Vote for Obama. Here's why.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Vote for Obama. Here's why.

Did you know that satellite photos show that parts of central Detroit are actually returning to nature?

See Zillow Blog at http://www.zillowblog.com/the-remain...ef=patrick.net for pictures of a $1 house for sale in Detroit to get a graphic image of what has become of this city.

It's sad.

[ricket]

Re: Vote for Obama. Here's why.

I'm flattered that Mr. Janszen chose to single out my posting about Obama to build a reply around. He makes his points eloquently and with an appealing optimism. However I remain confident that future events will bear out my skepticism.

We are not South Africa, true. The white population here is 65% rather than the 5% in S.A. A black president here could not move nearly as quickly to seize white property as the black government in South Africa has done. Especially the first black President will have to move somewhat cautiously, appointing many prominent white men to leadership posts, so as not to confirm too easily the fears of whites like myself. But Obama is from the Alinsky school of social activism and he understands the need for incrementalism. I doubt he will push too hard at first. (Though every so often his true feelings slip out, as when he said a few days ago that he plans to fundamentally change the United States of America.)

But in some ways we are worse than South Africa. South African blacks may have been denied the vote but they were never the slaves of South African whites. They are, to a large extent, the descendents of blacks from around that region of Africa who moved to S.A. to get work that was not available anywhere else. The whites, disdaining manual labor themselves, hired the blacks to do that. (Sound familiar?) The blacks who came for work stayed, made families, and increased their percentage of the population from around 50% to 95%, at which point they took over after the 1994 referendum. The noble-sounding rhetoric of Nelson Mandela and others about reconciliation, rainbows, and so on, were empty words. People want power and people think ethnically. That is not changed by pretty words.

The idea that now that a black man is going to be President, the festering resentment of blacks will dissipate and racial harmony will become ever more evident is too idealistic, I think. I think more likely what you will hear from blacks is this: only now has America BEGUN to fulfill its promise to blacks. This will not be considered the capstone of the 150 year process of eliminating discrimination; it will be considered just a starting place. Now the restitution can begin in earnest.

Further I don't know where you are looking when you see evidence that the poisonous black underculture is disappearing. The illegitimacy rate among blacks, which was 25% in the era of open discrimination, is nearly 70% now. The coarsening of our popular culture is rampant. The hatred expressed towards whites is as virulent as ever. (Google 'Kamau Kambon' and check out what this black intellectual suggested as a solution to our national racial problems at a conference at Howard University last year. His speech is on YouTube.)

Another commenter wrote: "I do think Eric may be right in the qualitative milestone the US may be reaching in finally swallowing a chunk of our domestic racism. I remember when we had our first African American mayor of a big city, Detroit I believe, and it took a while to have another. Fits and starts is more like it. Now, who cares?"

What an unfortunate example he selects for his point. Detroit is an example of what happens to a once-great American city under black management. New Orleans would be another. Did you know that satellite photos show that parts of central Detroit are actually returning to nature? People are setting up small farms there. The city has been hollowed out. A center of American industry was made too unsafe for white people to be able to live there, and the blacks who remained essentially destroyed it.

Can you point to a single example of a former white-majority city or country where the quality of life of the remaining white residents has not been seriously compromised when they became a minority? I can't.

So I can't share your sense of optimism. But that's OK - it's important that white liberals, who mean well and have the noblest sort of intentions - see for themselves the truth of these things. They won't believe it until they see it in their own neighborhoods and their own nation. This is the price we are going to have to pay for our undiscriminating altruism. We are idealistic people - when we think something is the moral and right thing, we will tenaciously hold on to it even if it harms us. That's why about the only places in the world with a track record of free and fair elections are majority-white nations. We voluntarily abstain from rigging elections; we voluntarily pay our taxes, obey laws, don't litter, and so on. It's why the 90% of the world that isn't white so strongly wants to emigrate to our nations.

So let's set a stake right here on the eve of the election of the first black President and check back in five or ten years to see if this election really soothed blacks and led to a new era of racial harmony, or whether it only emboldened them to demand even more and flaunt their power. After 14 years of black rule, it's not hard to guess what white South Africans would predict is in our future.

You really should try and get past your xenophobia. This kind of thinking is what keeps civilization from progressing. I'd rather worry about repercussions when someone *DOES* do something wrong, than to constantly fear and persecute those that we fear *MAY* do something wrong. It's this very tenet of "innocent until proven guilty" that upholds our entire judicial system.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Vote for Obama. Here's why.

You really should try and get past your xenophobia. This kind of thinking is what keeps civilizations from progressing.

Being a bit to quick on the draw with claims of racism or other politically incorrect thinking can also be an impediment.

I find the posts of Mn_Mark to worth reading.

[EJ]

Re: Vote for Obama. Here's why.

If Obama wins (I hope he doesn't) then I predict you, ej, will rue the day you made this choice.

While most of us accept that politicians must have a more casual relation with truth than say accountants, still we tend to grant our fellow humans some modicum of trust until proven otherwise.

If Obama wins, I predict that you will discover that Obama and his entire campaign was profoundly and deliberately more deceiptful than you thought possible. My impressions are that Obama's inner sense of himself is pathologically disconnected from how he presents himself (I suspect he's a victim of serious child abuse) and that since his adolescence he has been manipulated by some of the most dangerous, scheming, radical anti-American Marxists of our time.

I fear for my country.

My real fear is that most of the younger people in this nation will never realize the mistake they made in allowing Obama anywhere near the White House. At least you're beyond doubt a smart chap, so I trust that if I'm right in all this, you will some day be capable of seeing as much.

Hopefully, either I'm a whacked out nut job, or Obama loses tonight.

I thought long and hard about that before writing this endorsement.

My conclusion was that we, and I am being presumptuous here, over the age of 30 do not understand the generation that Obama represents.

What they are against is: racism, cronyism, favoritism, ignorance, being sent off to die in wars started by old men on false pretenses, and being ripped off by their parents who have mortgaged their future and left them with a reverse mortgage on the deflating family home.

Did the the boomers think their kids would never grow up and become sentient beings? Maybe not a class war but a justified uprising of a generation that knows it is stuck with the tab from the previous one. What did we expect?

The most popular piece I ever wrote for iTulip was How Much of Your Car Should You Finance? Zero percent with over 50,000 views. Guess who read it? Not 40 year olds.

This generation is not stupid. They are catching on. It's hard to sell bullshit to them. They are expert at bulllshit detection. They'd never think McCain is a "maverick" and "straight talking." Now that is some serious wishful thinking.

The generation that voted for Obama is so fiercely individualistic and capitalistic that you'd have a better chance of developing their interest in Buddy Holly than a collectivist movement among them. That is another generational issue it's hard for us old folks to get past. Marxism is dead. The dispute that remains is over the relations between the state and free enterprise. My worry about Obama is too much state and not enough enterprise, but the generation that voted for him isn't interested in going on the dole or paying taxes, either. They are eager to create the next big thing, and do it for money but also for fun and for everyone's use. The Internet is their idea of a great invention.

Obama anti-American? What security do we have without economic strength? What can be more anti-American than to not make every effort to protect the US economy? By that measure we have not had a president since Johnson that was not anti-American.

I don't take the absence of patriotic rhetoric from Obama as a sign that he does not love our country. The generation that supports him is not nationalistic, and I don't just mean here in the US. The generation in Estonia, China, Japan, Italy, all think the same way. Think about it. If you grew up with the Internet and were exposed to as much of the world as they have been, you'd think: what's all the fuss about national borders? Everyone speaks and writes English. Everyone is a capitalist, whether they admit it or not. Now if we can just get these old farts and their governments out of our way.

Obama an abused child? Probably. I prefer my leaders employ their over-achievement neurosis in my interest -- manic-depression and alcoholism are common symptoms of the best of them. I don't care if they are also great statesmen.

We shall see what Obama does if he wins, then what the job turns him into. But that is by no means assured.

Thanks for your note.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Two Concerns

I grew up with Margaret Thatcher, and she'd be to the left of Dennis Kucinich.

That's not the Thatcher we've heard of on this side of the pond. Can you elaborate what you mean by that, or provide some evidence?

The Thatcher I've heard of is the Iron Lady who stood with Reagan opposing the Soviets, and who privatized important portions of the British economy.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Vote for Obama. Here's why.

My conclusion was that we, and I am being presumptuous here, over the age of 30 do not understand the generation that Obama represents.

You describe well some of the entirely legitimate appeal that Obama has for the younger voters. My son is 20, and voted for Obama only because Ron Paul wasn't in the running.

I do not dispute that the youth of this nation have good reason to distrust and abhor the major mess we're handing them. My Social Security will soon equal my sons pay check; I've thanked him, sardonically, for sending me what he earns, and he's replied, with appropropriate bitter sarcasm, "you're welcome."

I entirely doubt that Obama is who he claims to be, or has an agenda that even remotely addresses these legitimate issues.

Thank-you for your considered reply.

[tombat1913]

Re: Vote for Obama. Here's why.

Great, leadership the day of the election, maybe three years from now we could get some commentary during the primaries when we still have some reasonable choice? Chiming in now for a candidate who is "not 100% independent from the influence of financial groups" is not leadership. You people want "change"? How about voting for someone who can't be bought, period! Quit voting for the least of evils and vote your conscience.

itulip has fantastic economic commentary, so stick to the economics.

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Vote for Obama. Here's why.

You really should try and get past your xenophobia. This kind of thinking is what keeps civilization from progressing.

It is entirely sensible to look at one's environment and the changes occuring in it, compare those changes to similar changes that have occurred in other places, and sound the alarm if one finds something threatening.

Civilization is not prevented from progressing by people pointing out how history shows that the direction it is moving has been tried before and resulted in disaster. (Just ask Native Americans how it worked out for them when they got a big dose of 'diversity' beginning in 1492. Would you have told them that they were 'xenophobes' who were resisting 'progress'? Were their lives just meaningless, empty exercises in xenophobia because they didn't have large populations of Europeans, Somalis, Japanese, Arabs, etc, etc, etc living in their nations?)

I accept the necessity of an Obama presidency and strong leftist control of Congress as a means of waking well-meaning white liberals up to what is happening. But I will not shut up. If your "progress" is so tenuous that it can't stand up to reasonable, dispassionate analysis, then that says something about your notion of progress, not something about me.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Vote for Obama. Here's why.

But I will not shut up.

Good. Thanks.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Vote for Obama. Here's why.

Hopefully, either I'm a whacked out nut job, or Obama loses tonight.

It's starting to look like I'm hoping to be a whack job. Ohio and Pennsylvania and Virginia seem to be leaning toward Obama. Fox just called Ohio for McCain.

I am less optimistic of a McCain victory than I was before.

[a warren]

Re: Vote for Obama. Here's why.

You watch Fox. Ahahahahahahahaha ha How can you watch that shit? Or is it for the entertainment of seeing the losers lose it?

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Vote for Obama. Here's why.

I don't watch any TV; though if I did, I'd prefer Fox.

I heard that Fox called it from listening to the radio - Mark Davis, a fine Dallas conservative.

[yernamehear]

Re: Vote for Obama. Here's why.

(Reply to EJ's original piece where he says "America is not South Africa.")

You're right, it's not America. And, you fell for it. It's NOT at all about race.

The only place the small government policy lives is in an ever smaller libertarian wing of the Republican party. The Dems have nothing to offer in this area, so they are out of the question.

As the government grows, you get the socialist cronyism from both parties, which has played a large part in the current crisis: 70+ years of dem entitlement building, piled on by the crony capitalism of the past couple of decades by the repubs.

Obama is one of those ivory tower, socialist children I used to have to listen to as a student at UC Berkeley. I got a belly full of those wanna be revolutionaries (aka thugs).

We'll get some kind of cross between Carter and FDR, for a long slow stagnation, probably punctuated by a serious inflation, as you predict.

With McCain, we may have had a shot at less government meddling, but it was only a long shot anyway.

That's really all there is to it.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Vote for Obama. Here's why.

You're right, it's not America. And, you fell for it. It's NOT at all about race.

To which post are you responding?

[Wild Style]

Re: Vote for Obama. Here's why.

If Obama wins (I hope he doesn't) then I predict you, ej, will rue the day you made this choice.

While most of us accept that politicians must have a more casual relation with truth than say accountants, still we tend to grant our fellow humans some modicum of trust until proven otherwise.

If Obama wins, I predict that you will discover that Obama and his entire campaign was profoundly and deliberately more deceiptful than you thought possible. My impressions are that Obama's inner sense of himself is pathologically disconnected from how he presents himself (I suspect he's a victim of serious child abuse) and that since his adolescence he has been manipulated by some of the most dangerous, scheming, radical anti-American Marxists of our time.

I fear for my country.

My real fear is that most of the younger people in this nation will never realize the mistake they made in allowing Obama anywhere near the White House. At least you're beyond doubt a smart chap, so I trust that if I'm right in all this, you will some day be capable of seeing as much.

Hopefully, either I'm a whacked out nut job, or Obama loses tonight.

How did you come to that conclusion? I am sincerely asking.