"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men
from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
(Thomas Jefferson)


Saturday, October 3, 2009

Lament for the Nation (Obama vs Gorbachev)

This article from the Ottawa Citizen makes you stop and think -- the comparisons between Pres Obama and Pres Gorbachev are earily similar. Coming into office and trying to radically change America is not playing well all over the Country. With most Americans being center right, we are not going to roll over without a fight.

Obama started with the stimulus that was passed to help the economy and railroaded through Congress before people could learn what was in the pork laden bill. Can someone tell us how bike trails are going to help the economy? The stimulus hasn't helped as the jobless claims keep rising, no new jobs on the horizon, and tax revenues are way down. Take over of GM and Chrysler has been a nightmare for portions of the auto industry like car dealerships and now Saturn which GM is shutting down.

Congress has determined there will be no cost of living for senior citizens for two years but Congress is giving themselves a pay raise this year. Congress is overpaid as it is with the fact people in Congress like Sen Carper (D-DE) don't think it is necessary to read the bills before they vote. We put his interview with CNS on this site.

Obamacare and Cap and Trade would bankrupt the Country even more but that doesn't stop the Progressive/Liberal Democrats from wanting to ram the bills through Congress without anyone reading them. Now Obama wants to pass Immigration Reform? Why? Does he need their votes since ACORN won't be out frauding votes in 2010?

It is a sad day when American and Russian Presidents can be compared and you see similiarities between the two men.

Lament for a nation

By David Warren, The Ottawa Citizen
October 2, 2009

There is nothing new under the sun: and I mean, nothing. It is a point brought home to us with increasing force by the expansion of the Internet. Conceive of an "original idea." Now, select two or more keywords suggested by it. Use them as search terms, and you will soon find that, say, 438,000 other people have entertained said "original idea," and a dozen are currently blogging on it.

Before beginning today's column, my search terms were "Gorbachev" and "Obama."

Yes: a lot of people have entertained the idea, that Mikhail Gorbachev was to the late great Soviet Union, what Barack Obama is to the surviving United States -- the leader who reforms so many things so quickly that his country suddenly disappears. One recalls the speed with which the first Soviet head of state to be born after the October Revolution became its last head of state. It took him about three years: just less than the time of one U.S. presidential term. (Though he had already taken three years to warm up, as General Secretary of the Communist Party.)

It is, today, a little-known fact that Gorbachev did not bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union, on purpose. Those who still detect a glint in his eye would do well to respect his persistent denials. He was sincerely trying to reform the place. He was walking a dog with powerful jaws, but rather loose teeth; he tried to adapt it to a vegetarian diet; it died.

The poor dictator inherited not only an economy going bankrupt by even socialist standards; but a war in Afghanistan that was being lost, against an utterly disorganized enemy from another century; to say nothing of half-a-dozen other imperial missions, in exotic third-world locations, that were not going well. By merely liberating the little West Indian island of Grenada, President Reagan was able to send a hollow sound through the hearts of aspiring Communist revolutionaries all over the world.

The comparison between Gorbachev and Obama is apt on few levels. The chief difference is between the U.S. of 2009, and the USSR of 1985; between a huge, decentralized, open economy, and the society it serves; and a much smaller, very centralized, command economy, and the society serving it. These circumstances are not even remotely comparable, and one must be a fool indeed to play with a moral, economic, or ideological "equivalence" between the two old superpowers. Which is not to say such fools aren't numerous.

Excerpt: See Ottawa Citizen for Full Article

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