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Barack Romney or Mitt Obama… it does not matter a damn Well, contrary to my title it actually does matter a damn who wins the US election, even if policy-wise they are largely fungible.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who has called for scrapping President Barack Obama’s 2010 U.S. healthcare law, said in remarks aired on Sunday that he likes key parts of “Obamacare” despite his party’s loathing of it and wants to retain them.
I want Barack ObamaCare to win, or more accurately, I want Mitt RomneyCare to lose so that the Tea Party have a better chance of completely and utterly destroying the Republican establishment that decided to run a jackanapes like Romney. The objective I would like to see is that the Republican party either collapses completely to make room for something else or actually reinvents itself to make it worth voting for (also fine by me).
Romney is what happens when the Stupid Party (USA Branch) realise they only have to be ever so slightly less evil than the Evil Party (USA Branch) in order to get your vote.
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The question might be: Will Obama completely and utterly destroy the USA before the TEA party remakes the R party? As Heinlein said there is often no one you want to vote for, but there is always someone you want to vote against. I don’t think the country can take four more years of Obama.
Sheez!!!!
Gene, I think you are asking the wrong question: rather than “I don’t think the country can take four more years of Obama”, perhaps you should be pondering “is Romney going to change the direction the country has been heading for quite some time or is he just going to stay the course but move ahead slightly slower?”
In short, if you vote for Romney, make no mistake, you are voting for more of the same, just ever so slightly less of it.
Disaster is inevitable as the Ponzi scheme has reached the end of the cycle, so voting to put off the dark days is just wishful thinking. What does a ‘lesser evil’ vote mean? It means “Dear Republican Party: I endorse a wider role for the state in Healthcare, I endorse Bail Outs for banks and other well connected big businesses and I endorse even more of that splendid Drug War that has worked so well.”
That *is* what you will be voting for when you vote to ‘save’ the USA by supporting Romney. I wish it was not so, but that is the reality.
If Obama wins, the USA will have a vast unsupportable interventionist welfare state and a Tea Party fighting hard to remake politics in the USA. If Romney wins the USA will have a vast unsupportable interventionist welfare state and a Tea Party that will find it much harder to fight to remake politics in the USA.
That is why I want Romney to lose.
USA is screwed either way, so all I care about is seeing something built that might actually make things better in the long run because the short run is a write off and I see little value in prolonging the agony.
Perry,
Are you sure? Do you really want Obama to win?
To some extent I agree with you. I’m also inclined to agree with what Henry Kissinger said about the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s: “It’s a pity they can’t both lose.”
But four more years of Obama is a quite scary prospect, mainly because he doesn’t have to worry about re-election. Meanwhile, some of the people around him, the ones most likely pulling the strings, so to speak, really are quite scary.
It’s not just Obama: it’s Obama and his inner circle and a supine Congress. Romney may (or may not) be Obama-lite, but his winning gets rid of the current occupant and his advisors; no small thing since it marks Obama’s program as being electoral poison. And it’s possible that foreknowledge of just what a weak reed Romney will be will stimulate, not depress, Tea Party turnout, for the sake of the congressional races.
You can’t seriously think the Tea Party movement has any chance of doing that. Good candidates like Gary Johnson ran and were crushed by the party in the primaries because that is what the Republican faithful wanted. They wanted more of the same, only their own brand of big government.
Anecdote is not evidence, but my own Representative, David McKinley, ran as a Tea Party republican back in 2010. He said all the right anti-spending things, rode the wave of anti-Obama to Capitol Hill, and immediately voted for raising the debt limit, toed the party line on every issue, and his entire 2012 campaign boils down to “re-elect me or your Medicare and Social Security is at risk.” Look at the pictures from the Tea Party rallies and count all the bluehairs with signs demanding “Hands of My Medicare”
The Tea Party types may have a few vocal libertarian types, but most people that want smaller government want fewer taxes but their piece of the government pie left intact. Whatever movement the Tea Party once was has been co-opted (or corrupted) and all but absorbed into the body of the Republican party. That’s bad enough, but party politics in the US is little more than a spectator sport where one cheers for one’s favorite team, regardless of what they actually do policy-wise. There’s no rational political discourse any longer, having been replaced with slogans, vague charges against the other guy, and “well, you guys do it too.”
There’s no grassroots movement in the Republican party to be a smaller government party; there is only a momement to cut Democrat sacred cows. So long as the Republican special interests (namely defense spending and catering to the old) continue, all is good according to the GOP voters. There is going to be no collapse of the Republican party, no replacement, no third parties. The status quo is choose between a party running towards socialism and a party that is just walking towards it.
+++1 what PersonfromPorlock says.
Getting all wee-wee’d up about who will be elected President loses sight of what really matters in the US, which is the CONGRESS. The President does not have nearly the policy power that European readers may be accustomed to in their various forms of Prime Minister.
The President is the Chief Executive, his policy powers are limited and his spending powers are nil. As you can see in the curent situation, where a divided Congress leaves him more-or-less powerless to do anything domestic at all.
No one single person can embody all of the various political strains which drive the Republican polity. Just not possible. Fortunately, the US system does not invest any one single person with total policy power, or spending power. The outcome to watch is not so much the Presidential race, although having a Republican Presient will make life easier. What’s needed is a filibuster-proof Congress. The Stupids need to take the Senate with a good majority, and consolidate their hold on the House from sturdy to bullet-proof. There’s plenty-enough Tea-Party-like sentiment in the House to start moving things in the right direction.
If we get another 4 years of President Obama, with a Congress that’s about as Stupid as it is now, or more so, we will have 4 years of gridlock. That’s not a bug, that’s a feature. If the Stupids gain the Senate, there will be better progress, eg defunding Obamacare.
From where we are now, there’s just no real (domestic)downside to this election. But all of the possible major upsides are in the Congress, not the White House. The one danger of re-electing President Obama is that he would still have great scope to do (more) foreign-policy damage.
llater,
llamas
Seriously? No, not really. Not this side of systemic collapse. Which is why although I would love to see the Tea Party live up to its promise, I suspect that will only happen when things get worse. And as stopping things getting worse is no long an option due to years of ‘lesser evil’ voting, the sooner they get worse, the better.
Indeed.
omg i want that t-shirt!
I’m in total agreement with llamas on this one, because as he points out, the correct response to the challenge is to impose a nice solid gridlock. With a filibuster-proof Stupid Senate, an Evil President will be incapable of effecting any costly and wrongheaded policies that the Stupid Party keep off his desk (the odds of that happening, are of course, rather hard to calculate, since well, the GOP are pretty Stupid and have these nasty phases of ‘bipartisan cooperation syndrome’).
Indeed, with a Stupid Congress, you really don’t want a Stupid Executive. So, in that respect PdH’s wishes wouldn’t be a problem, except for the long-term health of the US.
An Obama presidency would alomost certainly put him in the position of nominating two Supreme Court Justices, and if the Stupid Congress is experiencing an outbreak of bipartisan cooperation, you’d end up with a SCOTUS that would really cause problems.
With Romney as president, there’s a chance that any appointees might actually be texturalists or originalists that will give a few years of useful service before they ‘evolve’ and start bleating about Living Documents, Penumbras, Emanations and other twatwafflery.
So while PdH’s point is well taken, I think he’s missing out on the damage that an Evil Presidency would do to the Judicial arm. Unless, of course, Perry’s really looking for a comprehensive overhaul.
That’s not entirely true. Congress has simply given up so much of its power to the regulatory agencies to do pretty much what they want. Congress sets up the agencies and then washes its hands of the whole matter, essentially giving the executive branch a blank check concerning the writing of rules and regulations. The bureaucrats who write the actual regulations and enforce them are all political appointees beholden to the president. That’s why the executive czar is so dangerous. Said czar can pretty much rewrite the regulations to suit his [read: the President’s) whims and agenda and Congress won’t do much because that would require actual work.
As far as money, there is an awful lot of discressionary spending at the agency level and the president ultimately controls that.
omg i want that woman. the t-shirt too.
Why didn’t the damn weasel say so during the primaries? Don’t answer that…
I’d be inclined to agree with you Perry – it would be nice to see the Republicans finally grow some balls. However I have one major reservation that stops me rooting for Obama:
– John Adams
If Obama gets back in you can kiss bye bye to the 2nd Amendment, and probably a few other choice liberties as well. He is on record as the most anti-gun President in history, and President’s always indulge their personal agendas in their second terms.
Even assuming that the Republican’s become more powerful and libertarian post-Obama, once a government has taken a freedom from you, it is almost impossible to make the buggers give it back.
JV, I understand but my view is it is already too late.
One of the causes of the American War of Independence was people having their property confiscated after being convicted of ‘Sedition’… yet in the USA to today people have their property confiscated as ‘civil forfeiture’ in which burdens of proof are reversed without even having been formally charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one.
Liberty has gone, flown away, strangled. The First Amendment means you can write about how the state took your hotel/home/boat/car but those laws have now been on the books for years. RICO and it bastard children can cover almost anything now.
And so you can own a gun under your Second Amendment. Good idea, I agree. But how does that actually help when the come to take it all away? You going to shoot it out with the guys in suits when they come to take your place of business because a customer left a joint in the bathroom? And when you get killed by a SWAT sniper, do you think the outraged media will report that a fearless defender of liberty died or some ‘gun nut’ defending a ‘drug den’?
Sorry JV. It is already too late. All that is left of liberty is the window dressing and Romney ain’t going to change that.
I see your point.
But even assuming that Obama being re-elected will precipitate a collapse – how do we know that the “new” America that emerges will be a better nation?
It might be worse. And even if eventually things work out for the best, who knows what might happen along the way.
A lot on the conservative right are just waiting for Obama to “cross the line” which will trigger them moving into open, armed rebellion against the government. If that happens en masse, there’s no telling what lengths Obama would go to to retain control. I don’t think a “Branch Davidian x 100” type massacre is beyond him.
It may well be too late to do anything anyway, but I don’t see a whole lot of grounds for hope here.
I’m almost certain that there are a few good bits in ObamaCare. Nobody is wrong all the time.
As to
the Republican establishment that decided to run a jackanapes like Romney…
it doesn’t exist. Romney decided to run on his own, as he did four years ago. Some party elders endorsed him; others endorsed others – or even ran for the nomination themselves. Romney got the nomination because Republican primary voters preferred him to the other choices – Perry, Gingrich, Cain, Pawlenty, Huntsman, Johnson, Santorum, Paul.
Perry was endorsed by a Senator, 3 Governors, and 10 Representatives (5 from TX).
Gingrich was endorsed by 3 former Senators, 4 current and former Governors, and 16 c&f Representatives.
Romney had a lot more endorsements than Perry or Gingrich, but most of those came in 2012, after most of the other candidates had dropped out and Romney had become the clear favorite by winning several primaries.
The notion that Romney (or McCain in 2008) was foisted on the party rank and file by a cabal of insiders is nonsense.
The whole concept of the state being involved in healthcare in more than in the most basic sense (managing plagues falls within my minarchist notions of ‘legitimate state functions’) is wrong, so no, I really do not think there can be any ‘good bits’ in ObamaCare.
I never said a ‘cabal of insiders’, I said ‘establishment’… the sundry and disparate hierarchical ‘thing’ that ‘runs’ the Republican Party. Nothing particularly cabal-ish about it really.
Where can I get a T-shirt like that- and a ?secretary? like that!?
Unfortunately the big C is not on our electoral roles, or he/she/it would easily win endorsement! But I don’t know what policies C has! I hope he’s not a closet greenie, because I’ve heard his awakening will end all human life, surely a bad thing?
Yes, there are virtually no practical differences between Obama and his agenda and policies, and Mittens and his.
For instance, I’m sure that Romney will appoint another J. Sotomayor, another J. Kagan. I’m positive his Chief of Staff will be Rahm Emanuel’s long-lost twin brother, his closest advisor (upon whom he will rely to tell him when to go and how much to offload when he does) the original of whom Valerie Jarrett is only a poor copy, his Attorney General the one from whom Eric Holder learned how to make the DOJ not just worthless but his partner in crime, his advisors on medical ethics John Holdren and the other Emanuel, Dr. Zeke. I’m positive Mittens wants his main crew to include, quite specifically, Communists like Van Jones and gangster-thugs like David Axelrod.
And I’m absolutely positive that Mittens’ soul, just like Obama’s, is interchangeable with that of Robert Mugabe.
PfP and others who stress the effective (as opposed to the theoretical) power of the President and his appointees and handlers are quite right–and remember, he IS the one directly responsible for foreign affairs. Also, as between Mittens and the incumbent, I see no sign that the former actively hates and intends to destroy the country–unlike the latter, whose aim is exactly that. And who has no scruples whatsoever about using any means to hand to do so.
I was never in favor of Mittens for the Presidency, and in a better world I still would not be. But we’re in the mess we’re in, and it’s better to have a misguided but well-meaning fool sort of running the show than a flat-out evil doppleganger of a human with guns in his hands and an army of thugs as enforcers.
The fool is out to destroy us (and England, and Israel, and the whole of the West, with us), but that’s OK. The people will get real mad, and spray pepper spray furiously in all directions, and we’ll get our countries and our civilization back. (Or not, of course. I hear that bears and human pigs are generally not amused by such antics.)
May I suspect the “T-shirt” legend is Russian? Alisa?
Where did you get the shirt? I want one, too!
You should all read H.P. Lovecraft, who started the Cthulhu cult, or is there a town on the seaboard, where strange gods are still worshipped? Was it Arkhem in Massachutsets? Any US readers/worshippers know?
The canon Lovecraft Mythos is set in the early 20th Century, with a number of real-world, but renamed locations that are key to the milieu. One of these is the the backcountry in Louisiana, and another is the fictional Miskatonic Valley and its towns, which map pretty closely to Rhode Island and North-Easten Massachusetts.
The literature is heavily laden with purple prose and what seems nowadays, some rather simplistic horror techniques, and since (indeed, prior to) his death, Lovecraft’s work has been extended and reworked with varying degrees of success by a number of authors.
It’s a mythology that has plenty of … erm .. very devout fans, myself among them. Perry’s shirt is an example of a bastard offspring of an old slogan from around 2000.
This URL might help make some sense for the gibbering masses of proto-fans:
http://everything2.com/title/Cthulhu+for+President
Two things wrong with Perry (et al.)’s case:
1) Political entrenchment: Another 4 years of Obama means another 4 years of very Liberal appointments, minor and major. Yes, I know, John Roberts. But remember that Bush also gave us Alito, and that has made a difference.
2) Faster system crash would be better than a slower one: No, or rather not with the hardcore statists in power. I understand arguments along the lines that if the system has to crash, then it’s better it happen sooner than later so that it can be rebuilt. But do you honestly think that Obama and his ilk (+the media) won’t demagogue the living daylights out of anything that happens so as to give themselves more power and control over the rebuilding? If they win this election, it will be on the strength of that sort of distraction, and it will consequently be clear that a majority of the public will swallow whatever’s fed them hook, line, and sinker. So there will be even less of a chance for the Tea Party/Libertarian types to have any influence over the coercive collectivists. Just look at the history of other revolutions/system crashes. Who gets into power? The ruthless autocrats.
No, Obama has to go now, and the actual detailed history of his policy trainwrecks has to be written and taught.
RRS: not that I know:-)
According to Yuval Levin, who know health policy inside out, Romney isn’t saying anything new:
“This kind of mechanism, using high-risk pools combined with prohibitions on pre-existing condition exclusions for the continuously insured, has been part of just about every conservative health-care proposal in recent years, including John McCain’s in 2008, the Ryan-Coburn alternative to Obamacare, and the congressional Republicans’ “Pledge to America” before the 2010 elections (as well as older proposals in the Bush years). ”
As for the election, govt has grown so big, turning enough people into clients of the state, that Obama has probably won already. For the US to buck the trend of Western nations drifting into statism and entitlement will take a miracle, or at least some economic literacy among the public.
So a miracle is our clearly our best chance.
Perry for President – it is the best option!
Actually (if only it was possible) I really do think that would be a good idea.
At least Perry would not (like Obama – and Romney) do such things as support ever more regulations on health care (“free” health cover for “children” up to the age of 26, coverage for every condition even if the person covered it up, and on and on…..) whilst declaring that health care cover costs shoud go DOWN.
As for the likely future……
Battle and war – lots of throat cutting and the blowing off of heads. Better than starving to death in the gutter (also a likely possibility).
Oh well, getting older (the great downward slide) has been no fun anyway.
Perhaps, if they kill us, the Social Justice crowd will send us to a better world.
“Come up with nice alternatives Paul”.
O.K.
Romney wins and (at the age of 65) suddenly becomes a libertarian. Or at least gets out of the way – and lets decent people in Congress (and there actually are some – astonishingly enough) do what needs to be done in the economic crises of 2013 and 2014.
Or….
Comrade Barack Obama wins – but proves to be a coward.
He allows States (such as Texas) to peacefully leave the union after the elections of 2014 (the date when secession may be on the ballot in some States).
Or…..
A Constitutional Convention is called by two thirds of the States (they can do this without consulting Congress – let alone the President).
This Convention then removes the words “general welfare” from the Constitution of the United States.
I know that “the common defence and general welfare” is the PURPOSE of the specific spending powers that are then listed in Article One, Section Eight.
However, the courts (including the Supreme Court) pretend (and have pretended for many years) that there is a catch-all “general welfare spending power” – allowing the Feds to spend America to destruction.
So just get rid of the words “general welfare” and have done with it.
And get rid of the words “regulate interstate commerce”.
I know it was supposed to mean “establsh free trade between the States”, but then it should use those words (as the Australian Consititution does).
The words “regulate interstate commerce” have been used to allow all sorts of evil.
In a situation of genuine popular rebellion, the fact that the government’s forces are both surrounded and outnumbered would quickly manifest itself. It wouldn’t be ‘them coming’ but ‘you going’ to take it all away from them.
But being a paleoflatal person, I hope it doesn’t come to that. Armed revolution has a cachet in the West that is almost wholly unjustified by its historical results – although think Americans would make less of a mess of it than most.
Paul,
If you’re still monitoring this discussion–why would Gov. Perry be a better choice than Rep. Bachmann?
Thanks. :>)
Instead of WAG (Wives And Girlfriends), let’s use WOFF (Wife Or Female Friend). That must be Perry and his woff in the kitchen! A neutral, all-inclusive, term.
You are assuming that Romney et al are less coercive or less collectivist or will be less autocratic.
Is there even a “lesser of two evils” between the Republicans and Democrats? They are both collectivist and autocratic RIGHT NOW (sorry, that I just had to shout). We are already living in a dystopia. We are already living in a dyed in the wool socialist hell. I am disheartened by the corpora-fascistic right (and the red square state populists who support it) as I am with the corpora-fascistic left (and blue squiggly state populists/elitists – there is a little of both – who support it).
While there are slight differences in philosophy, 95+% of policies are the same, and the remaining 5% is argumentation of one Statist method versus another, and who the rent seeking beneficiary is supposed to be.
The inevitable is coming one way or another, and at the same speed either way. One can hope that a moderately individualistic movement might have some impact, but a severe crash is on the way, and hardline autocracy not soon after. Whether it be of the Hitlerian branch or the Strasserian branch is irrelevant. How long the duration will be is unknown.
I have two hopes, both small and unlikely. 1) That there will be enough love of liberty within the mass of the American people to keep the left- or right-driven autocracy to a short duration and 2) that I can keep myself on the right side of the razor wire during the wait out. I have little intention of living on my knees for very long whether the masters thump a tome of fairy stories or autofiltered set of actuarial charts put together by State educated/funded sociologists.
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I’d have even some hope for the Tea Party if it hadn’t waited until Obama’s push on Health Care but yet remained silent and unorganized as the Republicans (and their Contract With America) pushed through Medicare Part D, and booted the libertarian branch from the party.
No, that is Perry and His Boss… and I don’t mean the one on the tee-shirt.
Perry, I’ve found that ‘SWMBO’ a la “Rumpole of the Bailey” works pretty well too.
Julie near Chicago (by the way, as I have said before, get further away from Chicago – get out of the State).
Of the two Michelle Bachmann has read (and agrees with)
“Human Action” (Ludwig Von Mises) and Rick Perry has not – therefore Bachmann (not Perry) would be the better President.
However, I thought that Perry had more of a chance to get the nomination – because he had the money behind him, and because he seems less vulnerable to media attacks.
Then came the debates – and he just fell apart.
Yes I know he was pain killers after the back operation.
But as soon as he said people “had no heart” if they opposed subsidies for illegals (free migration people please note, the conversation was about SUBSIDIES for illegals – government subsidized college tuition) then it was really all over.
People talk about Bachmann’s “gaffes” (which actually turn out to be nothing much – like saying that John Wayne was from her own town, when actually his parents were and he was born in another town down the road), but they were just media stuff.
This (the Perry stuff) was a real gaffe – and it was not the last.
Like (yes) not remembering what three departments he wanted to shut down (remembing two out of three is not good enough).
I had been warned that Rick Perry hated debates (and tended to concentrate on internet based campaigns) but I ignored the warnings.
“My bad” – as the Californians say.
Paul–Thanks very much for your response! I agree, as to Rep. Bachmann and Gov. Perry both. As it is I’m supporting Michele Bachmann all the way to retain her seat from Minnesota.
As to shaking the earth of my once-beloved Illinois from my feet, there are other, non-political factors. :>( But I do thank you for the reminder. :>)
By the way–for those who insist that Liberty Is Dead in the U.S., I would say Not Quite. It’s true that we are sliding down the mountain at a furious pace, and I’m very afraid that we’re not going to be able to stop given the momentum we’ve gathered. But– if one thinks that we no longer have any freedom, try living in North Korea, or Cuba, or the old USSR even after Stalin.
I do not think Tea Party rallies would be much in evidence in those places.
I also hope that M.B. holds her seat.
It would certainly ruin Jon Stewart’s day if she did – and anything that ruins “I am not a Democrat I am Socialist … or [when he grasped what he had just admitted] Independent” (said in an interview with Larry King years ago) Stewart’s day, is good by me.
For all his gaffes I hope that Perry holds the Governorship in 2014 – who knowns he may end up the first President of the new Republic of Texas.
Keep the faith Julie – who knows what the furture may bring, it could be less bad than I expect.
I also hope that M.B. holds her seat.
It would certainly ruin Jon Stewart’s day if she did – and anything that ruins “I am not a Democrat I am Socialist … or [when he grasped what he had just admitted] Independent” (said in an interview with Larry King years ago) Stewart’s day, is good by me.
For all his gaffes I hope that Perry holds the Governorship in 2014 – who knowns he may end up the first President of the new Republic of Texas.
Keep the faith Julie – who knows what the furture may bring, it could be less bad than I expect.
;>)
“…If Obama wins, the USA will have a vast unsupportable interventionist welfare state and a Tea Party fighting hard to remake politics in the USA.
Posted by Perry de Havilland at September 10, 2012 01:52 PM
The inevitable “rationing” was liveable. Gasoline, Pharma, earned income, etc.
I’ve drawn the line when they came for my Twinkies.
Pitchforks, hay rakes, and torches!
It’s ON!!
I can just hear the First Lady saying “…Well then, let them eat (gluten/sugar/peanut free) cake…”