"Daddy, did you plug up the whole yet?" Barack Obama's daughter Malia asked him. Forty-four days into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, many Americans not sired by the president are asking the same question. But Barack Obama is neither God nor their daddy. He's just the president, compelled by impotence to watch and not stop oil spill onto the Louisiana coastline.
This is less a slam on Obama's actions, or lack thereof, over the past 44 days, than it is a criticism of the president's daddy-in-chief philosophy. Sure, he has screwed up: putting bureaucratic red-tape in the way of Louisana Governor Jindahl's efforts to construct barrier islands and adding to the region's job loss by shutting down 33 gulf exploratory wells stand out. But had Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, or Bill Clinton overseen this crisis management, the oil would still be flowing into the ocean. The president can sign or veto legislation, negotiate foreign treaties, appoint judges, execute the law, and use his office as a bully pulpit. And even then, his powers are limited and checked. Plugging oil wells is not among the skills in his repertoire.
He's a spectator here, not an actor. It's not the president who has his foot to the throat of British Petroleum. It's British Petroleum that has its foot to the throat of the president. The longer this lasts, and all signs point to thousands of barrels of oils spilling daily into the gulf until August, the lower Obama's poll numbers go. The image of the summer of 2010 will be of a leaky pipe 5,000 feet under the sea. Aside from shutting down the video feed, there is absolutely nothing the president can do to stop the incessant reminder of his impotence. Every barrell of oil that seeps into the gulf represents an Obama Zombie grown disillusioned. This is the kind of thing that was supposed to happen on oilman Bush's watch, not Obama's. Meet the new change, same as the old change.
Obama's greatest supporters are naturally the most let down by his failure to stop the British Petroleum oil leak. Remember: he told them that his election to the presidency signified the moment when the seas stopped rising and the earth healed itself. So total was Obama's faith in government that he engineered a partial state takeover of the health-care system, one-sixth of the nation's economy, from the private sector. So powerful did his crowd believe the office of the president that they blamed George W. Bush for an act of God!
So it is poetic justice for the president who has done so much to gin up false hope in the power of government to demonstrate just how powerless government really is. Anyone naive enough to buy into the daddy-in-chief conception of the presidency is now viewing the president as the deadbeat daddy-in-chief. But daddy's inability to plug the leak isn't a failure of Barack Obama's. It's a failure of Barack Obama's total-government philosophy. He's not our daddy. He's just another president.
I was trying to say this over the weekend, but I'm not...you know...words and stuff.
Ann Coulter loves that zombie book, so it must be good (not to mention fair and balanced)
As for old material:
NR,
"Does a ban on gay marriage infringe upon the rights of others?
Now that one is tricky. Are you a Democracy where everyone gets their vote, or are you a Constitutional Republic, where you vote in representatives to enact law?
America is the second of these two, is it not?
Of course, there is also the question of states rights versus federal rights, something you people have not been able to sort out adequately since the formation of your country.
However, I would point out the following:
Life, Liberty, and the PURSUIT of Happiness, not necessarily its attainment.
Posing the obvious retort...is it infringing upon someone's right to not let them take more than one wife/husband?
You can call that a slippery slope argument and not relevant if you want, however, you'd be wrong."
Now please tell me how any of this is relevant? Its really a simple yes/no question, with the obvious answer of no. Your line that followed,
"As far as gay marriage goes, I think there should be more of an effort by its advocates to both change the collective mind of society and the votes of its representatives rather than using the courts to decree from on high."
just goes to show that rights are dynamic. Thank you. And your death penalty argument is a nice red herring. Good try.
Well fsda, we're certainly off topic now.
Please explain how my death penalty argument is a red herring? Because you say so? Not good enough.
And how is the obvious corollary to gay marriage, that of multiple marriages by, oh, let's say Mormons, or Muslims...not relevant to the conversation? Again, because you say so?
Kinda funny how you cut and paste my words, say, "I disagree" and it's case closed. Nice job, Matlock.
Again, you argue by emotion rather than logic.
Right are certainly dynamic. You have to fight to change people's minds in either a Constitutional Republic or a pure Democracy.
Use your representatives to enact change. Garner enough support for your position. That was how slavery was abolished in Great Britain long before the U.S.
And this is the point at which fdsa says, "oh, oh, what about Lincoln?" His emancipation proclaimation? Hmmm? Well, what about it?
There was support for the abolishment of slavery in the North and while he fully supported the idea, it was also a tactical move in the hopes of fostering uprisings in the South.
Although, comparing slavery to gay marriage is not a very good allusion. (and yes, I'm making the comparison, not you, so get off your "red herring" talking point)
Gays are not disenfranchised. They have the vote and the means to enact change. Slaves did not.
On to new stuff. Katrina...yes, the Bush administration was horribly slow off the hop, but then so were the local governments.
BP just goes to prove that whatever administration is in power, they're not omniscient or all powerful. I feel a little bad for Obama in this instance, although it's nice not to hear him give a say nothing news conference every day like he has for the past year.
When the question is "Does the Death Penalty infringe on the rights of others?" it matters not what crime the person committed. The question is does this person have a right to life.
When you propose, "Well, you have to first ask the question, "did the killer infringe upon the victim's right to live?"" it is a red herring because no, you don't have to ask that.
To say that the murder loses their right to life the moment they take another is empty and over-generalized. That is a big leap in logic, skipping a step or two. Of course this is exemplary of how people's "inalienable" rights are subject to change (i.e. marriage and discrimination law) when voters decide to make that leap in logic.
"Posing the obvious retort...is it infringing upon someone's right to not let them take more than one wife/husband?"
In a 'free' country, yes.
As for on topic stuff, would conservatives prefer no government spending on the spill and let private industry take care of it or government intervention that solves the problem more quickly than an inept corporation?
Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. In a free and Civil Society, you enter into a compact with the other members of that society NOT to deprive them of their rights (as defined by the society), first and foremost of which is the right to life. By killing someone on purpose (murder), you violate that compact and I would say that the death penalty is the consequence of that action. It's not a deterrent, it's a consequence. However, if society decides that the consequence of murder is simply denial of the right to freedom, then thats all well and good too.
So yeah, you DO have to ask the question and no, it's not a red herring...calling it that is just your way of shutting down debate.
Free society is only as free as its members agree to make it. You seem to be stuck on absolutes...ie. the "Absolute" right to life, no matter what you've done. Hmmm...are you a pro lifer? ;)
As to current events...I would love to see some competent government action regarding the spill. Jindal seems to be working on the problem prophylactically (sp?) by instituting sand berms/shields, but the federal government seems fit to do nothing but make statements about putting "their boot to BP's throat". Nice rhetoric, but nothing but.
What I get a laugh out of is when lefties can't defend the guts of a topic, they just simply change the subject and go off in another unrelated direction.
And with the failures and demonstrations of blatant incompetence that their leaders have shown having been exposed since the elevation to power of the Obama administration, obfuscation has been the rule.
On point with this topic, Obama is what we always knew he was: an inexperienced, incompetent fraud who is more comfortable as a follower than as a leader.
Good point asdf.
An example:
I once had an argument with an ex about Fidel Castro's Cuba. She kept going on about how the revolution was great and what an idyll society it is, what with the free health care...blah, blah, blah.
I asked her, "then why do many of them leave and if it's such a great and free society, why are all the writers who dare criticize the government imprisoned?"
Her response was to tell me how their literacy rate is excellent and that we'd have to agree to disagree.
Okay, now I'm obviously off topic, but it goes to the point about arguing from emotion rather than logic. Rather than give an answer to my question (she couldn't) she tried to change the subject.
And of course, when we as Conservatives draw appropriate parallels in an argument, it's called a Red Herring (which in itself is a Red Herring).
Back to this topic. While I don't think Obama's doing a particulary good job managing this, I think that the federal government is obviously not prepared for such a situation, and should have been. Just his bad luck that it happened on his watch. The blame can go all around on this one.
(although my less altruistic side says, "looks good on him)
As far as I'm concerned, not a enough bad things can happen to this guy as long as they all lead to him being ejected in (or before) 2012. Unfortunately, the bad things that happen to him have direct consequences for the rest of us. I think we would all be happier and more secure if he were more of a success, but his very being and make up seems to be contrary to all this country and we as a people stand for.
The facts that he’s been on the wrong side of a solution to this most immediate issue and has demonstrated all the competence and skill handling this as he has with everything else he’s touched, would point to an early exit being the best thing for this country.
On a side but related note, his private concert recently with Paul McCartney while we have so many outstanding issues pending with no apparent Executive solutions makes him appear even more Neroesque.
