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Political Hay
How the President ‘Accommodates’ Free-Market Thinking
He does it the same way a boa constrictor swallows its prey.
(Page 2 of 2)
Most of the savants in the news media (and I speak with the long experience of someone who spent a dozen and half years at major newspapers and magazines) were happy to think: If Mr. Obama can find something good to say about free enterprise, why can’t they find something good to say about Solyndra, high-speed rail, and all the rest? Why can’t Mitt (or Rick or Newt) be more like Barack?
Of course, the interior monologue that I have invented also suggests that same reporters and editors who were cheering Mr. Obama’s remarks at the AP dinner were very much inclined to think of his paean to free enterprise as part of the eyewash that is needed to keep moderates and independents from worrying too much about the perilousness of our current economic course.
Later on this speech, Mr. Obama went on to rail in his usual way about “trickle-down economics” and the ever-present tendency (as he sees it) for the rich to prey upon the poor under conditions of economic freedom. You will never hear this president mimic Milton Friedman in talking about how free enterprise succeeds precisely because it is based on the principles of open competition and voluntary exchange — as opposed to government planning and coercion.
But was the earlier talk of his belief in free enterprise just eyewash?
It was nothing but eyewash if you think the president was “accommodating” free marketing thinking in almost the same way that he “accommodated” leaders of religious institutions who objected to the mandate that they had to offer free contraceptives and abortion-inducting drugs as part of their health care plans. He dealt with that by ordering insurance companies to make these benefits “free” to anyone who wanted them.
In doing so, he added insult to injury — imputing that a cost that might be too great for many people to bear on their own would also be one that insurance companies could afford to give away at no charge with passing along the cost to other consumers regardless of whether they wanted this benefit for themselves or not.
But maybe there is more to it than mere eyewash when Mr. Obama sings the praises of free enterprise.
Perhaps it is more in the nature of an aide to digestion.
As Winston Churchill famously noted, “It is the habit of a boa constrictor to besmear the body of its victim with a foul slime before he devours it.”
About the Author
Andrew B. Wilson, a frequent contributor to The American Spectator, writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (34) | Leave a comment
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Mimi| 4.6.12 @ 7:48AM
When in HISTORY has a President of thUnited States of America behave and "DO" the exact opposite of what he speaks! Truth , honesty and honor have nothing to do with Liberalism or Conservatism as a world view , it has to do with character.
It is unreaal to think that his strange vision of himself and his annoying self love expect that all this hogwash will be swallowed by the country.
Oh ....Oh this nation deserves so much more than THIS! Recall the seating before his SOTU speech right in front of him the Supreme Court were taking the brutal criticism....later on Paul Ryan took the front seat for this abuse. Another example of poor character, impatience, rudeness.
This time PULEEZ let us get The very best to get as our esteemed President!
Teaghan| 4.6.12 @ 8:42AM
I don't remember ever hearing a President say the word "I" as much as this slimeball.
What makes a person become such a self absorbed narsassist?
1blumutt| 4.7.12 @ 12:03AM
A caution to parents....He was catered to by his mother and his maternal grandparents.... made to feel special....he was doted on. He recalls this is his book. So, now we have to deal with the mess this man-child leaves us daily to clean up.
"WOLVERINE" in training| 4.8.12 @ 12:06AM
get a clue, he has no intention on leaving!
here's the only way to get rid of the fool
namely, every day, every way, every chance,
try to talk someone into realizing he is a
liar, hurting the country, dependence of our
chiledren on govt is bad thing for each and
every one of our children....etc
its the only way,...and i mean in grocery
lines, athletic clubs, store dressing rooms,
cashiers, wine tasting, bus stops, ...
sablegsd| 4.7.12 @ 1:45AM
Being raised by flaming liberal commies and floating along with affirmative action.
sablegsd| 4.7.12 @ 1:47AM
Replying to myself because I forgot the most important component of his mental illness.
koranimal men think very highly of themselves.
sablegsd| 4.7.12 @ 1:47AM
Replying to myself because I forgot the most important component of his mental illness.
koranimal men think very highly of themselves.
Dave | 4.6.12 @ 11:51AM
Council To The Wise:
"Remember, grasshoppers, the python will not devour the mouse all at once. He will first grab him by the neck when not aware; then slowly consume him after losing the will to fight. In the end, the python will have his meal."
Sensi Vigilant Citizen
Stan Redmond| 4.6.12 @ 2:58PM
Liberalism is overwhelmingly embraced by people with no morals and the natural home of tyrants and communists. It is extremely difficult find someone with good character that are liberals.
SUBVET| 4.7.12 @ 11:26AM
A liberial.....is a communist with a college education thinking negro thoughts.
The Run Diary
Gary B| 4.6.12 @ 8:41AM
Obama just says stuff. He can't run on his record, so disinformation is his only feasible strategy. Will it work? It certainly worked in '08 after several years of voting "present" to conceal his Marxist ideology.
Now, that he's been out in the open for three years, he's scrambling to cover up who he really is. Apparently, he thinks the rest of America is as gullible as his dumbass base.
Hoads| 4.6.12 @ 9:43AM
Obama and his minions bank on their sycophantic media to disseminate whatever he puts out --unfiltered. They have calculated that all they need is a ramped up get out the vote among their urban voters and the lowest income groups - folks who get their news from the headlines and whatever sound bites make it through their TVs and radios and places with active ACORN/ progressive activists in place.
They know they can't squeeze much more voter turnout from the over 65, higher incomes, higher educated, notoriously red/blue states so they are focusing on urban voters in swing states who are sponges for mainstream media and who, quite frankly, are easiest to have the wool pulled over their eyes and who have consistently lower voting rates. Theses are Obama's target audience. He has so successfully polarized us that he knows the lines are drawn and he just has to work on getting his voters to the polls. So he's inciting them with a steady drumbeat of class warfare , trumped up racism and caricaturing the right.
Meanwhile, those of us who see the blatant lies, straw men and corruption can rant and rave but the mainstream media is so thoroughly corrupted that I believe it is a lost cause.
Obama is going to be re-elected- whether legitimately or not.
Mimi| 4.6.12 @ 9:53AM
The Nov. 2010 crowd have not all gone away...lying low but they will come out of the woodwork and defeat him properly!
Also more of the voters have gotten disgusted since the 2010 election...No thanks to the GOP...it is the master himself, showing us more deliberate outrages. More will awaken!
Hoads| 4.6.12 @ 9:47AM
And- he's also getting the vote out of this group with entitlements and government goodies while making the right their boogeyman.
Von Mises Jr.| 4.6.12 @ 9:48AM
Socialists purposefully confuse the meaning of words. Obama's policies are a hodgepodge of Marxist doctrines, communist takeovers of industries and the syndicalism of GM. But the major short-term theme of his tendencies is fascism. This "Third Way" was devised after socialism failed miserably every time it was tried, and got a bad name for its totalitarianism. Socialists decided that control, rather than public ownership of the means of production is preferred, and coined it "Crony Capitalism." The relationships at Berkshire Hathaway, GE, Goldman, Solyndra, Ener1, Solar Trust, etc....have nothing to do with capitalism. But by referring to it as "crony capitalism," they create a foil (a Bokonon) and promote an increase in interventionist policies that are the cause of the problem in the first place.
An example of this perverting of the language is written about by Hayek. In Mises writings, liberal refers to the politics of the "Old Whigs" such as Edmund Burke. But today, "liberalism" is the socialism of Marx.
Hayek points out the inversion of several words such as "freedom," "social" and "justice" that mean the complete opposite to our contemporary socialist than they did to Hayek's and his mentor, Von Mises. This is why Hayek's "Constitution of Liberty" contains an essay "Why I am Not a Conservative." Conservative is a reactionary that rejects change. But the Whigs did accept slow and positive change.
Another example is "progressive." Today's so-called "progressive" party are stalwart regressives. This is what Rousseau talked about in his "Noble Savage." We must first be wiped clean of our morals and traditions to then be molded and perfected for socialism.
DRed| 4.6.12 @ 5:59PM
Von, you need to study more about the origins of fascism. When fascism was created, socialism was not yet seen as a failed economic model. The horrors of soviet communism were not widely understood. Fascism spread beyond Italy in part because capitalism and liberal democracy looked like a failure (this was during the great depression) and fascism looked like an attractive alternative to left wing socialism and failed liberal democracy.
Crony capitalism is an unavoidable problem in capitalist systems. The biggest threat to laissez faire capitalism is capitalists. Businesses don't want a free market-they want to make money. They will always seek to distort the market in their favor, whether it's by collusive practices like price fixing, using their size to distort the market, or by using the government to do the same.
Pat| 4.6.12 @ 8:27PM
Von Mises Jr. All good points as usual – but I puzzle over why we seem so bent on categorizing government systems as if the very label we employ would somehow frighten our Washington kleptocracy into backing off from one or more of their latest swindles. You’re also correct that a knowledge of history provides us with insight into present human motivations – what once went around, comes back around of course. But I see our government controlled economy more as "Fishermanism".
Under Fishermanism, you give the peons, the underclass, the great unwashed a fish, each and every one of them who swears to support you, but you never teach them how to fish. For budding politicians among the Democratic Party and a portion of these within the Republican Party, you teach these individuals how to fish – thus Fishermanism. Under Fishermanism, you as the fisherman will sell your vote to the highest bidder, you will readily accept favors in return for custom designed laws based on the bidder’s specification and - just like any good fisherman - you will disguise your bait to fool the fish.
“Tax the rich”, “Stimulate the economy”, “Help the disadvantaged” are all artificial lures disguising the barbed hook. And what fisherman agonizes over the welfare of the fish, or would ever worry that fish are evolving as planned or even ponder whether there is adequate diversity or a proper ethnic balance among the fish species inhabiting the lake? The Fisherman just wants to catch something – it’s that simple and straightforward.
As the fish under Fishermanism, we can’t change any of the rules. And as the Fishermen are prone to remind us: Quit your bitchin and swallow your worm.
Von Mises Jr.| 4.6.12 @ 9:44PM
Rush has been using the metaphor of the National Park signs citing " "Don't Feed the Animals."
When the wild animals are fed, they stop fending for themselves and wait to be fed. Then they get run over by cars. It isn't DRed driving, since he is outside the car.
I categorize types of socialism so that the left (DRed) can't tell us totalitarianism fascism is a product of John Locke. Communist distort the facts. It is also important to understand the Leviathan "statism" of the GOP, since we can be objective, unlike liberals. I think we should call them "dribblers."
But in any case, nice to chat and G-d bless.
Pat| 4.7.12 @ 3:58PM
Von Mises, Jr. – Thanks and I see what you mean. Always amusing to watch Liberals cast our Washington kleptomaniacs as the innocent victims. Maybe it’s not enough fiber in their diets or too much network television, but as a former corporate drone it’s chuckle producing to hear assertions about Big Business corrupting our barefoot and honest legislators. Certainly some corporate hit man built like Schwarzenegger in his prime held a gun to Representative Maxine Waters’ head and forced her to arrange a government loan to the bank where her husband just happens to be on the Board. “Ok, Maxine, either your brains or your signature will be on this loan legislation in 2 minutes” – too many viewings of The Godfather must aggravate the Liberal’s paranoia.
Then there’s Nancy Pelosi helping the business where her son just happens to be employed. And further providing this generous help in the form of taxpayer dollars rather than her personal wealth. The Mafia could take lessons from our elected employees in shaking down unarmed business people for “protection money”.
Von Mises Jr.| 4.7.12 @ 8:19PM
Our political class is clearly the top 1%.
Don't tell DRed. Let him try to figure it out by himself.
Petronius| 4.6.12 @ 12:13PM
He's only for "free enterprise" to the extent that private business must exist to be regulated and shaken down for campaign cash. The Soviets proved that his ilk can't run a fever if success is necessary.
qwilly| 4.6.12 @ 1:21PM
America through its Pentagon has many ways of defending itself. However keeping safe from
Liers is proving to be quite the challenge.
Oldefarte| 4.6.12 @ 2:48PM
I'll allow Wayne Root to speak for me [since I agree with his words 150%]; and I remind everyone here to reflect upon 11/4/12 as the crossroads for this nation as to whether we SURVIVE or FAIL :
'......Obamacare Is the Perfect $17 Trillion Trojan Horse Thursday, April 5, 2012 04:41 PM
By: Wayne Allyn Root Forget the Supreme Court review of Obamacare. There was much bigger news this week about Obama's signature healthcare program. Nancy Pelosi said “We must pass Obamacare to find out what’s in it.”Well someone finally took her up on it, read all of the more than 2,000 pages, and he did the simple math. The long-term debt of Obamacare is akin to a Trojan Horse.The long-term debt it creates is not the $1 trillion Obama claimed — it is $17 trillion — more than DOUBLE our current backbreaking national debt.More on this nightmare later. First let’s examine how this was Obama’s plan from day one. As I’ve repeatedly said about my college classmate Barack Obama, “His plan is to purposely overwhelm the system and bring down capitalism.”This isn’t just a theory. At Columbia University, Class of ’83, along with Obama, I studied and discussed the philosophy of two former Columbia Professors Richard Cloward and Frances Piven (a husband and wife team). Their goal was to bring down capitalism and turn America into a big government controlled socialist state.The Cloward and Piven strategy was brilliant. They understood that if you look like a socialist, talk like a socialist, and promise socialism, you could never get elected. So they conceived a plan to make it happen without America realizing it.
Their idea was the political version of boiling a frog. You slowly turn up the temperature until the frog is cooked, without ever realizing what is happening. In Cloward and Piven’s world, the frog (victim) is America, and the cooking is achieved by overwhelming the system with debt.
Obama studied hard and learned well at Columbia University. He now has a Ph.D. in "cooking the frog slowly." Over the past 3 years, Obama has overwhelmed the system with $5 trillion of new debt — all of it disguised as “saving” the U.S. economy. Cloward and Piven believed that debt was the key to destroying capitalism. First, you use debt to expand the size and scope of government, addicting a large portion of society to government entitlements, thereby bribing them to keep you in power (allowing you to continue to pour on more and more debt). At some point you’ve created so much debt a crisis is created and the country implodes, bringing everyone (including capitalist business owners) to their knees begging government to save them. And, of course, in a terrible crisis, out of fear and panic, the American people will be willing to go along with the socialist solution (high taxes, income redistribution) espoused by the very people who created it. Brilliant.
But the centerpiece of Cloward and Piven is to always disguise your true intensions. You're not socializing the country, you are "saving" the economy. You are making the system "fairer." Recognize those code words? Obama isn't even creative. He's just reading word for word from the playbook.Obama promised the $5 trillion in new debt would “save” our economy. He then promised Obamacare would “save” our healthcare system. Do you see the pattern? The things meant to destroy us, tax us to death, and enslave future generations to big government, are always introduced during a time of crisis, when our defenses are down, “to save us.”What none of us understood was the $5 trillion in new debt was just a starting point for Obama — a distraction from the main event. The real game-changer, the main event was always Obamacare.
If we were thinking clearly we might have asked a few obvious questions:First, polls prove over 70 percent of Americans like their present healthcare coverage. So what are we being saved from?Second, if everyone (even Obama) agrees that government-run Medicare and Medicaid threaten to bankrupt the U.S. economy, how could we “save” the U.S. economy by putting government in charge of all healthcare?
Third, if government can magically lower healthcare prices, how come the highest healthcare costs in America are found in New York and New Jersey, the two states with the highest level of government regulation?
Lastly, if government has been wildly wrong on every prediction they've ever made about the cost of every new program, usually by a factor of 100, why would this time be different?
But just as he learned from Cloward and Piven, Obama painted healthcare as a "crisis" and made us panic. So we suspended our reason and common sense. That was the plan from day one.
Well the results are in. Senator Jeff Sessions has now actually read the 2900 pages and done the math. Obamacare isn’t going to “save” the U.S. economy. It isn’t going to reduce the deficit. On the contrary the true long-term funding gap for Obamacare is $17 trillion dollars.
Yes, I said $17 trillion dollars — with a T.
I wish I could say I’m surprised. That’s more than the current entire national debt. More than our nation’s GDP — all the money made in America each year. It’s more than double all the future debt of Social Security (about $7 trillion over the next 75 years). Just so you know, Sen. Sessions didn’t use crazy math to come up with this $17 trillion figure. All he did was read the entire healthcare law and apply standard federal government estimates and models to the law’s spending obligations.
When combined with the shortfalls for Medicare and Medicaid, this $17 trillion puts U.S. taxpayers on the hook for $82 trillion in long-term healthcare obligations. Keep in mind that no taxes yet exist to pay for this $82 trillion healthcare bill. So you see, Obamacare is the heart of the plan to overwhelm the U.S. economy and overturn capitalism. The current economy cannot survive $82 trillion in unfunded obligations. This new debt will force us to our knees, to beg government to save us. To feed the beast of big government taxes will have be increased to unimaginable levels. The Trojan Horse that promised to save us, is actually here to destroy us.For those who hate America, the beauty is this Trojan Horse keeps adding to the debt, destroying all that is great about this country, long after Obama is gone. Our children and grandchildren will be overwhelmed by huge debts, deficits, and unimaginable taxes (as well as horrible quality healthcare) decades from now. They won't even remember Obama's name, but he will have changed their lives and the economic system they live under......'
Pete| 4.6.12 @ 4:33PM
Good piece. But don't discount chaos theory. Obama can throw the economy into chaos, but he can't control the results of that chaos. He would actually lose control. The usurper would easily be usurped. Where it would go is anyones guess.
irish19| 4.7.12 @ 12:39AM
My guess is it won't go anywhere pleasant.
Mimi| 4.7.12 @ 9:41AM
OF ...One of your best, Thanks !
Stan Redmond| 4.6.12 @ 3:00PM
Pay no attention to what Obama says. He doesn't have a clue what he's saying. He reads the teleprompter. If his handlers think he's losing the free market argument he will stand in front of his teleprompters and read something Axelrod writes about the free market.
PattyMor| 4.6.12 @ 3:03PM
Obama says whatever crap he wants? And why not, the Marxist Media will NEVER hold him accountable. They probably snicker along at the inside jokes, like Cominsky Park, 57 States, and Corpsmen. So he talks just enough of the "free market" lingo to disarm the gullible. There is nothing "free" about Obama's whole agenda. Its slavery of not only us, but our children and grandchildren.
Pete| 4.6.12 @ 4:35PM
And he can say it all in Austrian. He is the only man in the world who understands Austrian. He is playing a dangerous game.
Tammy| 4.6.12 @ 4:54PM
Andrew, you seem to have all the answers. When are you going to run for president? I'm sure you could do a much better job than Obama.
Skippy| 4.6.12 @ 6:09PM
Taqiyya has been adopted by the left.
All lies; all the time.
Tenn Slim| 4.8.12 @ 9:18AM
As 2012 winds down, either to a Mayan end or a Obama beginning, we have but one duty:
Survive, family, self, country.
Semper Fi
Michele San Pietro| 4.8.12 @ 1:58PM
Obama, despite his madness, will never succeed in destroying free market in the United States.