The American Spectator : Beyond Hope

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Beyond Hope

By Ben Stein on 7.25.12 @ 6:09AM

Have we ever had a President without an international economic policy before?

Sandpoint — Monday

Feelings come and feelings go.

And feelings are not facts.

I awakened this morning feeling suicidal, a common way for me to wake up. Then I looked out at the lake. Perfect. Gray blue water, fleecy clouds, endless mountains. Mr. Buffett’s trains rolled by, shaking the building reassuringly. I got up. Made a scrambled egg and Thomas’ English Muffin for my wife and me. That’s a good meal. Orange juice. Yum.

I went next door to say good bye to the magnificent Visser family, parents, Mike and Nancy, children, handsome Dave, roughly 18, glorious Megan, 15, world’s most well mannered human being, serious Tanner, 16, future lawyer, glittering little Payton, almost 12, a little gem of a girl. They are my pals from Calgary. They have been staying with us for a week and we love them. Their ancestors lived through the German occupation of Holland. The ancestors hid Jews and are remembered at Yad Vashem as “Righteous Gentiles.” The Vissers are devout Christians and mean it. They live their lives truly believing that God is with them at every moment. I felt as if I were being cleansed just being near them.

But they have to leave. Nancy, the movie star beautiful Mom, made me a ham sandwich because she had read here that I love them. Then, they gave me a DVD about Bob Dylan and then they left. I was sad and went back to sleep with wifey reading next to me.

At about 6, wifey and I stirred ourselves and made the drive out route 200 towards Hope from Sandpoint.

I will make this simple: this is the most beautiful drive on earth. Immense wetlands leading to an endless slough leading to meadows and mountains, and then to the north point of boundless Lake Pendoreille, and then to Sam Owen state park, and then to Beyond Hope, a small resort, and Ivano’s Del Lago restaurant.

The air on July 23 was too cold to eat outside. Wifey and I ate inside looking at the sunset. First the sky was purple, then red, then pink, then red again, then deep blue with a sliver of a moon. There was a roaring fire, made by Nolan, the bartender.

The only other people there were drunk, way too loud, but they left soon.

The food was astoundingly good. The service, by a redheaded witty girl named Holland, was fast and thorough. She wants to be a mushroom farmer.

But that sky. That sky. Lit up by the hand of God.

Really, this was a perfect evening after a morning feeling suicidal.

We drove home and I, as usual, once home, watched a documentary, this one about the Russian destruction of German Army Groups Central and North. It was grim stuff. Devastating savagery on all sides. What a monster Hitler was to bring this pain to the earth. What a cruel doctrine Darwinist racial superiority theory is.

But out at Hope, and in Sandpoint tonight, life is better than anyone deserves. And the Vissers are better than I deserve.

Still, I went to sleep with foreboding. Europe is falling apart. Mr. Obama is doing nothing, zero, about it. NOTHING. A cratered Europe will have immense effects on the world economy. Europe’s economy, in toto, is larger than ours. Is Mr. Obama thinking of a rescue plan? Is he thinking about it at all? Does he even care if we go into another leg of recession as demand for U.S. exports to Europe corrects? What is he doing? Did he resign? Where is Mr. Geithner on this? Have we ever had a President without an international economic policy before?

No. Never mind. Just go to sleep.

About the Author

Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes “Ben Stein’s Diary” for every issue of The American Spectator.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (70) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Gary B| 7.25.12 @ 6:37AM

"Have we ever had a President without an international economic policy before?"

No. We've never had a president with a deep-seated hate for America before, married to a woman with her own deep-seated hate for America. We've never had a race-baiting, anti-free market, revengeful, law-breaking killer of the American Dream, fascist president before. We are in uncharted territory. Only faith in God and ourselves will get us back on course.

Bob From District 9| 7.25.12 @ 6:47PM

Why are you going back to GW Bush?

Brookschwarzenegro | 7.25.12 @ 7:07PM

LBJ and Carter.

MK48| 7.25.12 @ 7:48PM

Gary Sir......couldn't have said it better great post.

I think my brother TLP will say the samething though, with a little different take.

Intelligent Design| 7.25.12 @ 6:42AM

Ovomit is ignorant about domestic economics, so it's just as well that he doesn't dabble in international. In fact, Ovomit, despite 3 1/2 years of OJT with training wheels, is still unqualified to do anything except rabble rousing community organizer stuff. What a sorry excuse for a president. What were the voters thinking?

Good news: the voters have already made up their minds not to give Ovomit another 4 years, because they now realize how much more damage he would do to our country. But academia will take him in, as a professor of American Un-Exceptionalism at some cesspool of collectivism like Columbia.

PCC| 7.25.12 @ 7:37AM

Dear Mr. Stein,

I think we've helped Europe quite enough already, thank you very much. Let them rescue themselves.

TLP| 7.25.12 @ 6:07PM

I was deleted from a Ben Stein comment line.

I don't know whether to Laugh, or Cry.

Occam's Tool| 7.25.12 @ 7:06PM

Wow. He never deletes me, and I'm savage, man. But I still love ya, Tim.

MK48| 7.25.12 @ 7:51PM

TLP........email me your post.....maybe they won't delete it if I post it.

Love ya brother............

TLP| 7.26.12 @ 9:25AM

It wasn't anything disruptive.

I was just making the point that Ben seems to get Paid by TAS for phoning in a written SLIDE SHOW, of everywhere he goes, and then reminding the good folks at Spectator, how much Everybody Hates to see other people's Vacation Pictures, let alone, read them.

I guess Boring Ben was just in a Pissy Mood, yesterday.

EastTexasRancher| 7.25.12 @ 8:11AM

Mr. Stein, the gratitude that floods your heart is wonderfully inspiring and reminds us all that God has brought us this far and He will be there through whatever comes.
I just walked in my flower garden in E. Texas. Each morning when I do I come in and tell my husband that it cannot become any more beautiful than it is, except I say that each day.
As I walk around clipping flowers that I drop off in town wherever God leads me to, just because. Folks need a joy infusion right now.
I leave some at the Post Office, others at the school admin office, the drug store, and the bank. I do it just because I can say thank you in a special way.
And you, in your marvelous time honored musings do the same with reminding us, each and every day, that gratitude fills the heart full and that is quite enough.
Be blessed dear Ben Stein~

fdcampbell| 7.25.12 @ 12:56PM

Well spoken. I wish I could have penned it.

moey2720| 7.25.12 @ 3:25PM

I agree, I wish I could have penned it also.

JimH| 7.25.12 @ 8:41AM

And what would you have him do? The problem is that with this president and most of those who came before, we have had rather too many policies. They all must be seen to be doing something. What must be done is to attend to business at home. Reduce spending, insure a sound currency, eliminate unnecessary regulation and properly clean up health care and the American economy will be fine. If any US banks have issues due to their European exposure, well that’s their lookout.

judge arrow| 7.25.12 @ 9:06AM

Yes, going from Sandpoint to Hope is one of the best, next time, keep on the road toward Paradise - fifty miles of postcards for you city dwellers - and the air so clean it's hard to breathe, with horse country, wild high mountains, bend lakes, a river of dreams. There's grizzly bear in the woods, tall trees, meadows and wayside stops along the way that step into another time. When the financial collapse comes, it will pass this area by. No one here ever got into a bubble; they're rich in land and outlook. 10,000 years ago it was under water, Glacier Lake Missoula went to nearly Utah, then drained in days when the glacier ice broke at Sandpoint and a wall of water 2000 feet high roared past your house west across the plains to the Columbia River; you can see the water marks on the high walls of the canyon along the road to Paradise still. Now the Clark Fork river runs through, as if painted there, and from the road you can see it glistening in the morning sun, and if you stop you'll notice first the quiet, maybe the far off sound of a train coming. If you stay awhile you cannot leave without a sense of your own short time in this immensity of place and history and what ciphers we are, lucky to have the moments we do and with the sense of regret only humans can realize, or have to, confronted as we are by our own kind. The drive to Paradise is like that, and you should make it before your time is up, to see what's there for you.

fdcampbell| 7.25.12 @ 12:59PM

Sounds like I trip I should put in my "bucket".

moey2720| 7.25.12 @ 3:26PM

It is going on my 'bucket' list! Thank you.

Stormzeye| 7.25.12 @ 9:33AM

Ben, Europe has been doomed ever since it turned its back on Christianity and took to the path of material secularism which, of course, lead it to Socialism. This country has enabled Europe's continued decline after WWII when we undertook its defense indefinitely. Eisenhower warned JFK not to do this. Today Europe has wallowed in the "benefits" of the social welfare state because they have no carrier groups while we have to maintain eleven of them.

Gary B| 7.25.12 @ 11:41AM

Other people's money... other people's money. That's what makes it all happen. The American taxpayer is forced into being the world's useful idiot. Probably be a good idea if we stopped that.

happytaxdude| 7.25.12 @ 9:44AM

Ben, was that a kosher ham sandwich that Nancy left you?

Crassus| 7.25.12 @ 10:19AM

I want a picture of Nancy Visser next time.

Louis Jenkins| 7.25.12 @ 10:56AM

Ben Stein, how about writing something with some meat in it, besides the sandwich. Your a great mind, Ben, but with your ramblings I'm beginning to have my doubts. We know that Obama doesn't have a foreign policy by who our Secretary is, and that he bows and scrapes in front of every man who has a title. Most of us are too tied up the day to day activities of making the country run inspite of Obama's interference. So just remember the old adage: Where's the meat?

moey2720| 7.25.12 @ 3:27PM

there is plenty of meat there - you just have to be able to 'see' it!

Anthony| 7.25.12 @ 11:22AM

Excuse me!!! What exactly in your pampered, self indulgent, California country club existence, would possibly have you feeling suicidal??
What a crock of self pity from a man who lives in a dream world.
You have no idea what real people, with real problems, who actually have a reason to think suicidal thoughts go through every day, yet these folks find a way to get through it.
Jeez Stein, perhaps you need to find another shrink, because with all the money you've paid out for your self indulgent therapy, it appears your still are a simpering whimp.
Why don't you join the Peace Corps and go to a 3rd world country and do something constructive with your life? Maybe a year in Zaire will cure you of your need for a shrink.
This tripe of yours is sickening!!!

Bill84728| 7.25.12 @ 12:07PM

A man whose mind won't allow him to forget "Ling Ting Tong" ("I sma-okum boo I-yay, I sma-okum boo") is a man whose mind probably strays into suicidal thoughts from time to time. Give the man a break.

Occam's Tool| 7.25.12 @ 12:14PM

Anthony: he doesn't take his meds, remember?

Obama is a moron, as is anyone who advocates the raising of taxes at this time (cough, Ben Stein, cough).

Stein, by the way, has a history of substance abuse and severe mood disorder. He's also quite bright when he actually THINKS, as opposed to endorsing taxes and frivolous litigation. He currently is being sued, and any serious personal lawsuit is HIGHLY stressful for those who have never been in it before. I can understand the suicidality. However, as a guy who advocated no real reform of medical malpractice laws, he's a guy who deserved a white hot poker of a frivolous personal lawsuit up his ass. The fun part is that he has to pay for his defense costs which will be unreclaimable even if he wins.

You already know my bias, Anthony, although I am happy to make an exception for you, as always. I hope this explanation helps.

Anthony| 7.25.12 @ 12:57PM

Thanks Dr. You have, of course, made a cogent insightful diagnosis of the disorder known as Steinism. Nothing however that you have said about Stein's personal life, in my opinion, warrants his daily state of pity. Nothing!! He still is a very blessed man.
Perhaps Stein needs to spend more time on your couch than his present shrink's. A candid dose of reality from you might just do the trick. If not, the poker idea could prod him into reality!!
Your exception to my being a member of the hated legal profession is most appreciated and quite generous of you. Yor sir, are a gentleman.

Occam's Tool| 7.25.12 @ 6:42PM

The compliment is returned multifold, sir. I wish there were more members of the profession like you.

Grzmlyk| 7.25.12 @ 1:09PM

He is a bleeding-heart, hand-over-fist, vacuous liberal with a mawkish streak in him a mile wide. THAT'S his mental disorder.

As I've said before, my doctor told me never to read a Stein column again (and I haven't) because the insulin shock might kill me.

Anthony| 7.25.12 @ 2:04PM

Steinism is indeed hazardous to one's health, Grzmlyk. You are wise to follow your doctor's advise.
If Stein lived in New York City, the little dictator, Mayor Bloomberg, would have declared Stein illegal, certainly no more than a 6 ounce dose of Stein per week.
Hmmm, now there's an idea the midget mayor can step up to, ban vacuous, mawkish leftists from NYC, including himself.
Wow, start spreading the news.... I want to be a part of it, New York, New York!!! I want to wake up in a city with no libs.

Grzmlyk| 7.25.12 @ 3:55PM

Sadly, Anthony, you will never wake up on an NYC with no libs - or a Boston, or a Chicago, or a San Francisco, or an L.A. or any other urban area with more than 50 residents - not even Burlington Vermont, which has long since been transformed from a traditional, conservative enclave into a Bolshevik stronghold and public-money pig trough with no vestige of the old America remaining.

No, contrary to Emmett Tyrell's febrile delusions, from where I sit, the liberals have overrun this country. Thanks to a Leninist mainstream media-nurtured popular culture, a Stalinist academic environment, a Marxist science community and a Maoist critical mass of Washington bureaucrats, the future of this country will play out only one way: The cancer that is liberalism will consume every remaining healthy organ in the body politic (and, let's face it, the disease has already spread to all of them) until the parasite kills the host.

When the "Occupy" mobs become further empowered by our collapse, egged on by all of the corrupt institutions that are now bleeding this country dry, Ben Stein will learn - the hard way - what his moral vanity will have purchased: An elixer of self-satisfaction that is delicious going down, but is utterly fatal.

He, too, will be engulfed in the conflagration of foolishiness - and he deserves no less.

moey2720| 7.25.12 @ 3:29PM

I feel sorry for both you and your doctor. There is much wisdom in Ben Stein's writings. You have my sympathy!

Grzmlyk| 7.25.12 @ 3:58PM

There is nothing but mawkish treacle, laced with faux humility, in his obnoxious and trite musings. Suck that sugary concoction down if you like, but please, don't call it wisdom!

Gary B| 7.25.12 @ 6:39PM

So, Grzmlyk, if you hate this so much, why are you here? Are you a masochist or do you just like throwing turds around the place?

Occam's Tool| 7.25.12 @ 6:50PM

Gary: Mr. G does great work.

Occam's Tool| 7.25.12 @ 7:01PM

And Gary: you do great work, as well.

Stein has a long history of encouraging litigation and recommeding raising taxes. His dad was Nixon's economic guru, and we all know how brilliant Nixon was on demoestic issues like wage and price controls, right? Mr. G and I (include Anthony) are VERY aware of this history, and it makes Ben quite annoying at times. Ben has a maudlin self pitying quality that, to paraphase Oscar Wilde (the greatest poofter of all time), "it takes a heart of stone not to burst out laughing" at him. The fact that "el tort supremo" is getting sued in what appears to be a frivolous lawsuit is a source of endless shadenfreude for me, and I read his columns just to enjoy his agonizing pain.

Does it make more sense , now? (By the way, I have been sued, have never lost, have never settled, have never entered a courtroom, and won all cases against me that have ever been. (dismissed, usually with prejudice, mostly sued by prisoners---in the last prisoner case, the plaintiff attorney could not find ONE EXPERT WITNESS IN THE USA WHO WOULD TESTIFY AGAINST ME). It can be agonizing to go through these, and this bastard was advocating for more of these types of suits against docs. He deserves every morsel of pain he is receiving, and I savor each piece of pain as though it is the finest Kobe steak.

Occam's Tool| 7.25.12 @ 7:04PM

I think I needed double parentheses after ME.))

Otherwise, yes, yes, yummy, yummy tears, as Cartman would say.

Occam's Tool| 7.25.12 @ 11:20PM

And I misspelled a couple. Thanks for your patience, Gary.

Occam's Tool| 7.25.12 @ 6:44PM

It's kind of like poking a cavity with your tongue, you know, Mr. G? (You do brilliant work, by the way.)

Gary B| 7.25.12 @ 11:05PM

Thank you, Occam. Well, there are motives here not obvious to the casual visitor. The rest of us should stand clear.

I've been a plaintiff twice. Both were open-and-shut cases. The first one went over the jury's head. And, they loved the opposing counsel. Based on that experience, I opted for trial by judge in the second trial. Lost that case, too. Later, the judge went to jail for fixing cases. We found out later our attorney (judge's friend) threw our case in an attempt to protect the judge. It didn't work.

My conclusion is absolutely anything - anything - can happen in a courtroom. Stay the hell out of them if you can.

Occam's Tool| 7.25.12 @ 11:16PM

Gary,

again, gentleman you are. I have my own views of the legal profession well known to those here. I also have a lot of friends who are attorneys, who also have dim views of the legal profession. For all the mishegas, Medicine is better to practice.

Occam's Tool| 7.25.12 @ 11:19PM

Yes, the probity of judges.

Occam's Tool| 7.25.12 @ 12:22PM

The European situation is going to result in a 2 decade collapse, as a combination of cultural lassitude (no defense of Western Culture) and a birth dearth destroys Europe. It's already in the demographics---the next generation of parents will be too small to take care of the current generation of parents. For this reason, I invest in gold to some degree, as I forsee enough economic turbulence to demand it---the Islamic world is a financial wreck, Europe is becoming one, and the Chinese will grow old before they grow rich.

That being said, a proper business like attitude may result in the US assuming a position in the world as close to favorable as we had in 1950, if the cards are played right, and ESPECIALLY if we drill baby drill. I live 2 hours from the North Dakotan border (I can do weekend getaways to Fargo for the child museum, The Plains Art museum, some of the restaurants (I'm looking forward to the HoDo restaurant, and the Thai is fantastic), and the shopping. I love cold weather, and may retire in Fargo or Grand Forks.) and the place may explode if Bakken is fully exploited.

We can do a lot here once we remove the Socialist dingbat from the White House.

Gary B| 7.25.12 @ 11:10PM

May sound simplistic, but allowing the free market to work solves most problems. Europe should try it. China should try it. We should, too. Trouble is... there are way too many powerful cronies who want to shakedown taxpayers and need government for the authority to do it. It's a story as old as man. "Hey, let's you and I go rob that guy."

solidground| 7.25.12 @ 12:39PM

One could argue that if Obama were doing "something" about Europe, an even larger sense of foreboding might be in order.

Grzmlyk| 7.25.12 @ 12:46PM

Come on, Ben, turn that frown upside down.

After all, all the Great and Good Barack Hussein Obama has to do is tax YOU - and all the "rich" - more, and then all with be right with the world. Isn't that your whole schtick?

You just wait - as soon the Supreme Court decides that all dead people and non-Americans can vote (well, only the Democrats, nudge, nudge, wink, wink), all will be right in America. "The Great Dictator" - and I say that with the utmost affection (I'm no bigot, after all) - shall be freed of all constraints (which, in a quaint, bygone era, we referred to as "checks and balances"), and it'll be sunshine and lollipops, a chicken in every pot and unlimited EBT card funds for everyone who doesn't work before you can say "I'm a liberal in conservative's clothing."

Then you can go back to your first class travel, Malibu sunsets and Keynesian balderdash without mussing your vanity one iota.

fdcampbell| 7.25.12 @ 12:53PM

I need to read Ben every morning to regain perspective.

May our mutual God bless you, Ben.

Listen to the Mom | 7.25.12 @ 1:04PM

This is priceless. Thank you for sharing the good before reminding us of the bad.

Meggie| 7.25.12 @ 1:35PM

Next time you are in Hope, please stop in at Sweet Lou's!

krodrich| 7.25.12 @ 1:39PM

@ Ben Stein and @ Judge Arrow

Thanks for the poetry in your descriptions - both of the Vissers and the georgraphy around Sandpoint.

Nice to take a break from the politcal rhetoric and get grounded, so to speak.

God bless us one and all...

krodrich

allardkent| 7.25.12 @ 1:48PM

Ben Stein's Diary is occasionally amusing, often childlike and endearing. But considering that he wakes up most mornings thinking of suicide, I'm not sure he is a fellow whose judgment I want to embrace.

Most of his columns start with despair, followed by some simplistic observations on how perfect someone, always a conservative, is - and then, so soon after expressions of suicidal tendencies and the laziness of liberals, describes a typical day of travel, leisure, an occasional speech, and a lifestyle of one luxury experience after another in settings that make the heart flutter.

He is living proof that if you kiss the right asses, tell simpletons that their pre-conceived notions are valid, a very good lifestyle can be generated.

Just go to sleep indeed.

cathka| 7.25.12 @ 2:27PM

Love Ben Stein. He always makes me feel that as long as he's thinking, reflecting and musing, everything is okay. We are in the worst shape we've ever been with no leadership in any area of this administration, no hope for our economy when the experts print more paper that does nothing, but nobody seems to notice. We should all be blessed we having friends like the Vissers to remind us that there is one greater than us in charge.

Bob From District 9| 7.25.12 @ 6:36PM

Actually, the debt, at $271 Billion, in 1946, was worse than it is today. It was resolved without cutting govt spending.

Obama's great failing is he didn't reverse Bush's war philosophy the first year in office. His second great failing was in not letting Bush's tax cuts expire.

SicSemperTyrannis | 7.25.12 @ 2:47PM

If I woke up as Ben Stein I also would be suicidal.

moey2720| 7.25.12 @ 3:30PM

Thank you Ben for this wonderful piece. I always enjoy your writing and it either takes me back to childhood or the present time or makes me take a hard look at the future and not bury my head in the sand. I plan to put your recommended trip on our 'bucket list.' Thank you and many blessings!

Woodrow| 7.25.12 @ 3:31PM

For those of you who apparently think this is Ben Stein's political column, you weren't paying attention. This is Ben Stein's Diary. Of course, you have the option to pass judgment on Ben, as has Mr. Tyrannis above has.

soldiermom11| 7.25.12 @ 4:22PM

Ben - I love your descriptions of your vacation paradise. However, those of us in the real world are suffering under the heavy hand of government, job loss, and a corrupt, self perpetuating presidency, just want to point out a few things. Anytime anyone, good meaning or not, supports a president who is only interested in a one world government, it multiplies the difficulty the rest of have of success and freedom. Romney is not perfect, but he is a businessman and believes in America. Obama is creating his own unrealistic walden collective of which I have no desire to be a part of. If Obama gets reelected, I have almost no chance of getting a job or seeing my 401K come back. He must go. With all due respect for your business prowess, some of your comments seem to tend toward support of obama.
Under his plan, the poor will get poorer and the middle class will slip down the rabbit hold that doesn't end well.

WhiteBikerTrash| 7.25.12 @ 4:25PM

Ben, feelings are real and should be treated as such. Now that being said, the first thing that you should do is ask "Is this feeling based in the reality of the moment?" If not then the realization of the non-reality of the base of the feeling should make it go away. Are things fine today, yet you worry about the future? When you get to the future see if the past worry helped at all. And if things don't turn out as dire as you worry, was the worry worth the pain it caused?

SteveHC1| 7.25.12 @ 4:34PM

I'm sorry to read of your morning depression. I too suffer from it and found that living in much less cloudy areas (south Florida, southern Arizona, and the Californian coast *south* of Malibu) has brought tremendous relief as has adjusting my bedroom blinds and shades just before retiring so that lots of sunshine enters the room *before* awakening.

As far as your perception of our President's lack of concern for European economies goes, fear not. In this regard, his administration acts in close consultation and concert with Europe's leaders. The west's economic malaise was caused by YEARS of faulty financial, economic and trade policies on the part of ALL countries involved, and the countries of Europe will need to undergo much more consolidation to see greater long term economic stability. We can't force ourselves upon the EU, the Euro Zone or their countries, nor can we "bail out" their governments or banks without creating more calamity. The best we can do is to work with European leaders to try to "fix" the dysfunctional financial, economic and international trade policies and regulations that led us to this situation in the first place, while trying our best to at least stabilize our own national economy. This is precisely what is being done. Undoing the harm caused by so many years of misguided trade policies, inadequate financial regulation and oversight, and unsustainable economic growth based on a house of cards will unfortunately take many more years.

G-d bless.

Bob From District 9| 7.25.12 @ 6:32PM

All that and toughening regulation to put the crooks in prison. The crooks in the financial system who ran up the derivative bubble to a dozen times or more the entire world's GDP.

SicSemperTyrannis | 7.25.12 @ 10:19PM

Fannie Mae would be a good place to start.

Idahojewel| 7.25.12 @ 4:53PM

Thank you for your beautiful discription of Northern Idaho. I enjoy reading about the daily ramblings of you and wifey.

Bob From District 9| 7.25.12 @ 6:30PM

" What a cruel doctrine Darwinist racial superiority theory is."

What a cruel lie fundamentalist creationism is.

There is no such thing as Darwinist racial superiority theory. Other than in your mind that is.

Occam's Tool| 7.25.12 @ 6:48PM

Bob: Darwin was not a racialist himself. However, eugenic theory based on Darwinian approaches was quite common in the late 1800s and onward. For example, Maragaret Sanger was a racist and eugenecist.

Might I recommend that you review an intellectual history of the factors leading to the Holocaust? I'm sure you could find one refenced by Sir Martin Gilbert.

Occam's Tool| 7.25.12 @ 11:18PM

"referenced," sorry. Damn aging fingers.

Bob From District 9| 7.25.12 @ 6:55PM

"Still, I went to sleep with foreboding. Europe is falling apart. Mr. Obama is doing nothing, zero, about it. NOTHING."

So, what would you have him do about it? Absent dictatorial power there is nothing he can do about it.

" A cratered Europe will have immense effects on the world economy. Europe's economy, in toto, is larger than ours."

That's true, but the right is way too busy making up lies about how we got into this trouble to co-operate in fixing it.

" Is Mr. Obama thinking of a rescue plan? Is he thinking about it at all?"

I hope not. We are in no position to help them, and never will be if Boehner and the right wing have their way.

" Does he even care if we go into another leg of recession as demand for U.S. exports to Europe corrects? "

Of course he does, that's why he is trying to keep Romney out of the Oval Office.

"What is he doing?"

Trying to keep *THIS* country going.
...
Have we ever had a President without an international economic policy before?"

Probably pretty much all of them.

littlehouseonthelake| 7.25.12 @ 8:12PM

Can we be your pals from Calgary also? The lake is like a little piece of heaven for our family as well, and we can't wait to be sitting on the dock again.

jmulcahy1| 7.25.12 @ 9:14PM

Europe died after it lost its best and brightest in two world wars and deliberately exterminated 6 million of its brightest citizens. Since then it has decided to stop generating children and import 30 million welfare sponges from points south.

We are just watching the death thralls. We are not that far behind.

Occam's Tool| 7.25.12 @ 11:17PM

jmulcahy1: Better put than I could. Superb.

Vance P. Frickey| 8.3.12 @ 4:08PM

How could we "help" Europe? Lending or giving them money would enable the behavior that got them in trouble to begin with.

Our Federal Reserve banking system, tolerance of predatory lending and the Community Reinvestment Act don't give us great credentials as financiers, either. America nearly drowned in a sea of bad mortgage paper accrued in roughly equal parts by crooked bankers and crooked politicians.

Finally... help them with WHAT? Our government is deeply in debt to the Chinese. The only thing Barack Obama accomplished fiscally is two billion dollars a day in debt, for an average indebtedness of twice Bush's record.

Unlike Bill Clinton, Obama hasn't had the good sense to call his opposition's victory over his own party's fiscal policy "his idea all along," or the good grace to compromise with the half of the country that put his opposition in control of the House of Representatives in 2010.

Hypocrisy isn't fungible, so I'm afraid Europe's out of luck.

We could, however, suggest what HAS worked for us. California elects people who love to promise five dollars in benefits for every dollar paid in taxes, with predictable results - a bankrupt state. We don't let California finance THEIR deficit spending with Federal bonds; instead, we offer those individuals brave or foolish enough the opportunity to purchase California (or other municipal) debt without paying taxes on the interest we get.

Let the pauper countries of Europe arrange their OWN bailouts.

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