I thought it was fucking awesome. He nailed it. He's sticking to the campaign promises that I remember and wanted him to go after, and he's approaching everything just the way I expected him to. I'm not at all let down, am extremely impressed and feel like he's living up to my expectations. There's been a lot of people trying to bring Obama down lately and since I haven't been paying much attention I have wondered whether the naysayers were right. But he totally re-assured me that I made the right choice in supporting him with this speech. I love his plan for the country, the scope of his longterm vision, and his understanding of the problems at a deeper level. And I think he delivered the speech masterfully. There's very little that he could have done better, imo. I loved how he joked around a bit, how he reached out to both sides, how he was stern with the bankers and called on Americans to take action. I loved the line addressed to high school students about how dropping out was not only quitting on themselves, but quitting on our country.
I'm totally confident that he will get us back on track if people just put aside partisan BS and get working. Obviously the far right wing will never agree, but their philosophies were rejected by the vast majority of this country after seeing the way those policies got us into such a mess after 8 years of a president who was their bitch. Those guys will never be happy and sorry, but tough shit, you had your chance and failed so now it's time for us to fix your mess.
And maybe I've got a skewed perspective because of the bush years, but usually during these speeches 90% of applause lines have half the chamber sitting and half the chamber standing. During this speech there were only a handful of times where all the republicans stayed seated. There were quite a few times where most republicans stayed seated, but nearly every single applause line had republicans standing and clapping along with the democrats. And there were a shit load of times where the entire chamber stood up. I've never seen that much support for a president. That was amazing. And inspiring. It was good to see so many republicans who were willing to toss the partisan shit aside and stand up and clap and show support for the good ideas coming from the president.
I found the entire thing on youtube for those of you who missed it. Seriously, it's worth watching. It's the best speech he's given since the campaign imo.
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ShaunR United States. Feb 26 2009 17:59. Posts 604
their philosophies were rejected by the vast majority of this country
The vast majority? What, 52%?
I actually thought it was a good speech, and I think most conservatives can agree with many points of it. Unfortunately speeches don't matter nearly as much as policy and yesterday Obama's 10 year budget plans were released, complete with large tax increases, carbon credits, and steps towards nationalized health care. Yea, he's not for 'Big Government' at all.
It's really nice that he's going to solve every single problem in America within a couple months of his administration though, I wonder what he'll do with the rest of his term. Probably take up golfing or something.
Not all 48% of the people who voted for mccain were voting for the far right =)
Plus voting for a democratic white house, and strong majorities in the house and senate is a pretty clear message.
Allowing the expiration of a tax cut on the rich that was put into place when we had a surplus is fine with me. Carbon credits are not my area of specialty, but I get the impression it is working in other parts of the world and my gut says that it's a good idea to push people away from foreign oil. I would hope we could do that just through incentives but if we gotta whoop some ass then I'm fine with that too. Health care nationalization is a great idea. This system is a total failure. We spend more money on healthcare than any other country and get shitty health care. wtf right?
As for big government, to me big government is a gov that controls EVERYTHING. What I see Obama doing is putting together a gov that takes care of several key areas, which I totally want. I think as an american citizen it's like being a member in a club. You pay your membership dues (taxes) and in return you get benefits, which should be education, healthcare, roads, transportation, libraries, police, firemen, and a fair/honest market. In terms of the market, the idea that we should deregulate and let it all work itself out is horrible imo, cause the bottom line is that greed will then win. That's what's been happening. All of these greedy motherfuckers didn't give a shit about anyone but themselves and they made millions and got away clean and the rest of us have to suffer. I don't want a market that works that way. I want the government to watch out and punish those greedy cocksuckers while rewarding people who are making a profit honestly. I have no problem with people making money, I want to make lots of money. I don't think we should be a communist society. I think basic needs should be taken care of and you earn money to afford luxuries.
Carbon credits and nationalized health care are absolutely not what we need right now. Being good at making speeches is great and all, but when you lack any understanding of economics whatsoever and you're the one laying out precedents to effect the entire economy a great deal, speeches aren't going to save us. Health care is a failure now *because* of government intervention, not because of a lack of it. Every doctor must be licensed by the State, there are retarded hoops to jump through, its all very bureaucratized. All of these things contribute to an ineffective and expensive health care system, and furthering government control over those areas will just make things worse.
Obama is surely big government, about as far as you can be and get elected in this country. Being an American citizen is not like being in a club: clubs are voluntary. If don't want to be part of this American club, I cannot remove my posessions from the system. Rather, the government owns me and all my stuff (how else could they tax me for property I "own"?). Taxes are nowhere near similar to memberships dues, because again, they are not voluntary. If I don't pay them, the government will pull out its lawyers, bureaucrats, and various weapons and use them against me until I submit.
The solution is, in fact, to remove the government (or size it down a huge amount). You seem to be arguing against this from the point of view that the economy has somehow ever been a free market or anything near it: it hasn't. George W. Bush spent more money domestically than Lyndon Johnson, which translates to a very unfree market. What we have, (and have had in the U.S. for pretty much the entirety of its existence) is corporatism, not capitalism. In such a system, corrupt corporate heads gain benefits from the State at the expense of everyone else. Has this system really changed under Obama? No, he's supported and proposed bailouts and "stimulus" packages that help all of the same people to steal more of our wealth. Whether or not Obama has good intentions, his plans will run all of us further into the ground. Government central planning never works, and this will be no different. Just because it has a different name doesn't make its effects any different.
I think Peter Schiff's commentary on Obama's speech was very good, so you might want to give it a listen: http://blip.tv/file/1812877/
you quit the club buy getting the fuck out of the country. You're hanging out in the clubhouse so if you don't want to pay the member dues go chill outside and watch the party through the windows.
and honestly this debate about big gov vs no gov is like the believe in god and don't believe in god debate. There's no winning. You believe one way is better, I believe another way is better. I think we both have a similar end in mind in some regards, like you talked about the corporations and their abuse and getting rid of that which is something I'd love to see too. We both want to see the economy alive and vibrant but have very different ideas on how to get it to that state.
Yes, but only one of them makes sense when you look at economics And quitting the club by getting the fuck out is not at all the same as it being voluntary. If I could secede, then that'd be similar, but unfortunately there was this Lincoln guy who decided that was a bad thing. With regard to the debate over government, I think its certainly more winnable than any debate over religion, as its not something based on faith. I don't think that government is a bad thing or that a lack of government would be a good thing on faith, I think these things because there is factual and scientific backing in those arguments. Rothbard and Bastiat (among many others) argue against government quite well, and I think you'd have a hard time disagreeing on a factual basis (unfortunately, however, most people acquire views on politics through emotion).
On February 26 2009 20:10 RS_II wrote:
rofl dude... and then after the speech they put on the "new hope for republicans" Jindal who wasn't impressive at all...
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