House of Eratosthenes

A whole lot of things led to the results we saw last night. I’d offer there has been a palpable feeling in the air that we are voting on economic liberty; that there is economic suffering. A feeling that, perhaps, prosperity has left us because we have voted it away.

There is hope that maybe we can have jobs and savings again, if we vote the other way and arrive at the polls ready to accept wealth and the responsibility that arrives with us — if we say “yes, we are good enough to have money, we don’t have to give it all away to the Government.”

But a lot of idiotic asinine quotes got us to last night. John Hawkins has rounded up a list of seven quotes that, in likelihood, made a deep impression on America that she put the wrong people in charge last go-’round. These deserve to be remembered at least until 2012, when we vote on Obama’s successor and figure out what to do as the next class of Senators come up for re-election.

“As she prepares to step down as President Obama’s chief economist, Christina Romer said Friday that she wishes she could redo one of her first official acts for the president: last January’s forecast that a big shot of federal spending would save millions of jobs and keep the unemployment rate under 8 percent.”

“But I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.”

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.”

“Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive.”

“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’ The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”

“What good is reading the (health care) bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”

“There’s going to be a tendency on the part of our people to be in denial about (Scott Brown’s win), but if you lose Massachusetts and that’s not a wake-up call, there’s no hope of waking up.”

It comes down to, there are two ways to cast a vote: As a baby and as a man. The baby way is what we do in high school. We figure out who is cool and who is a dork, and we live out our lives making sure the dorks never, ever ever ever find acceptance anywhere and the cool kids never, ever ever find any rejection. Certain people are always supposed to be told “no” and certain other people are always supposed to be told “yes”; when the class elections come up, that’s just an opportunity to keep exercising those same rules.

A man — grown-up — figures out what is broken and fixes it. You can’t directly do all that with an election, so what you need to do is figure out who’s recognized what’s broken, formed a vision around fixing it, and a plan around the vision, such that their plan most closely resembles the plan you’d come up with.

Necessity is the mother of invention. We tend to start voting like grown-ups when we are backed into a corner and have no other alternative. It is rather typical to vote like a little baby for as long as you can afford to do so.

We just can’t afford to keep “cool” people like this in positions of authority anymore. It’s not working for us because it’s too expensive. And they end up being liars. They talk a good game about building a country that works for everybody, and the next thing you know you’ve got statements out of them like Obama’s priceless “punish your enemies” line. Meanwhile, their “problem-solving” ends up being little more than opening the floodgates between the public treasury and whoever their best buddies are.

If you vote like a baby, that’s quite alright because they’re just so awesome, man. If you vote like a man, you realize this isn’t going to solve the problems that ail us…

First, we have more than a communications problem — the public heard us but disagreed with our approach. Democrats need not reassess our goals for America, but we need to seriously rethink how to reach them.

Second, don’t blame the voters. They aren’t stupid or addled by fear. They are skeptical about government efficacy, worried about the deficit and angry that Democrats placed other priorities above their main concern: economic growth.

Evan Bayh makes a lot of sense. These ideas will not be implemented…

The benefits involved in voting like a baby are felt mostly by the candidate who is courting votes from voters who vote like babies. I can tell, just from watching their behavior, it must be as addictive as crack. Sens. Boxer and Reid had the entire day to become deathly worried over their jobs, and legitimately so, and had all night to make speeches about it. What did they say? Did either one of them utter a peep about what they’d do, if re-elected, to strengthen the economy? Nope. Just pablum calculated to shore up support, to boost the moral of the volunteers. We will win. We will prevail. They will lose. Us. Them. We. They.

In both cases, it really did turn out to be the case that they “won”; but what does this say about your career when it looks like the time has come to bottom-line what it’s all been about, and that’s all you can say? That you’re awesome and you’re gonna win again?

And not a single word about service to the republic?

Well, good. They won. But as a minority party in the House; and in the Senate, probably in their last two years as a majority. All of the “cool kid” factor is gone, spent, every single drop of it. Coast to coast, every single democrat incumbent who managed to hang on to his seat, did so thanks to seniority. And Sarah Palin’s question “How’s that hopey changey stuff workin’ out for ya?” now has an answer: It’s the fucking kiss of death in 2010. Two years old, and about as fashionable as a black-and-white television set with a nine inch screen. Covered with vomit. And anthrax powder.

Thing I Know #372. Whoever sacrifices all other things for the sake of popularity, will ultimately lose that as well.

“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’ The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”

What, Joe’s not an American, either? Born in Keynsia, then? 😉

But as a minority party in the House; and in the Senate, probably in their last two years as a majority.

Man, I hope you’re right about that. But that’s one of the things that troubles me about last night. The numbers, in general, are just way too close. We have a lot of work to do on our fellow voters. We need to start seeing a lot of 60/40’s and better when it’s a question of Originalist/Progressive questions and candidates or we’re still going to go down as the left, for now, has too much control over that steering wheel.
- philmon | 11/03/2010 @ 07:00

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

“Every Great Idea Has Required Government Vision and Incentive”Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

“Every Great Idea Has Required Government Vision and Incentive”
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010