I’ve got a draft for this blog about positive changes I hope Obama will make due to his unique stature in American history.  I’ll try to get that finished some time.  But meanwhile, this anecdotal report indicates that the “conservative” response to Obama will be

1. to demand he be as militaristic as possible overseas
2. to laud and encourage his national service program

So I’m about to get a lot more lonely than I thought.  My one hope for the Obama Administration was a more individualistic and anti-government ethos from the Republicans.  If all we get is more Red State Fascism, then what have we learned from the deserved reaction against Bush?

The fact that we are even talking about bailing out American auto makers, let alone actually going to do it, is an atrocity to all economic and political sense.  Here’s an example of what passes for rational discourse these days==Peter Schiff playing the role of Socrates among the sophists.

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/E4sLx5O_3M0″ width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]

(link)

But the insanity is even greater.  No one in Congress is going to have to really make the decision by a recordable and accountable vote.  Now we have Paulson and his unlimited line of credit ($700 billion at a time).

House Democrats Urge Paulson to Give Automakers Access to TARP 

Democratic congressional leaders urged Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to use the $700 billion rescue bill passed last month to provide temporary aid to the U.S. auto industry.

“Congress granted you broad discretion to purchase, or make commitments to purchase, financial instruments you determine necessary to restore financial market stability,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority LeaderHarry Reid wrote in a letter sent to Paulson today.

After meeting with U.S. auto and union leaders this week, Pelosi of California and Reid of Nevada said they were “convinced that our nation’s automobile industry — the heart of our manufacturing sector — and the jobs of tens of thousands of American workers are at risk.”

They argued that the auto industry may qualify for federal financing under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. “A healthy automobile manufacturing sector is essential to the restoration of financial market stability, the overall health of our economy, and the livelihood of the automobile sector’s workforce,” they said.

Everyone in Washington has obviously lost his or her mind.

Postscript:

National Review’s Corner blog notices the same thing (citing WSJ):

4th of July? No, more like Christmas Day if you’re the UAW. What would you do on a slow Saturday news day a few days after the election when no one was looking? If you’re Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, you’d write to the Treasury Department to ask for some of that $700B — that was really, truly necessary for financial institutions only and for the totally unique extraordinary purpose of staving off an economy-ruining credit freeze — in order to bail out the auto industry without disturbing any of its insane labor arrangements.

Free give aways at a library led me to scoop up some back issues of Business Week.  You gotta read this article about Paulson coming into the office of Secretary of Treasurer.

And also listen to this podcast:

link

Here is a great song about the Public School system.  Imagine how much more powerful a tool may be put in the hands of the federal government with activist recruitment work programs.

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/Wf5Jn8O3s0c” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]

link / hat tip: Karen DeCoster

PostScript on service plan

Ever since the advent of representative government placed the ultimate power to direct the administration of public affairs in the hands of the people, the primary instrument by which the few have managed to plunder the many has been the sophistry that persuades the victims that they are being robbed for their own benefit. The public has been despoiled of a great part of its wealth and has been induced to give up more and more of its freedom of choice because it is unable to detect the error in the delusive sophisms by which protectionist demagogues, national socialists, and proponents of government planning exploit its gullibility and its ignorance of economics. —Arthur Goddard, from the preface to Frederic Bastiat’s Economic Sophisms.

Everyone needs to give thanks to Obama for getting out the African American vote in California and thus getting Proposition 8 to pass.  If it had been up to Whites, the attempt to protect marriage from “fundamental transformation” would have failed.

In fact, homosexual marriage doesn’t seem to have a red state/blue state divide.  It just fails.

I honestly couldn’t tell you why.  I don’t know the future.  But I’m not going to let that keep me from seeing some humor in the situation.

I was going to try to write something, but I doubt I would say it this well.  God bless these United States and the Presidency of Barack Obama.  May he be used to bring justice and peace.

In terms of unconstitutional centralization and use of power, I have had many reasons to wish Bush had never acquired the presidency. Nevertheless, I think we’re going to miss Bush’s “fascism” when we meet the real thing: Here’s the plan for the SS and I’m sure there will be a youth division too:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Tt2yGzHfy7s" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

link

How can anyone who opposes Homeland Security and the Patriot Act not see where this is going?

There’s already talk about who will run in 2012. Right now I just hope there will be elections in 2012.

hat tip