Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at intelligent and rational individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

"No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it." Ayn Rand

"Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not." Ayn Rand

"The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice', but integrity." Ayn Rand

For "a human being, the question 'to be or not to be,' is the question 'to think or not to think.'" Ayn Rand

26 September 2009

Mark Tapscott Gets It Too

During the presidential campaign, I warned that Barack Obama was a highly committed socialist who wanted to bring radical change for the worse to the U.S. He explicitly told us that that was what he was going to do, though he did not spell out all the changes. Nonetheless, he was also very explicit about quite a few of his radical and foolhardy changes. To fail to understand how he fundamentally viewed politics, government, the nature of man, the environment, and America's place in the world, one had to have one's head buried deeply in the sands of guilt for the slavery of the long past and for Jim Crow laws of the not so far past and be easily hypnotized by glib speech delivery.

Glen Beck has rightly come to be alarmed by the nature of the transformation of America that Obama intends. It is also clear that Mark Tapscott of the Washington Examiner also has Obama's number. They both understand that this is not just about Obama, but that the stage was set for Obama by many other long-working socialist cadre members with a grand totalitarian vision of a new America. Mark Tapscott is the Editorial Page Editor and wrote a great editorial on 24 September 2009 called Beware the Stalin in progressive hearts. It is well worth your time to read this essay in its entirety.

There are a couple of things I want to draw your attention to in any case.
  • The Department of Health and Human Services issued a gag order telling all of the companies participating in the Medicare Advantage program that they could not tell their customers about the effects of ObamaCare on the program. These companies were threatened with fines and jail time. Obama does not believe in the Constitution and he consistently does care about the First Amendment either.
  • He quotes Thomas Friedman, the NY Times columnist, as saying
    "One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century."
Mark Tapscott then says
That in a nutshell is the totalitarian temptation that plagues all who would use the power of the state to impose their vision of the good society on the rest of us.

It's the ever-present Stalin whispering in the progressive ear: "Ignore those reactionary, loud-mouthed, ignorant Tea Party protesters and decree Obamacare, Waxman-Markey, and all the rest of it. Do it now while you have the power!"
He suggests you read Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism and Paul Johnson's Modern Times to understand how the modern progressive movement came to be so infected with this tendency to totalitarianism. He also warns that there are only two more chances to save America, 2010 and 2012.

No comments: