Feeling Blue
So the Blogfather says Romney would have won (what, if he'd been more competent focusing on the health insurance issue that he passed in Massachusetts?):
WHICH IS WHY OBAMA LIED: Poll: If Voters Had Known They’d Lose Their Insurance, They’d Have Voted For Romney.
Well, okay, technically I guess he just says this is why Obama lied.
As LAGuy does, as we all do, I find this balance of lying interesting. Someone (Mencken? Many people, of course) said only a fool would tell the public the truth all the time. And of course there is always the one way outrage: their guy lies, it's a mortal sin, our guy lies, it's remarkable strategy (if we're feeling particularly generous or upright, it's a regrettable necessity).
But would we be any happier with Romney? As with McCain, I'm frankly happier that, if we have to have these policies, at least let's have them attributed to the party that most openly admits its socialism. (I wonder what percentage of the Republican Party is socialist? Is it as much as a third, or even half? Or is it primarily focused in the leadership, in which case it isn't socialism, but is rather either fascism or simple corruption. As P.J. O'Rourke says, when buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. And yes, I know you can't say fascism, so please tell me what the right word is when the state exercises its control of the means of production by something less than openly acknowledged ownership.)
So given the correctness of my views (i.e., assuming it), is America better off that Obama won and got his policies through? There was a similar question I had about Clinton. My biggest fear was less what he would accomplish, though I did fear that, but that rather he would act as a continued delay to the philosophies that Reagan represented, an interregnum, that might allow time for the collectivist side to regroup, retrench and prevail. (And of course, if that has already happened, or if it reaches its final stages soon, then it is Reagan that is the interregnum to the arc that launched with the second Roosevelt, if not the first.)
All very interesting, as my little yellow friends would say. (Thank you, Peter.)
Quite a week for me. Michigan tradition lost, Big Ten tradition lost, and now America lost. Maybe next week will be better.
posted by ColumbusGuy @ 4:30 AM
5 Comments:
OK all the whackos still talk about socialism but "collectivisim"? "interregnum"?
What year is this?
Juts for starters, Romney would have stopped Obamacare dead in its tracks.
He also wouldn't have appointed absurdly pro-regulation, anti-freedom judges to all the appeals courts (after demanding the nuclear option to ensure even the craziest get through).
Do you think it's just some coincidence that Obama is the one President who can't seem to shake the recession--you remember, the one that got him elected. His every instinct is anti-business. We even get a blessing like fracking, that can not just pull us out of the recession but change the world, and he tries his best to fight it. He pisses off our friends--England, Japan, Poland, Israel, even Saudi Arabia--to try to cater to every terrorist country ever asked onto the Security Council, helping enemies like Russia (Romney knew they were enemies, at least, which is why he got attacked as naive), Iran and fascists throughout the Arab world, figuring the big problem in the world is America is too powerful.
One President can't change everything--at least not until Thomas L. Friedman gets his way--but if you can't see how he makes a difference, you might as well retire to your cabin in the woods and sit on your porch with a shotgun.
If Obama hadn't lied Romney would have won? That sort of misses the point. If Obama hadn't lied, we wouldn't have Obamacare.
Not sure what to say to anon 1, other than, is that how one should spell wacko?
Anon 3, I think it's on point. Sure, Obama, the dems and the press lied to get Obamacare through, but had Romney won on the issue, or even not on the issue, there is at least the theoretical possibility he would have done something about it and possibly something smart and productive (anon 2 sure seems to think so). Plus, regardless, it would have been a repudiation of Obama (a price Obama was willing to pay to get it through--see the post on one-way ratchet. All in all, a smart bet on Obama's part, if he cares about the policy, and I certainly accept that he does.)
Anon 2, why the hostility? I find it a bit credulous to say Romney would have stopped it "dead in its tracks", sounds a bit like a personal injury advertisement. And yes, maybe he would be doing less damage than Obama as far as judges and regulation. And no, of course I think Obama is driving the economy into the tank. (Geez, you're really piling it on, I have to address Saudi Arabia too?)
But, you are correct, I would like a cabin in the woods, a shotgun and a time to retire to. In my circles none of those are bad things.
All I was really exploring is that there is an ebb and flow, and sometimes the policies play out in opposite ways. Personally, I hope Obamacare ends up destroying the Democrat party and collectivism forever, but I'm not sure it's the smart way to bet, and there are plenty of people writing that it's the Republicans who are at risk of flaming out, not the Dems. (Most of those writers are lefties who would like to see it, but some are free market supporters who are frankly tired of the corruption in the party that most associates itself with the basics--property, free markets and the rule of law.)
Why is anon 2 hostile? Because the kind of thinking that says what's the difference between the two parties is the kind of thinking that makes Democrats win so you can find out the difference?
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