Obama Is No Bill Clinton

     One of the themes of the Democratic National Convention was about how when Bill Clinton was president, we had a great economy, and achieved a balanced budget, and Clinton is a Democrat, and Barack Obama is a Democrat, so therefore, if you want the same types of policies we saw during the Clinton years that gave us said great economy and balanced budget, vote for Obama.

     What Clinton failed to mention is that his policies were almost to the complete opposite of what we've seen from President Obama and what President Obama is proposing. Bill Clinton tried, initially, to govern as a left-wing Democrat. He signed a tax increase, pushed for government healthcare ("HillaryCare"), pushed for allowing gays to openly serve in the military, and signed the Assault Weapons Ban. This caused a backlash, and the Congress switched to being controlled by the Republicans for the first time in four decades, led by Newt Gingrich. Bill Clinton then pivoted, and made the statement, "The era of Big Government is over."

     His "pivot" essentially consisted of going on to govern like a conservative Republican. First on the agenda was welfare reform. Bill Clinton actually vetoed this two times, but the Republicans in Congress kept sending it back up to him until he finally signed it. To say it was controversial was an understatement. The Republicans had to use the reconciliation process to pass it (a questionable process I'd imagine as the Republicans railed over the Democrats using it to pass Obamacare), the Democratic party was very much against it, and some prominent members of the social welfare bureaucracy resigned over it (two members of HHS), saying it would be disastrous (it wasn't, as the economy being healthy, the people then went out and got jobs). It is very interesting how Bill Clinton talked about welfare reform at the DNC, as he made it sound like it was his program. It was a Republican piece of legislation that he had to be convinced to sign after multiple vetoes.

     Then there was the completion of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Clinton at first did not like NAFTA. It had been started by Ronald Reagan, but Bill ended up completing it and regarding it as one of his great accomplishments. Democrats and their various special interest groups have of course always hated the bill (unions in particular). Belief in free-trade tends to be a more right-wing thing. Both Hillary and Barack Obama ran against NAFTA in 2008.

     Bill Clinton also signed a "tax cut for the rich" when he signed a capital gains tax rate cut in 1997 (the rate was reduced from 28% down to 20%). And then in 1999, he signed the Financial Services Modernization Act, also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which removed the decades-long barrier that had existed between investment banks and commercial banks.

     To claim that it is Obama who has the policies similar to what we saw under Bill Clinton during the 1990s 1994-and on is engaging in a huge degree of historical revisionism I'd say. President Romney has some real low-hanging fruit here I think with which to go after the Obama campaign, and I am surprised that he hasn't made any speeches outlining just the above to crowds. It seems though that he and his campaign are doing the same things that John McCain did during his own campaign in 2008, i.e. to ignore all the low-hanging fruit that exists with which to go after President Obama. President Obama himself has most definitely not minced anything in going after Romney, doing everything they can to paint him as an evil, horrible man.

They Know So Much That Isn't So

     Ronald Reagan once said, "The trouble with our liberal friends isn't that they're wrong, it's that they know so much that isn't so." The Democratic National Convention was a textbook case of this I think. It seems all Democrats, and especially the major ones, all have no idea what the Republican party, conservatism, or the right-wing in general actually stands for.

     Bill Clinton in his speech said that with this election, Americans have a choice: choosing between a "We're in it together" society, which the Democrats support, or a "You're on your own society," which the Republicans supposedly support. The problem with this whole view is that it assumes that government and society, government and community, are one and the same. To them, you are either for big government programs and thus a society where we care about one another, or you are against big government, and thus by default, support a society where it's just a straight "every person for themself" type of system, where no one helps anyone else. It never occurs to these Democrats that one can very much be for a society where people care for one another, care about their community, do charitable work and giving, etc...but believe in limited government (and do all this without big government). It doesn't occur to them that society and government, that society and community, are not the same thing. To them, government is at the center of our national life, a core part of our being citizens.

     But yet, it's what the Democrats believe. Nancy Pelosi said in a speech that Republicans want to take away our clean air and clean water. Barney Frank, Julian Castro, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama (in his "You didn't build that" speech) all have made the case that we as a society have to care about one another and we can't just be a society where everyone is on their own. They literally have no concept of what conservatism, or the right-wing in general, is about. Conservatism is very much about community and helping one's fellow human. As the columnist Charles Krauthammer has pointed out, conservatism is about the family, the community, the church, charity, etc...one doesn't need government for these things.

     It is sad that the Democratic party still has not bothered to learn what the Republican party or conservatism or the right in general believes in. One can very much understand the arguments of the political right, but just say that they disagree with them. Instead though, the Democratic party adheres to what is a giant strawman of a belief about conservatism.

     I am rather surprised that Bill Clinton sank himself to saying that in his DNC speech, as I think he knows better. This is a man who is a Rhodes scholar and who the late, great free-market economist Milton Friedman said was one of the two most brilliant presidents he ever worked with (the other brilliant one being Nixon). So I think Bill Clinton knows what conservatism and the right-wing really are about. My mother (yep!) said she thinks Bill is playing nice for the Democratic party because his daughter, Chelsea, is making her first forays into politics now and in order to get anywhere, she is going to need the Democratic party's help. Also Hillary may be thinking of making a run for the Presidency in 2016, so she'll need the party's help as well.

    

Neil Armstrong Dead at 82

RIP to a great man.

Media Double Standard

     So anyone watching the news the past few days will know about the shooting at the Family Research Council. Now personally, I do not at all like this group in terms of their anti-gay marriage stance. Some gay rights advocates say they can be classed as a hate group. I don't know a whole lot about their actual activities myself, so I won't go so far as to call them that, and with these types of groups it depends. Some conservatives are just anti-gay marriage, while others will present themselves as just anti-gay marriage, but behind-the-scenes are actually viscerally anti-gay period, pushing for legislation behind-the-scenes that is very anti-gay.

     Some say this is what the FRC does. Well as said, I haven't researched it, but either way, hate group of not, I think it is a complete double-standard of the worst kind that the media has barely bothered to report the shooting there! If that had been a Tea Party member shooting (or trying to shoot) up let's say a Planned Parenthood, I'd be willing to bet a large sum of money that it would have been 24/7 in the news cycle, with talk about the way groups like the Tea Party breed hatred, the dangers of right-wing hatred, and so forth. We saw what happened with the Gabriel Giffords shooting by Jared Loughner, a man who cited The Communist Manifesto as one of his favorite books. Despite this, the general "climate of hate" was blamed for it, with said climate being blamed on the right-wing (even though the Left continue to participate in such harsh rhetoric (not saying the Right don't do it too, but the Left do it a lot as well)), and Sarah Palin accused of having influenced Mr. Loughner (!!!).

Yes, the media has reported the incident, butI think nothing like they would have had this been a right-wing nutcase as opposed to a left-wing nutcase.

Paul Ryan Announced As Mitt Romney's VP Running Mate

     So this will be interesting to watch. I think Paul Ryan can aid Romney's campaign in how knowledgable and fluent he is on the issues, and how he can come across in a very non-aggressive, non-mean sort of way, which is good. The Democratic party is going to attack him on his Medicare reform plan with the misconception that his policy is to get rid of Medicare as it exists whether people like it or not. It will be interesting if Ryan is criticized for lacking foreign policy experience, when the same critics were okay with Barack Obama's complete lack of foreign policy experience when he was running for President. But that's politics! I guess the Romney campaign wants to get this whole thing out-of-the-way early. I do wonder though if President Obama will keep Biden as his running mate, or switch to making Hillary Clinton as his running mate.

Gun Regulations and Semi-Automatic Guns

Another thing I wanted to point out regarding semi-automatic firearms is that semi-automatic guns in the United States have to be manufactured according to specific regulations from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms that make them difficult to convert into fully-automatic weapons. Any semi-automatic gun that can easily be converted into an automatic weapon is classed as an automatic weapon.

Chick-Fil-A

So anyone who's been following the news lately is probably aware of the hoopla Chick-Fil-A's owner stirred up when he said that God will punish the United States for embracing gay marriage. The mayors of some major cities such as Chicago and Boston moved to ban Chick-Fil-A from their cities. Chick-Fil-A got a major sales boost from supporters however as a result of this.

Now me personally, I am fine with gays and gay marriage. But I think it is wrong to try to bully a business because its owner has anti-gay marriage (or even anti-gay) views. By law, the business cannot put up a sign saying that they do not serve gay people, so gay or straight, you can go in there and buy food and eat. We cannot become a country where people have to literally start being careful about what opinions they have or else their business will be outlawed from an area. That sets a very bad precedent that could spill over into other things.

The beauty of the free enterprise system is that if you don't like the views of the business's owner or the business itself, then don't buy their product.