least he correctly recognizes that the present system is indeed screwing over the vast majority of people in this country. Most of his solutions may be fundamentally flawed, in that they attempt to treat only the symptoms, poverty and despair, rather than the disease, the state,…
Dissatisfaction with the “present system” does not make one a Marxist either. Even characterising capitalism as a system and rejecting it is not quite sufficient to make one a Marxist. And hennesli does not in fact claim that Obama does that, merely that he recognises “the system is screwing over the vast majority of people” – the standard populist claim of any ‘change’ candidate, left or right. I think jennesli os projecting too.
If any candidate of a major party in America were ever to have repudiated capitalism even by implication I suspect the direct quote would be widely available.
I’d like to know if Obama has some ideas, and as a foreigner, I have a direct interest in his foreign policy, but all I’ve seen so far is that he has been a brilliant media politician, who has permitted people to view him as the sum of their hopes or fears as they choose.
Guy, sure, it would be much more constructive for everyone if there was actual evidence for or against, but unfortunately no such hard evidence is forthcoming, and I strongly suspect that it is not for lack of searching. Jacob didn’t bother to dig, and neither did I, but I can bet you good money that there are people that did, and still do. So all we are left with is “guilt” by association. Yes, it would be horrible if we were discussing a criminal case, but we are not. What you seem to be ignoring is that no one is entitled to the job of President. It is not the Olympics where a hard evidence of doping is required to deny a person his hard won medal. Public office is not a prize awarded to the “best person”. I think that in the race for public office a mere suspicion is reason good enough, in the absence of further evidence, and all other considerations being equal (for example, if you could show that there are equally valid suspicions of Marxism against McCain, then you would have a much better point). And, like I said above, it’s not as if we are out to imprison anyone for being a Marxist. We are merely suggesting that there are enough suspicions of O being one, to give one a very long pause before endorsing him or voting for him.
“a brilliant media politician”
Sort of. Let’s get objective here. He’s not an ill-looking chap but he’s no George Clooney either. He is a better public-speaker than Bush but then so am I. He is nothing. He is a cypher built-up by the media. That is why he’s a great media politician. He is (or at least people’s perception of what he is – same thing in politics) is darling of the media but this is because the media have made him that not because he had the intrinsic charm to win them around.
George Bush is no genius but he’s not the sort of dumbass he’s routinely portrayed as. The GWB is thick as a brick meme is just a meme just as the Barack Obama is a brilliant young hope for the Nation meme is just a meme.
OK, here’s a test. The media believes Obama is a skilled orator. Will they believe that after he’s dead? Or will his skilled oration be seen as vacous waffle in a way that the speeches of Churchill and MLK and even Abe Lincoln aren’t?
Nick nailed it.
I have a longer comment awaiting unsmitation (my spellchecker just suggested ‘resuscitation’ instead – how appropriate).
I would too, but unfortunately he is not telling – I wonder why.
Still smited.
Laird: You are quite right
Thanks, Nick. Obama is a politician for whom the media can showcase THEIR brilliance. Not the other way around.
RRS & Laird,
Corporations may be ancient in origin, but limited liability for them is definitely a creation of government. What it amounts to is the government extending rights to corporations that are denied to individuals acting in their own name(s).
Guy,
My problem with Obama is not what he claims, but we he refuses (or needs to be drawn kicking and screaming) to reject. I have the misfortune by living in a swing state to hear a lot of media vigorously spinning Obama’s pronouncements. He never says anything. We are forced to speculate.
Ambiguity is the mother of deception.
Actually, that should be ‘deception is the mother of ambiguity’, but that doesn’t ring quite so well.
Of course not. One could be a libertarian.
But if we accept hennesli’s comment as correct – then Obama’s critique is more of the Marxist type (workers exploited by big bad capitalist corporations, government coming to their rescue).
One can also judge Obama by his record of voting in the Senate (most leftist of all senators) and by his associates – Bill Ayers. And by the few polici proposals – government health care, more taxes “on the rich” etc.
A Marxist ? Literally – not much, but as leftist as they get in the US.
Someone said above that Senator Obama is not a true Marxist – he is a follower of Lenin and Stalin.
This may be a return of the “good Marx” myth. Actually both Lenin and Stalin were both Marxists – although Marx was vague about what society would be like after the revolution “I will not write menus for the restaurants of the future” (or some such when he was attacking the “utopean socialists”, who actually described what they were trying to achieve and, therefore, were open to attack by people showing that their aims did not make sense – unlike vague “scientific socialists” like Karl).
However, Karl Marx did give some guidance as to the socialist stage (before advanced communism was achieved) and both “Lenin” and “Stalin” tried to act on this guidance as best they could.
Guy Herbert.
“My question remains unanswered”.
I told you he had been trained as a Marxist from his most early years (by his mother and by Frank).
He has also worked as part of the movement most of his adult life – Woods Fund with Bill Ayers, Holy Trinity Liberation Theology with Dr Wright and so on.
It is actually rare to have so much evidence, there is normally more room for doubt .
What do you want, a signed confession? When one of the most basic rules that modern American Marxists (of the political sort – not the moron sort) follow is to never admit what they are (call yourselves “critical” ….. or call yourselves whatever, but never call yourselves Marxists or even use the word socialist).
Actually I flatter myself that I could get you a signed confession (and a lot of information that I would be interested in myself, as confessions are of little interest to me) – but only by using the methods that John McCain has a hissy fit over (partly because he knows that, in the end, they work – in the end even he broke to some extent, although he did try to hang himself after he signed the document).
The McCain line is that we must never use the methods of evil to fight evil (perhaps it is just as well he was never involved in the looking glass world).
So O.K. “it would be wrong” (or whatever I am supposed to say). But I am NOT calling for Obama to be tortured, I am simply asking for the “rumours spread by his enemies” (i.e. the hard facts of his life) to be widely presented – on the television networks, in the newspapers (and so on).
“No, not good enough Paul – I will not act till they have gained total power and, for example, eliminated most dissenting media”.
Well that is too late then.
Much like the people who refused to believe that the Cambridge spies were Marxists – in spite of all their Marxist links.
It was “they grow up and changed” (for which the evidence was very poor – people who really do give up Marxism go through a great crises of the soul, it is not like putting on a different coloured shirt).
Or “they are so well educated and cultured, and talk so well and fit in any company and are so friendly”.
All of which was not evidence in their favour at all – but was treated as if it was.
The most extreme example was Kim Philby – his own father was a socialist (although not a formal Marxist) with a fanatical hatred of Britain, who (for example) had betrayed British allies in Arabia (thus helping put the Wahabbi House of Saud in power – something he seems to have done, in part at least, just out of spite).
But this was not thought any bar to his son entering the service. Had the son shown a clear reasoned objection to his father’s philosophy I could have understood it – but all he did was write a few pro Franco articles. His conversion should not have convinced anybody (as there was none of the clear signs of someone who has rejected leftism) and some people were not convinced (so it is not hidesight). But their doubts were rejected.
Still I am getting off the point.
Obama has not even pretended to have had a great change of heart.
It is all kept in a fog with a few focus group tested policies presented.
Of course the real problem is not Senator Obama – on his own he would be nothing (and not worth bothering with).
The real problem is the vast power that both Marxist and fellow travellers have achieved (via a Gramsci like line of policy) in such things as the “education system” (those “practical” people who think what goes on in schools and universities does not matter are just flat wrong) and the media.
They do NOT have full control – but it would not take much for them to get it.
Already “the more educated someone is the more likely they are to vote Democrat” (a claim, whether true or not, made in today’s Times of London). Unfortunately the writer showed that wonderful capacity some people have to miss the point.
He thought the point was that the Republicans should change in order to attract “educated” people – he never questioned what exactly this “education” was, and what sort of Democrat it was intented to make people more likely to vote for.
He did not have to know anything about Gramsci.
All he would have had to read is John Locke – specifically the commens in relation to William Penn attacking the idea of government funded education.
Such education would be likely to be captured by people who would wish to crush all dissenting opinion “in the bud”.
So the more years of this “education”…..
“You are bluring the distinction between a Marxist and other forms of collectivist”.
True – it is just the present threat that is broadly Marxist in form.
Well I wrote a long comment – but it has not appeared.
And people complain about double posts – sometimes if you do not keep banging “send” whenever there is a holdup nothing gets through.
Still I will make a few points.
Someone said Senator Obama was not a Marxist he was a follower of Lenin and Stalin (which sounded like a return of the “good Marx, bad followers” myth to me).
So I explained that both “Lenin” and “Stalin” were Marxists, and explained why Marx was so vague about details of the post revolution situation even in the socialist stage (the I am not a utopian socialist I am a scientific socialist dodge).
No I am not going to type all the stuff again.
Midwesterner:
If I say to you “lend me 100 Dollars, and if my business venture goes off O.K. I will pay you back – but if it does not you can not have my house or other assets” and you AGREE to this that is “limited liability”.
If you do business with a commercial venture that has “Ltd” after it (in Britain) or “Inc” after the name (in the United States) that is what you are agreeing to in relation to the shareholder.
There were lots of limited liability ventures (in various contractual forms) before the British Act of 1856, although the Gladstone Act of the 1840’s (yes I have forgotten the year) made the legal position more confusing than it had been.
Do not want to do business with a limited liability venture – then do not (my own father was cheated by a limited liability concern – and really cheated as Mr Slater used fraud).
But most shareholders are not going to want to be like Lloyds names.
Guy Herbert.
“My questioned remains unanswered”.
A Marxist training from his most early years (by the mother and by Frank) and most of his adult life in the movement – whether with Bill Ayers via the Woods Fund, or with Liberation Theology with Dr Wright.
Actually this is far more evidence than one normally gets – there is normally far more room for doubt.
Do you demand a signed confession? When one of the basic things that American Marxists (the political kind, not the moron kind) is to not admit what they are.
I did write a lot of other stuff – but I am not going to write it all out again.
Partly because I am tired, and partly because I do not believe it would do any good.
Some people will only believe once certain things have actually happend (for examplethe existing vast power in education and the media being turned into almost total control of education and the media).
But I am not interested in that sort of burden of proof. It is useless from a political point of view – in that it means things can not be prevented before they happen.
I am NOT calling upon Senator Obama to be tortured (for a confession, or even for information – although I would dearly like certain information that he is likely to have), I am simply calling for the “rumours spread by his enemies” (i.e. the hard facts of his life) to be widely presented – in the networks and in the newspapers.
But such is the level of Gramsci style permination of ideas and attitudes that already exists, this is unlikely.
Although, of course, John Locke suggested that government education would destroy dissenting opinions “in the bud” centuries before Gramsci was born.
So it is not just a mutated Marxist thing.
“The more years of education someone has the more likely they are to vote….” (as a writer just claimed, rightly or wrongly, in the Times of London) is not an argument that “conservatism should change to appeal to educated people” (classic missing the point), it is a sign of what this “education” is and what it is for.
Well I wrote a long comment – but it has not appeared.
And people complain about double posts – sometimes if you do not keep banging “send” whenever there is a holdup nothing gets through.
Still I will make a few points.
Someone said Senator Obama was not a Marxist he was a follower of Lenin and Stalin (which sounded like a return of the “good Marx, bad followers” myth to me).
So I explained that both “Lenin” and “Stalin” were Marxists, and explained why Marx was so vague about details of the post revolution situation even in the socialist stage (the I am not a utopian socialist I am a scientific socialist dodge).
No I am not going to type all the stuff again.
Midwesterner:
If I say to you “lend me 100 Dollars, and if my business venture goes off O.K. I will pay you back – but if it does not you can not have my house or other assets” and you AGREE to this that is “limited liability”.
If you do business with a commercial venture that has “Ltd” after it (in Britain) or “Inc” after the name (in the United States) that is what you are agreeing to in relation to the shareholder.
There were lots of limited liability ventures (in various contractual forms) before the British Act of 1856, although the Gladstone Act of the 1840’s (yes I have forgotten the year) made the legal position more confusing than it had been.
Do not want to do business with a limited liability venture – then do not (my own father was cheated by a limited liability concern – and really cheated as Mr Slater used fraud).
But most shareholders are not going to want to be like Lloyds names.
Guy Herbert.
“My questioned remains unanswered”.
A Marxist training from his most early years (by the mother and by Frank) and most of his adult life in the movement – whether with Bill Ayers via the Woods Fund, or with Liberation Theology with Dr Wright.
Actually this is far more evidence than one normally gets – there is normally far more room for doubt.
Do you demand a signed confession? When one of the basic things that American Marxists (the political kind, not the moron kind) is to not admit what they are.
I did write a lot of other stuff – but I am not going to write it all out again.
Partly because I am tired, and partly because I do not believe it would do any good.
Some people will only believe once certain things have actually happend (for examplethe existing vast power in education and the media being turned into almost total control of education and the media).
But I am not interested in that sort of burden of proof. It is useless from a political point of view – in that it means things can not be prevented before they happen.
I am NOT calling upon Senator Obama to be tortured (for a confession, or even for information – although I would dearly like certain information that he is likely to have), I am simply calling for the “rumours spread by his enemies” (i.e. the hard facts of his life) to be widely presented – in the networks and in the newspapers.
But such is the level of Gramsci style permination of ideas and attitudes that already exists, this is unlikely.
Although, of course, John Locke suggested that government education would destroy dissenting opinions “in the bud” centuries before Gramsci was born.
So it is not just a mutated Marxist thing.
“The more years of education someone has the more likely they are to vote….” (as a writer just claimed, rightly or wrongly, in the Times of London) is not an argument that “conservatism should change to appeal to educated people” (classic missing the point), it is a sign of what this “education” is and what it is for.
Well I wrote a long comment – but it has not appeared.
And people complain about double posts – sometimes if you do not keep banging “send” whenever there is a holdup nothing gets through.
Still I will make a few points.
Someone said Senator Obama was not a Marxist he was a follower of Lenin and Stalin (which sounded like a return of the “good Marx, bad followers” myth to me).
So I explained that both “Lenin” and “Stalin” were Marxists, and explained why Marx was so vague about details of the post revolution situation even in the socialist stage (the I am not a utopian socialist I am a scientific socialist dodge).
No I am not going to type all the stuff again.
Midwesterner:
If I say to you “lend me 100 Dollars, and if my business venture goes off O.K. I will pay you back – but if it does not you can not have my house or other assets” and you AGREE to this that is “limited liability”.
If you do business with a commercial venture that has “Ltd” after it (in Britain) or “Inc” after the name (in the United States) that is what you are agreeing to in relation to the shareholder.
There were lots of limited liability ventures (in various contractual forms) before the British Act of 1856, although the Gladstone Act of the 1840’s (yes I have forgotten the year) made the legal position more confusing than it had been.
Do not want to do business with a limited liability venture – then do not (my own father was cheated by a limited liability concern – and really cheated as Mr Slater used fraud).
But most shareholders are not going to want to be like Lloyds names.
Guy Herbert.
“My questioned remains unanswered”.
A Marxist training from his most early years (by the mother and by Frank) and most of his adult life in the movement – whether with Bill Ayers via the Woods Fund, or with Liberation Theology with Dr Wright.
Actually this is far more evidence than one normally gets – there is normally far more room for doubt.
Do you demand a signed confession? When one of the basic things that American Marxists (the political kind, not the moron kind) is to not admit what they are.
I did write a lot of other stuff – but I am not going to write it all out again.
Partly because I am tired, and partly because I do not believe it would do any good.
Some people will only believe once certain things have actually happend (for examplethe existing vast power in education and the media being turned into almost total control of education and the media).
But I am not interested in that sort of burden of proof. It is useless from a political point of view – in that it means things can not be prevented before they happen.
I am NOT calling upon Senator Obama to be tortured (for a confession, or even for information – although I would dearly like certain information that he is likely to have), I am simply calling for the “rumours spread by his enemies” (i.e. the hard facts of his life) to be widely presented – in the networks and in the newspapers.
But such is the level of Gramsci style permination of ideas and attitudes that already exists, this is unlikely.
Although, of course, John Locke suggested that government education would destroy dissenting opinions “in the bud” centuries before Gramsci was born.
So it is not just a mutated Marxist thing.
“The more years of education someone has the more likely they are to vote….” (as a writer just claimed, rightly or wrongly, in the Times of London) is not an argument that “conservatism should change to appeal to educated people” (classic missing the point), it is a sign of what this “education” is and what it is for.
One point (of many I wrote about) I will write about here again.
With his background if Barack Obama had rejected Marxism I would expect to see a whole series of signs.
None of which are there.
When I typed “likely to vote….” I should have made clear the Times writer was saying the people with many years “education” are likely to vote Democrat.
Although he (as far as know) missed the point, and also did not understand that they were more likely to vote for a certain type of Democrat – sadly a type that is becomming more powerful.
Last comments on Guy Herbert question.
I think what Guy is looking for is a list of openly Marxist policies with Barack Obama’ name signed at the bottom.
I am not being insulting to Guy (although we do not get on), I would also like such a document.
But I doubt it exists – as it would have gone against all his training for Barack Obama to sign such a document.
“So what does it matter then – after all, according to you, the new Chicago Machine is full of Marxists, but Chicago is NOT a Marxist city”.
There is a difference between having influence over a city government and over national government.
There are lots of things a city government just can not do – and that to try to do would just make them fall flat on their faces (something serious Comrades would wish to avoid, they have no wish to be discredited).
So some things can get done – but nothing like what can be achieved given national power.
And remember the United States is the main veto force on various international agreements.
For example, on getting rid of freedom of speech (although Orwellian language is used for such proposed agreements).
The fall of the United States (or what is left of it) means a lot more than the fall of one country.
Midwesterner:
As Laird rightly put it, to raise the point on perpetual institutions was a digression.
Your comment like so many others treats with “Governments” as if they are organic beings whether called “The State,” “The Magistrate,” or whatever. No “Government” developed the practice of Limited Liability. That arose from the accords of individuals in their private transactions.
Consider how the concept of “liability” (particularly Tort Liability) arose and evolved differently in the laws of the several societies today organized as nations.
“Governments” do not create their own constitutions.
“Governments” do not generate the laws within their operations.
People, individually, or in groups, usually on the basis of some underlying available recourse to violence (for power) use the mechanism we call “Government” to facilitate their objectives in their various inter-relations.
That is what we are seeing in the “Russian Government” today.
RRS,
No, actually it treats ‘government’ as any organization with a monopoly on the use of force.
If limited liability “arose from the accords of individuals in their private transactions” then you need to explain how a pedestrian killed by a truck with neglected brakes was “in accord” with the rich owner of the (limited liability) trucking company walking away from the settlement with only the loss of his one-truck company in a bankruptcy. This is why we must have so many vehicle operation, maintenance and insurance bureaucracies making laws and rules (DMV, CDL, NTSB, NHTSA, etc) telling us every little thing. Removing the limits on liability would only restrict activities with actuarially established risks being transfered to non-consenting persons.
There are several illusions regarding LL. One is that small risks of big losses would put many industries out of business. That is wrong, actuarials are experienced to distributing cost across pools of insureds. Another mistake is that limited liability is between parties of a contract. No, that is appropriately addressed within the contract. Limited liability is about people who do not consent to harm. Would Union Carbide stockholders have neglected UC’s egregious misbehavior in pursuit of larger profit margins if they were liable (and needed an underwriter to protect them from) personal losses?
Clearly not. The underwriter would have priced the insurance to reflect the risks the company was taking with its neighbor’s lives. Limited liability is just one more form of redistribution of the consequences of one’s actions onto people who are not part of the activity.
I want to make clear that what I am talking about is practice that an association of owners (stockholders) can declare their association bankrupt (no remaining assets) while they, the true owners, are sheltered from the consequences of the actions of the company they own and profit from. It is asymmetrical redistribution of risk and reward.
Spot on.
Education is Latin, a good education is Greek. Chuck in a bit of Divinity, History, Philosophy Maths, Natural Philosophy according to taste, but the basis of a genuine western education is Classics.
Frankly, I am at a complete loss to understand what credentials Obama has to be more educated than Sarah Palin, or anyone else for that matter. Because he knows Law? That’s training not education. Because he spent a few years reading Radical Literature in translation? Well, colour me impressed.
The American political class appears to have all the downsides of a political Aristocracy (the snobbery, the selective obtuseness, the nastiness) with none of the upsides.
“Education”, as now defined, appears to consist of nothing more than holding the right opinions. Educated people, for example, believe in evolution. How, many of them have any understanding of it beyond a GCSE level? How many would care to develop one? It’s like a caricature of medieval Catholic University (except, of course, people there actually leanred some bloody Latin before they set about regurgitating the Sentences)
The only educated person I’m aware of in politics is Boris Johnson. Aside from that, it’s just a bunch of ill-educated people making snide comments about the poor education of others. If someone goes to Bob Jones U and spends a few years reading scripture and the patristic fathers, I can’t see why some div who did a PHD on Saul Alinsky gets a pass to look down on them.
I myself am not educated. Indeed, as a youth I passed up a chance to become so and opted to do German. I have some Hebrew, but no Aramaic so I can’t even claim to be educated in another tradition. But at least, unlike the Obama hordes, I would never think to look down on the governor of a state who has achieved far more than I ever will because I went to a more prestigious university than her.
Nice line, Gabriel; I think you have that about right.
Wisconsin is in play this year?
Strangely enough, so is Colorado. The last time a Democrat won here in a Presidential election, it was Ross Perot’s fault.
Guy:
So far, what Barry O has said about foreign policy was:
1) End the Iraq war now. Or maybe not, now that I’m the candidate and have to pander to someone besides the left.
2) Make nice with Chavez and Ahmadenejad, or at least give them lots of photo ops for their domestic political use, without demanding concessions.
3) Invade Pakistan (thus further destabilizing a regime that, at the time, was at least somewhat cooperative with our hunt for AQ)
4) Take credit for anything that goes right in Georgia, even though he wasn’t President yet.
5) Repudiate NAFTA and other free-trade agreements (CAFTA, etc.) at least when talking to the idiot populist wing of his own party. Again, he changes his tune to fit his audience.
It’s pretty thin. I’d love to know where he is with NATO expansion, whether he’d commit US resources to pacification of Darfur, whether he’d commit to military aid to Taiwan in the event of an attack by the PRC, whether he’d continue installation of TMD in Poland/Ukraine/Czech Republic, or how he’d have reacted if an EP-3 were attacked by ChiCom aircraft in international airspace and forced down on Hainan Island. I can speculate and be pretty confident but I don’t know for a fact.
I’m not a single-issue voter anymore. When I was, my single issue was gun laws[1] and I know EXACTLY what Obama had to say about the subject. That’s actually about the only voting record he had.
[1] As issues go, it’s a decent predictor of how a candidate views the relationship between individuals and government. Occasionally you get curve balls like stopped-clock Huckabee, but in the main gun grabbers are more likely to see the rest of us as requiring constant babysitting.
Paul,
According to Mayor Daley, there is no Chicago Machine.
(Hat tip to Second City Cop, where Daley is loved and respected by his police.)
Sunfish, from your link:
We are not as close as Colorado but my vibe from living here is that things are going to tighten up a lot and we will be in the margins of the last two presidential elections come November. Margins of victory – 2004, 0.38% and 2000, 0.22%
My expectation is that it will go narrowly McCain/Palin because we have much more the union/women’s rights sorts of liberals than touchy, feely, common good sorts of liberals. But that is just a guess and it will be very close.
I’ll elaborate on the sorts of liberals we have here. The essence of the Obama v Hillary and now Obama/Biden v McCain/Palin campaign has been anti women. The campaign against Palin took all of a fraction of a second to turn into essentially ‘a woman’s place is in the home’. I am astounded by this and further amazed that they are finding so many left wing women in the media and party to pick up the line. I guess the nature of special interest group politics is that all competitors are the enemy, getting into power and authority is all that matters. Pure cynicism.
The worst thing the left can do right now is throw Biden under the bus and ‘discover’ Hillary, but they are just dumb enough to think it would fool women voters into forgetting the reflexive misogyny that is their first instinct. The choice of Palin was inspired from a Wisconsin-swing state perspective. I don’t think it is random chance that Palin is playing up the ‘hockey mom’ bit when you look at the four states listed in my first link at September 5, 2008 02:42 PM. Every single one of them is in the WCHA, as is Alaska. We have hundreds of thousands of hunters, a great many of them women. The list goes on. If interest group politics is going to be the Democrat strategy, then McCain/Palin will whoop their ass on their own turf.
I am not entirely comfortable with that reality (to make a substantial understatement).
You saw that too.
Colorado is a little different. Our leftists are the “hope and change” morons. Hillary couldn’t get the traction here. Most of our delegates went for Obama (although in a show of political courage they waited until it was pretty much a done deal. I’m impressed.) The people who would vote based upon whether or not someone hunts and races snowmobiles already lean Republican anyway.
What impressed me (not in a good way) was the behavior of the Obama people on the internet. With my romantic history, I should be about the worst misanthrope and misogynist on the internet.
Except that, when it comes to actual nastiness, I’m nowhere near the sensitive and compassionate people on Daily Kos or DU. You’d think that the female 51% of the species conspired to kill their puppies or something.
In a blatant play for sympathy, I give you this link to information about the last (2004) election. Pay particular attention to the graphic on the right showing visits by candidates and dollars spent. When you look at the dollars spent, realize we are not an expensive media market. Those dollars bought a lot of ‘other party boo hiss bad’ and inflicted it on us non-stop.
We get a steady parade of candidate visits. I think we even had one or more today. I’ve long since passed my tolerance level. I would like to just send the four finalists from the two parties into the north woods with deer (or moose) rifles and swear in the winner.
Things are bad all over. We had to put up with a week of Obamapalooza here. I personally thought it sending it to Denver was an attempt to sway a swing state rather than because Denver was especially well-suited to hosting that sort of convention.
I wasn’t going to vote for McCain. I expected him to pick Romney (who would get my vote ten minutes after never) or Huckabee (who IMHO is an anti-abortion John Edwards). Then he had to go and pick Sarahcuda. I heard about the “Troopergate” scandal, and that of all things made me a huge fan of hers in spite of policy differences between me and her.
Think about it: start with a state trooper who: a, tased a pre-teen child for giggles; b, drove drunk in a marked squad car; c, shot a moose without a license; and d, threatened to kill his then FIL if the FIL helped his then-wife hire a divorce lawyer.
Would you want a cop with that pattern of both bad judgement and actual criminality working in your area?
Except the then-commissioner of AST wouldn’t dump the trooper. I don’t think he even reassigned him, never mind put him on 60 days pending. If a chief won’t maintain order within his own department, he needs to not be the chief anymore.
You’ve heard of “blue walls of silence” and “thin blue lines,” the idea that cops will ALWAYS support other cops, regardless of the facts, law, morality, ethics, or right and wrong of any given situation. I don’t want to waste bandwidth on what I think of that bit of folklore, but apply the idea to Troopergate.
Between talking to co-workers and participating in other online discussions (including one forum completely closed to non-police visitors), I have not yet seen one single cop defend either Monaghan or Wooten. If a cop is so dirty that other cops won’t even give him the benefit of the doubt, shouldn’t he be fired? And why is the MSM sticking up for him or attacking her for dumping the chief who protected him?
Did the Obamidiots actually intend to defend dirty cops and domestic violence, or only when there are cheap political points to be made?
Paul, maybe you were right. The money quote:
I don’t know if that’s necessarily Marxist, as it’s been a long time since I’ve read anything by that assclown. But the quote does tell you what he thinks of individual efforts.
Sunfish.
Well perhaps Mayor Daley was not totally lying – as the Chicago Machine today is different from the time of his father.
I suppose it could be argued that the present Mayor Daley has coopted the Marxists (rather than fighting them in the streets as his father did). I would argue that the Marxists have coopted the Machine.
But then an intelligent person (such as Guy Herbert) could simply reply “but Chicago is nothing like North Korea” and they would be correct.
Midwesterner:
You have missed the point.
People who choose to do business with a limited liabilty concern KNOW that if the business does not have money or assets to pay them, they can not demand the houses (and so on) of the shareholders.
It is exacly the same as if a made a deal with you “if my business venture comes off I will pay you out of the profits, but if it does not you can not have my house”.
If you AGREE to this (which by doing business with a limited liability enterprise, you have) then it is libertarian.
Nothing to do with a government granted power.
You have simply got it wrong.
Although, almost needless to say, I totally oppose both subsides to business enterprises (corporate or not) and the vast number of regulations that “protect” corporate managers from the shareholders i.e. share OWNERS.
This is where libertarians should attack.
Final comment on Senator Obama.
If people are interested in this man they should read such works as the two works of biography he has written about himself, and the works critical of him.
These started with “The Audacity of Deceit” (itself a play on his second book “The Audacity of Hope”, the title being taken from the Rev Dr Wright). And then went on to “Obama Nation” (to which the Obama camp put out a forty two page rebuttal – which was in turn disputed by the author) and “The Case Against Barack Obama” (to which, as far as I know, no Obama counter case has been issued).
This man is well researched – far better than most of his kind have been before reaching positions of power.
Although I doubt that one voter in a hundred knows much about him.
By the way by “his kind” I am not talking about the colour of Senator Obama’s skin – before anyone plays that game (the game that was used so well to knock out Senator Clinton).
No, Paul. I have not missed your point. You are simply wrong. Just to help you out a bit, I will point out to you that the pedestrian in the example at September 4, 2008 08:36 PM holds no stock in the truck and has never entered into any agreement with anybody who ever had anything to do with the truck.
The pedestrian was an innocent third party in a cross walk who’s heirs were awarded a truck with a dent in the front bumper when the limited liability owner declared the trucking company bankrupt instead of paying the settlement. That way he wouldn’t lose his other businesses. That is redistribution of risk from the owner to the pedestrian in the crosswalk.
This redistribution is the prime mover behind most of our regulatory environment. When owners are sheltered from the consequences of their recklessness, regulation is the only way to make them behave responsibly. Or at least try. Our businesses should be regulated by the underwriters who insure them, not by government appointed bureaucracies.
There’s not much continuity from one machine to the next, but that doesn’t change the fact that the two machines were both machines.
Look at how RMD runs the city. The Chicago Police Department, during his tenure as mayor, brought in a type of promotion called a ‘merit’ promotion. Normally, promotions (at least to detective, sergeant, and lieutenant and possibly captain) were based entirely on competitive examination. Under Daley-appointed police superintendant Phil Cline, a practice was created in which 30% (possibly more than that) of any promotional class[1] would be promoted by means other than the exam. What would happen was that merit promotees would be nominated (by an unpublished process) and the nominations sent to the First Deputy Superintendant (traditionally a puppet of the mayor). One of the jokes was that the best way to get a merit promotion was to be active in the Hispanic Democratic Organization, which coincidentally was one of the major backers of Richie M’s first mayoral campaign.
CPD is also famous for “assignment by phone call.” What that means is that, if a politically-connected officer wants to go to some particular team or unit, he has his special friend call the officer in charge of that team and say “put my friend in.” In plain English, that means that assignments that work Monday-Friday during the day in neighborhoods with cheap or free parking and can lead to fast-track promotions or desireable overtime assignments are based upon who is owed a favor by an alderman rather than by seniority or competence.
These sorts of people are often shuffled into internal-affairs-type squads. Who better to prevent investigations into corruption than the investigators themselves?
Other city departments are worse.
I suspect the reason that Daley is pulling so hard for Obama is because an Obama-appointed US Attorney for the District of Northern Illinois will not make political corruption a priority. At least, not political corruption inside Cook County. God help any DuPage county commissioners who get caught committing any technical errors in their tax filings.
Chicago may have Marxists, and some might be prominent, but politically the city looks to me more like a central African-style kleptocracy than anything else.
I don’t know enough about Marxism to distinguish it from any other form of collectivism, not with any certainty. The last time I read anything by Marx it was because my alternative was to flunk a (required) Western Civilization class. Take my comments with that particular grain of salt.
[1] A group of people all promoted to the same rank at the same time, and who attended courses together to learn the duties of their new rank.
[2] A real political force in Chicago and other major cities. They’re the ones that required Obama to show up for 20 years in order to be taken seriously.