TGHusker Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 An OP Ed from Maureen Dowd and a response from a libertarian - who kind of sort of agrees. I will say this, the OP ED is sobering but I won't go as far as the more extreme libertarian response - you cannot hang this all on Obama. The issues we face in the USA have been build over time - some very long term and some during this century alone. The empty promises of big govt is coming home to roost. The negativity of opinion - the malaise of the Carter years are returning would be a summation of Dowd's OP Ed. Unrealized hope. Proverbs 13:12 says "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." This is not a bash Obama thread - as I blame Bush as well as the other big spenders and purveyors of empty hope. This is a more of a - do you agree wt Dowd's viewpoint (she is from the liberal point of view). I don't really have a comment - only one quick Question: Are we back to experiencing the Carter malaise? Feel free to add a more cheerful or positive response than the libertarian one - I hope there is one. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/maureen-dowd-who-do-we-think-we-are.html?_r=1 A couple of Quotes For the first time perhaps, hope is not as much a characteristic of American feelings. Are we winners who have been through a rough patch? Or losers who have soured our sturdy and spiritual DNA with too much food, too much greed, too much narcissism, too many lies, too many spies, too many fat-cat bonuses, too many cat videos on the evening news, too many Buzzfeed listicles like “33 Photos Of Corgi Butts,” and too much mindless and malevolent online chatter? Are we still the biggest and baddest? Or are we forever smaller, stingier, dumber, less ambitious and more cynical? Have we lost control of our not-so-manifest destiny? Barack Obama vowed to make government cool again, but young people, put off by the dysfunction in our political, financial, military and social institutions, are eschewing government jobs. Idealism is swamped by special interests. The middle class is learning to do more with less. The president, sort of the opposite. “The world sees us as having gone from a president who did too much to a president who does too little,” said Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations. David Axelrod, the president’s Pygmalion, mused: “Reagan significantly changed the trajectory of the country for better and worse. But he restored a sense of clarity. Bush and Cheney were black and white, and after them, Americans wanted someone smart enough to get the nuances and deal with complexities. Now I think people are tired of complexity and they’re hungering for clarity, a simpler time. But that’s going to be hard to restore in the world today.” A response from a libertarian/conservative - who agrees wt Dowd. I offer it as a different view of the same problems Dowd address. http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/maureen-dowd-just-proved-every-single-conservative-point-for-us/ A couple of quotesDowd’s column was a masterpiece of liberal thought. It should be framed on every sane American’s wall and included in every U.S. history book for the rest of time. It should serve as a warning of what happens when liberals are in charge. Even Dowd, the queen of liberalism, openly admitted that America has gone to hell.Dowd admits America has become a disaster, a country in shambles, a country in decline. She says we are “scared of our own shadow.” Collapsing. Crumbling. Defeated. We’ve lost our confidence. We’ve lost our swagger. No more hope about the future. A country no longer “exceptional.” This is the picture she paints, not me. Bravo, Maureen. It’s all true. It just happens to be the exact same picture we conservatives have been warning about and predicting since President Barack Obama took office. This from a woman who undoubtedly has Obama ornaments hanging from her Christmas tree and probably keeps a shrine to him in her home. This from a woman who writes for The New York Times, the official propaganda outlet of the Obama dictatorship. Dowd supported Obama through thick and thin. She campaigned for him. She defended his every socialist policy – the same socialist, big government policies that turned Detroit into a third-world hellhole in the middle of America. The same socialist policies that destroyed the economies of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and even France (where the Labour Minister last year admitted “France is totally bankrupt”). These places are all run with the same exact policies that Obama has implemented in America. Dowd has defended these same policies in every column for six long years. Now she looks out at the wreckage, reports on the concrete results, but doesn’t notice who is to blame. Just to be sure we are on the same page (and so Dowd can’t wiggle out of this one), these policies are: big spending, big taxes, big regulations, big debt and big government. Those are the “Big Five” that murder the middle class all over the world. Add in free health care and income redistribution. They are all policies staunchly supported by Dowd, Obama, and leftists worldwide. Let me give Dowd credit. In her July 4 column, she perfectly describes the unimaginable results of six years of relentless spending, taxing, regulating, adding to the debt, growing government, IRS attacks, income redistributing, and “free” health care by Obama. She describes the exact damage to our economy and psyche. I couldn’t have done it better myself. The problem is, Maureen, you are the problem. You, Obama and your whole leftist cabal. It’s obvious you’re not completely blind – because you’ve correctly laid out the tragic results. You just conveniently forgot who was in charge when all this happened. Twice. Yes, it has happened twice. And, it is not a coincidence. Two extreme radical leftists caused the same misery and malaise in America - twice. Everything Dowd describes happened first under President Jimmy Carter and now under Obama. Link to comment
TGHusker Posted July 10, 2014 Author Share Posted July 10, 2014 lol. Carl, is the LOL on the libertarian's response, on Dowd's OP Ed or both - or just on my posting it all for comment? Personally, I think Dowd wrote a good OP ED. I think some liberals are realizing that we aren't building a utopia here. I disagree with the libertarian - he places it all on Obama. Not true. If there is a malaise (which is my question & reason for posting - is there one developing like the Carter years?), it expands backwards to I believe the invasion of Iraq. The country was OK with going after the Taliban and the war in Afgan. There was general consensus of this response to 9/11. I think the malaise starts with us spending a trillion or more on Iraq (coupled wt the current disaster in Iraq which makes our venture all the more a waste), the housing/bank crash of 2008 and the long recovering in trying to regain what was lost. I think Bush would have been looked at as more successful if he didn't venture into Iraq. He had been cooperating with Congress on Education Reform, Prescription Drugs, tried to do immigration reform (his own party prevented that from happening) and tried to do Soc Sec reform (stopped primarily by Dems). Remove the Iraq war, the economy would have been stronger but we may not have been able to stop the housing crash which was a 3 decade march to its conclusion in 2008. So, we come to Obama - straddled with the Bush era issues, a contrary congress after 2010 and we end up wt a long recovery - So I think that is why there is a malaise - not much in real good news that builds up the American psyche - as Dowd points to - outside of improved employment (mixed wt low job participation rate), corp earnings are up and stock market climb. I think Dowd is looking for the "Morning in America" feeling again as related in this 1984 Reagan campaign ad - its more about the 'feeling' of general well being in the country(the debate on the merits of the ad are a different topic) : Link to comment
TGHusker Posted July 10, 2014 Author Share Posted July 10, 2014 OK there are now 2 LOL - let's see if we can go for a record. Link to comment
strigori Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 lol. Lets try for it. Maybe they should make sure people actually use reality when writing opinion pieces. Link to comment
Recommended Posts