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Another Perspective
The Historic Winston vs. Barack Debate
Winny wins big — Demos cry foul.
(Page 3 of 4)
(1899, WCS, The River War)
Moderator: You have the last word on this matter, Mr. President.
Obama: (Sputtering — and repeating the same words he used in trying to refute Romney’s spot-on accurate statement in the second debate that fossil fuel production on public land had declined under the Obama administration) What you’re saying is just not true. It’s just not true.
Moderator: We turn now to the economy and domestic policy. It’s your turn to go first, Mr. President. What are your thoughts on the proper role and scope of government? Do we need more government, or less?
Obama: We need more — for two reasons. We need more regulation to keep greedy capitalists from ripping off everyone else. And we need more government intervention and planning to pick the economic winners of the future.
I’ll help our auto companies retool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I’ll make it easier for American people to afford these new cars (by providing government rebates). And I’ll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy — wind and solar power and the next generation of biofuels, an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can’t ever be outsourced.
(August 2008, Obama speech)
We can see the positive impacts right here of Solyndra. Less than a year ago, we were standing on what was an empty lot. But through the Recovery Act, this company received a loan to expand its operations. This new factory is the result of those (government-guaranteed) loans.
(2010, Obama speech — before Solyndra went bankrupt, laying off 1,000 workers and leaving taxpayers on the hook for $500 million in loans.)
Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t make that happen. Somebody else made that happen.
(July 13, 2012, Obama speech)
Moderator: What are your thoughts on this subject, Mr. Prime Minister?
Churchill: I’ve said it before and will say it again: “The follies of socialism are inexhaustible.”
I watched the long, slow, agonizing decline of British industry under socialism following World War II… and I know that government only makes things worse by meddling in the economy. Whenever governments try to pick winners and losers, they invariably wind up picking losers and compounding failure. And there are good reasons for that.
When losses are made (under free-market capitalism), these losses are borne by the individuals who sustained them and took the risk and judged things wrongly, whereas under state management all losses are quartered upon the tax-payers and the community as a whole. The elimination of the profit motive and of self-interest as a practical guide in the myriad transactions of daily life will restrict, paralyze, and destroy British ingenuity, thrift, contrivance, and good housekeeping at every state in our life and production, and will reduce all our industries from a profit-making to a loss-making process.
About the Author
Andrew B. Wilson, a frequent contributor to The American Spectator, writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (28) | Leave a comment
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Ralph Gizzip| 10.30.12 @ 7:11AM
"I may be drunk, sir, but you are an idiot. In the morning I will be sober while you will still be an idiot."
Where are statesmen like Churchill when we need them most?
Alan Third Party Voter Brooks | 10.30.12 @ 9:50AM
If the GOP runs Churchill for POTUS in 2016, I'll vote for him.
Deal?
Al Adab| 10.30.12 @ 2:02PM
As an aside, the third volume of Manchesters' Churchill biography Last Lion is now out at long last.
Alan Third Party Voter Brooks | 10.30.12 @ 9:12PM
Exactly, the LAST lion-- it is over.
Alan Third Party Voter Brooks | 10.30.12 @ 9:13PM
.. game over, so get used to it.
C.B.| 10.30.12 @ 7:28AM
"He occasionally stumbles over the truth, but he picks himself up and proceeds as if nothing happened."
Another pricless Churchill gem....
Cobalt| 10.30.12 @ 7:42AM
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
---Winston Churchill
Alan Third Party Voter Brooks | 10.30.12 @ 11:05AM
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
That was true then but Churchill had no way of knowing how capitalism would become the same; with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and all the rest of what America has instituted, we are the most statist nation in the world. We are so unruly, we can't work together so much as to improve K-12 Education for our own children-- so we throw money at problems, hoping they'll disappear.
And all you can do after all these years is blame "lib'rals" and "socialists" and "Marxists"
JD| 10.30.12 @ 4:08PM
Capitalism is not the same as socialism. What you describe is modern fascism, which you leftists describe as capitalism so as to escape blame for the consequences of your folly.
John Navratil| 10.30.12 @ 4:11PM
ATVPB,
You describe rent-seeking crony capitalism. The kind the Left and increasingly the RINOs like. The kind which is Capitalist going up and Socialist going down. The kind where the market is distorted by feel-good regulations with wildly unintended consequences.
Fannie and Freddie and the banks too big to fail have just about run the regional banks and local mortgage lending into the dirt. That's not what conservative are calling for.
As to the second point, so long as schools are incentivized by warm backsides in a chair at the second roll-call, we should not be surprised that we have plenty of warm backsides at the second roll-call.
Dobbs| 10.31.12 @ 3:59PM
Furthermore: Democrats (Barney, et al) ran the housing market into the ground via Fannie 'n Freddie. When Republicans warned of an approaching bubble burst, the Dems accused them of fear mongering. Then ... it happened. And the Dems blamed the recession on Bush and the Republicans, resulting in their take-over of Washington. The stunned Republicans never knew what hit them. They are ever so slowly recovering. And in the interim, Robin Barack Hood and his merry band of thieves have looted the federal treasury, thrown bundles of bucks at their buddies, and accused Republicans of the evil deeds they themselves have committed. Come Nov. 6 and the aftermath, America may still be left standing, though a shaken and struggling soul in need of resuscitation.
The Avenger| 10.30.12 @ 7:49AM
A couple of real truths the president never learned. "Some see private enterprise as a predatory target to be shot, others as a cow to be milked, but few are those who see it as a sturdy horse pulling the wagon.", "We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." And last but not least, " An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile—hoping it will eat him last."
Russel| 10.30.12 @ 9:18AM
Yet it is Margaret Thatcher who is quoted often . The Brits have been there and still are battling the folly of socialism . Dumbo- in- chief couldn't learn from history if bit him on the ass .
Cobalt| 10.30.12 @ 10:15AM
Churchill would have been proud of Thatcher.
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. ”
---Margaret Thatcher
Al Adab| 10.30.12 @ 9:27AM
True statesmen face the world as it is and through their courage and their vision and works, seek to make it something better without pretending that wishing might make it so. If men of courage stand for truth, evil cannot prevail against it.
Religion is but one aspect of this cultural conflict yet much of both Western Civilization and Islamic Civilization stems from the underlying Faiths of both. It is imperative that men of the West understand the nature of what they face and not pretend it is something it is not.
Occam's Tool| 10.30.12 @ 1:38PM
Well, I see Islam as a misogynistic mass murdering faith that mutilates female infants, then keeps them ignorant, then beats them, then rapes them.
It also turns its men into animals who do these things, in addition to murdering babies.
All as Muhammed (piss be unto him) would have it by his own actions. Oh, and it supports child rape too, as did Muhammed (PBUH, as above) by his own actions.
I think I see it pretty clearly, Al. I see things in an ugly and paranoid way, but no worse than Churchill would see it with my facts. Unfortunately, it keeps me coming to the same conclusion, as my Chicago background taught me:
"To the Faith of Your Fathers,
I Would Have You Be True,
And Do Unto Others,
Before They Do Unto You."
Hitting our enemies with ball breaking power before they strike us will win this battle. Bush was right on this point, just as he was wrong on Nation-Building. Iran needs to be smashed down with brutal power and cruelty.
John Navratil| 10.30.12 @ 4:13PM
Occam's Tool,
Didn't you mean to say, piss be ONTO him?
Al Adab| 10.30.12 @ 4:35PM
O/T:
It is a lesson in moral/cultural relativism. Not all cultures or maoral value systems are co-equal. Conservatives, students of History and scholars of Western Civ all know this truth. The Left rejects it and thereby creates the political problem and divide. Perhaps both are wrong, but certain one is for the two are not compatible.
KennesawJack| 10.30.12 @ 3:23PM
I am certain of this, Mr. Churchill. Never will future historians look back on the tenure of this President and say of my country, 'This was their finest hour."
Jobe| 10.30.12 @ 5:02PM
To: Alan Third Party Voter Brooks
Sir: Let me explain something to you. There is precious little wrong with the educational system of the U.S. What is wrong is that parents, government, and social pressure have joined together to remove the ability to actually TEACH. I speak as a 45 year veteran of the American Educational System, and I am here to tell you that a restoration of academic rigor, personal discipline, and systemic discipline would very rapidly cast out the demons from this system. We DO NOT NEED better and more technology, federal governmental interference, and administrative experimentation, we need the three things that we had in the first half of the 20th century. Call me a luddite if you must, but if you look dispassionately at what is happening today in these schools, you will come around to my way of thinking.
Dobbs| 10.31.12 @ 4:07PM
What we need is to throw out the humanist worldview which has destroyed the public education system. It has taught that life is cheap and expendable, that morality is relative, that there is no virtue to be gained from America's past. And we wonder why people behave as they do. Had it not been for the American public education system, K-12, colleges and universities, and law schools, socialism would have never gained a foothold in the Democratic Party and the halls of power. And this would be a better, more decent, more civil and better educated society.
JmsA| 10.30.12 @ 5:40PM
Leave well enough alone; The One couldn't even handle Romney.
JmsA| 10.30.12 @ 5:54PM
"Socialist ideology, like so many others, has two main dangers. One stems from confused and incomplete readings of foreign texts, and the other from the arrogance and hidden rage of those who, in order to climb up in the world, pretend to be frantic defenders of the helpless so as to have shoulders on which to stand." -- J. Marti
Butch| 10.30.12 @ 5:59PM
For the particular combination of common sense, intellectual firepower, basic decency, courage, and determination, what person in human history compares to Winston Churchill? Just askin'.
Well done, Mr. Wilson. Very clever.
mike 3/505| 10.30.12 @ 6:48PM
Refering to Hitler..."This wicked man, the repository and embodiment of many forms of soul- destroying hatred, this monstrous product of former wrongs and shame, has now ..."
He had a way with words. By contrast, Hitler responded with the German equivalent of "Poopy Head."
nathan| 11.1.12 @ 3:17PM
How sir given his role in the Bengal famine, his rampant racism, his commitment to empire no matter what the cost was he all that different than the man he was referring to? 3 million versus 12 million. We're still talking MILLIONS. You can't give dear Winny a pass on this. As I point out elswhere, his secretary for India didn't and he should know.
J.C.Eaton| 10.30.12 @ 11:11PM
"We will never surrender."Nicely played Brother Wilson.
nathan| 11.1.12 @ 3:12PM
Mr. Moderator I have a question you can direct at Prime Minister. Please explain your role in the Bengal famine of 42-43. Between 1-3 million people died. Ships ladened with food from Australia went past India on their way to the Med where they lay at anchor in anticipation of an operation you had no expectation the Americans would ever greenlight. The food in those ships would have saved most if not all those lives. Your secretary for India, Avery, in his diary said you were similar to Hitler and thought you should be in the dock with the war criminals at Nuremburg.
Please explain why you let over a million people die that was within your power to save. Please explain that when briefed on the the famine you asked is Gandhi dead and being told "no", you said, "too bad". Please explain that given your actions with regards to the famine why you were not held accountable for your actions.
India had absolutely no stake in the war, certainly not in Africa but contributed huge amounts of men and material to the effort. You repayed them by being basically a mass murderer and allowing as many as three million to die. Comments Mr. Prime Minister?