Gunfighter

Hoff · Joined: 28 Jun 2007 Posts: 506 Location: Warrior Nirvana

This was recently forwarded to me by a student...interesting stuff:

Thomas Friedman recently wrote an article in The New York Times titled “Who will tell the people?” Friedman, liberal though he may be, is an outstanding writer and future-oriented thinker. You may know him as the author of The Lexis and the Olive Tree and The World is Flat.
Friedman says “We don’t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.”

Which I presume means that Friedman is not planning to vote in the upcoming election. Hello, Thomas. Are you listening? None of the major candidates is tough enough — or honest enough — to tell the American people the truth. None of them has the character to “talk straight” to voters.

I’ve observed more presidential elections than I care to admit to, and I can say unequivocally that, as a group, the current crop of candidates is the most pathetic I have ever seen. It’s like being given a choice of how you would like to die — by firing squad, hanging, or decapitation.

No matter who you vote for this year, the moral and economic decline of the U.S. will continue. Granted, it will happen much faster if Obama is in office than if John McCain is elected. But regardless of who is elected, he/she will preside over more and bigger disasters than any president in history. And since there is no practical way to solve any of the nation’s biggest problems, the next president will receive most of the blame.

Friedman says “We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.” Which sounds great, except for one thing. What “working on our country” means is subjective. Candidates like to talk about measures they believe will “work,” but it’s meaningless.

Hey, everything works. To paraphrase Sy Leon, the question is not whether something works but whether we like the way it works. Just because something works doesn’t mean it is desirable.

Communism works, if your purpose is to enslave people. Stealing works (at least some of the time), if all you care about is money. Lying works, if you don’t care about your personal integrity. Literally anything, no matter how monstrously immoral, will work, depending on the outcome you’re going for and how you define the term work.

To be sure, both McCain and Hillary would continue to lead the country down the road to communism, but Obama would take it to its ultimate destination much faster. His perpetually angry wife, who appears to wear the pants in the family, made that abundantly clear when she passed the litmus test for hard-core communists.

The litmus test I am referring to is the ignorant and childish belief that the size of the world’s wealth pie is fixed. In one of her many angry diatribes (which must have had Obama’s handlers trying to figure out ways to muzzle her — the same problem Bill Clinton’s handlers had with Hillary for so many years) — Meanie Michelle said:

“Someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.” Are you listening, mesmerized voters? The Obamas intend to take more of your “pie” and give it to those whom they arbitrarily believe are in “need” of it. In politically incorrect circles, this is known as communism — and, as I said, it only works if your purpose is to enslave people.

Communist thinkers are not able to comprehend the simple reality that the economic pie can be expanded indefinitely. In other words, there is no practical limit to the amount of wealth that can be created. Sadly, the greatest obstacle producers have to overcome in trying to increase the size of the economic pie is government intervention in the economy. Politicians would rather play the role of Robin Hood than see people be financially better off.

Taking this to its logical conclusion, the only way to control people — since they ultimately rebel when you try to take too much of their pie — is through the use of force, which often results in a dictatorship. I don’t mind you laughing at that, just so you remember you read it here first.

Now in fairness to the Obamas, Hillary Clinton and John McCain also intend to take more of your pie and give it to those whom they believe to be in need. It’s just that their spouses have the good sense not to talk about it in public.

Having said this, I feel intellectually compelled to respect Michelle Obama for being honest. She has a far bigger set of testiculos than her husband. He’s been very careful not to explain how he intends to rearrange the pie. Instead, this ultra-slick politician has wrapped himself in the American flag and talks in clichés and generalities.

So, who will tell the people the truth? Answer: No one, because you can’t get elected by doing it. All the candidates are well aware of the fact that there is no constituency for cutting entitlements. They know they have only two choices: Lie or lose. Just ask Ron Paul, who was brushed aside by the media (including Fox News!) and the Republican Party for consistently refusing to deceive voters.

In a free country, of course, you have a right to go on believing whatever you wish to believe. But, at the same time, you should recognize that reality is not discriminatory. Nature does not accept ignorance as an excuse for making wrong decisions. Nature metes out negative consequences just as harshly to a person who is well-meaning but misinformed as to one who is malevolent and stubborn.

As to your own litmus test, ask yourself this question: “Instead of listening to the three major candidates crack jokes on Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, and the Late Show With David Letterman, do I have the courage to focus on what is really happening to this country — morally, culturally, and economically?”

If the answer is no — if you are so hopelessly mesmerized by one of the presidential candidates that you can’t bring yourself to hear the truth — rest assured that that, too, will work. Because, as I said earlier, everything works. The only question is how well will it work — and for whom?

Just know that the clock is ticking on American (and Western) civilization, and you can be sure that it will start to tick much faster come next January.

Lodge2004 · Joined: 15 Jul 2007 Posts: 42 Location: Humble