Old
Gadfly: IM (an American citizen with an
inquiring mind), In our last conversation,
we discussed how the dominant progressive narrative is beyond engineering
public sentiment.
IM: Yes. To be blunt, we talked about strong evidence
of disinformation. The President’s pompous,
trivial, and unpresidential speech today was another case
of unadulterated disinformation; and the speech was enshrouded in a cloud of
utter absurdity. Patting himself on the
back, Obama bragged about being the first American leader in over three decades
to negotiate with his Iranian equivalent, in this case, Hasan Rouhani.
AM
(an American combat aviator with an inquiring mind): By the way, if you want excellent analysis of
Iran’s role regarding control and instability within the Middle East, read Dexter
Filkins’ article,
“The Shadow Commander,” in The New Yorker
Magazine. After reading the article,
you’ll see how naïve the “American leader” is.
But, in terms of political theater, claiming a diplomatic breakthrough
with Iran was a clever way to set the tone for the rest of the speech.
Old
Gadfly: So, Obama takes credit for being
the first in over three decades to negotiate with an Iranian counterpart, while
refusing to negotiate with House Republicans?
IM: That’s the gist of it. Obama will negotiate with a party that has
trained and funded actual suicide bombers while refusing to negotiate with what
a White House staffer
(i.e., communications director Dan Pfeiffer) has called “suicide bombers” in
the House. Republicans are expected to
compromise, while Obama has no intention of compromise. Yet, in his speech, Obama accuses Republicans
of grandstanding. It takes two to tango,
but only one dancer will be held accountable in this scenario, and it won’t be Obama. Isn’t it grand to be king with an indentured
press to repeat the king’s proclamations?
I guess we long ago lost the meaning of the Boston Tea Party. And these great Americans were considered
extremists by King George as well.
Old
Gadfly: Give some examples of
disinformation in the speech.
IM: The elephant in this room is Obamacare, a law
that was passed without a single Republican vote. Last week, the House, acting in concert with
their constituents, forwarded a bill to the Senate that fully funds the
government, but defunds Obamacare. The
Senate Democrats could compromise by agreeing to the House bill. But, they will not because of the sacred cow,
Obamacare. Further, Obama claims the
House leadership has been held hostage by the extremist Tea Party faction, as
if this group represents a fringe minority in its opposition to fully
implementing Obamacare, and other government expansion efforts.
Old
Gadfly: I did not hear Obama mention in
the speech that the majority
of the American people are opposed to implementing Obamacare. Do the people not matter in this debate?
AM: The people only matter when Obama can use
them for human instruments, as in background props while giving speeches. Obama’s tone and rhetoric have even compelled
many Americans to react emotionally in regard to any mention of the Tea Party. If you can even get one of these Copernican
drones to engage in a conversation, they cannot explain what it is about
the Tea Party that makes them so hateful.
Old
Gadfly: I know what you are getting at,
AM. Remind us about human instruments.
AM: During the American Civil War, John Stuart
Mill wrote an essay, “The Contest in America,” to convince the British
government not to intervene in order to keep cotton flowing in support of their
textile-based economy. Mill closed his
set of arguments with this observation:
War is an ugly thing, but not the
ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic
feeling, which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments
for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish
purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against
tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and
good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their
free choice--is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to
fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal
safety, is a miserable creature, who has no chance of being free, unless made
and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not
terminated their ever renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind,
human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against
the other.[1]
Old
Gadfly: Do you think union leaders are
starting to feel “degraded” after serving as human instruments in the service
of a master?
AM: Yes. Unions
danced with the devil they thought they knew.
Now, union leaders are angry and becoming vocal
as they learn what is in the bill that had to be passed before they could know
what was in it.
IM: So, AM, it sounds like House Republicans are exerting
themselves by fighting the increasingly apparent injustices of Obamacare.
AM: And, ultimately, the fight is against the
threat progressivism poses.
IM: Ironically, Orwell described the evolution of
political power when the animals took over the farm in Animal Farm. He described
how the seven commandments devolved into only one commandment: all animals are created equal; some are more
equal than others. Progressives in the
White House and Congress are increasingly more aggressive in practicing this commandment. When the President chooses which laws he will
enforce and which ones he will not, we have another Orwellian Napoleon calling
the shots with the help of Squealer (Dan Pfeiffer and/or a complicit press), but
these American characters are not fictional.
AM: I guess this is what progressives mean by
social justice—take from some to give to others. In the end, those who are not part of the club
end up being mere human instruments. Then
again, there appears to be a large swarm of Copernican drones, who drink the
club Kool-Aid, being used as human instruments as well. They represent a large portion of the grass
roots organization. The Organizing for Action
website is pretty hypnotic.
Old
Gadfly: Let’s get back to disinformation
specifics in Obama’s speech.
IM: Obama also bragged about the most aggressive
reductions in deficits since the Second World War. The highest deficit in the Bush
Administration was less than half a trillion.
The lowest deficit in Obama’s Administration was $973 billion—more than
twice the largest deficit recorded under the Bush Administration. The other four years under Obama ranged from
$1.1 to $1.4 trillion. But what these
figures do not tell you is that the cost of government is still growing, not
receding. And despite Obama’s rhetoric
to the contrary, taxes have gone up.
While fewer Americans actually pay federal income tax, that minority is
paying even more. Without the increased
tax revenue, there would be no deficit reduction. Here’s the data from the Fiscal Year 2014 Historical
Tables, Budget of the U.S. Government, Table 1.1:
AM: As I recall from an earlier conversation, the
cost of the federal government in 1933 was about $600 per person. Today, when adjusting for inflation so that
we are using constant dollars, the cost of the federal government is now
$12,000 per person. This is 20 times
greater. Yet, poverty is as high as ever,
median incomes are decreasing, and record numbers are on food stamps and
disability.
Old
Gadfly: Am I missing something? Obama wants the public to think he’s reducing
deficits, which should reduce our overall debt.
Yet, did he not put Republicans on notice that they better increase the
debt ceiling next month?
IM: You did not miss anything, Gadfly. This is a patent example of
disinformation. While deficits
contribute to our national debt, it is the debt that puts our economy at risk
because it can eventually exceed our capacity to generate the wealth from which
tax revenue is drawn. Obama wants the
public to think the government is spending less by exaggerating deficit reductions
. . . but our government is growing and so is the national debt.
Old
Gadfly: IM, does the government data
indicate any statistical relationships between party affiliation in the House
(where the power of the purse resides) and the size of government?
IM: Absolutely.
Between 1981 and 2012, there is a strong, statistically significant negative
correlation between House party affiliation and full-time equivalent positions
in the federal government, where r = -.70,
p = .000. This means that as political power shifts to
the left (Democrat), full-time equivalents increases significantly. As the power shifts to the right (Republican),
full-time equivalents decrease significantly.
AM: This may explain why the federal bureaucracy
is so heavily unionized. Democrats like
big government, and those who make up the government have champions in the
Congress, with union dues helping to finance reelection campaigns.
IM: What aggravates this dynamic is that there is
also a strong, statistically significant negative correlation between full-time
equivalent positions in the federal government and percent employed in the
private sector, where r = -.64, p = .000. This means that as federal jobs increase,
jobs in the private sector decrease, and vice versa. The balance between the cost of government
and the capacity of the private sector to produce the wealth that is needed to
sustain the cost of government is critical.
Old
Gadfly: What did Obama have to say in
today’s speech about the economy?
IM: He said, the Republicans are about to “throw
a wrench into the gears of our economy at a time when those gears have gained
some traction.”
AM: What traction? In our last
conversation, we talked about how bad the job situation is. Here is what I
said: “The percent of our working
population actually employed is at 63.2% (as of August 2013 according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics), the lowest in over 30 years. And many who are ‘employed’ are in less than
40-hour a week jobs.
Old
Gadfly: Can any of these circumstances
be directly attributed to Obamacare?
IM: Absolutely.
We already talked about union leader concerns. Further, analysts for Investor’s Business Daily have conducted research that indicates jobs
have
been significantly affected by Obamacare. According to IBD, “In the interest of an informed
debate, we've compiled a list of job actions with strong proof that ObamaCare's
employer mandate is behind cuts to work hours or staffing levels. As of Sept. 25, our ObamaCare
scorecard included 313 employers.”
This only represents what is currently known.
AM: Let’s summarize.
·
There are obvious issues with
Obamacare.
·
Obamacare has already adversely
affected jobs.
·
The majority of Americans do not
want Obamacare.
·
Republicans are willing to fund government
functions with the exception of Obamacare.
·
Obama wants all of a growing
government funded to include Obamacare.
·
Republicans want to fix a bad
situation on behalf of their constituents.
·
Wouldn’t an intelligent person be
willing to negotiate based on these circumstances?
Old Gadfly: Yes. However, Obama is an intellectual, who is dogmatically
locked into the progressive ideology that he plans to impose upon all Americans
as part of his agenda to transform America.
This notion was evident in his March 22, 2009 victory speech on the
passage of Obamacare. Despite the
majority of Americans still not in favor of the comprehensive bill known as The
Affordable Care Act, midway into his speech (6 minutes and 7
seconds), Obama looked into the camera and into the homes of every American
watching, and said, “This is what change looks like.” Yes, from day one, Obama has assumed the
mantle of a modern Grand
Inquisitor and has had no intention of negotiating.
AM: So, we can choose to be
human instruments in the service of a master, or we can fight for liberty and
justice. You know where we stand, Gadfly.
[1] John Stuart
Mill, “The Contest in America,” Fraser’s
Magazine, April 1862. This essay is in the public domain and available at http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5123/pg5123.txt
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