Monday, September 15, 2008
Inflating the stakes
When partisans of any stripe declare that the future of the universe hangs in the balance in the next election -- any next election -- I always wonder if they believe the stuff they say or are simply looking for supporters who believe it. For example:
The ramifications of a McCain-Palin ticket is beyond "nightmares". I don't want to be alarmist or sound paranoid, but I am not the first to think of "global annhilation" as a possible outcome of another Republican win.
Seriously? I actually look at this election very differently. At the risk of irritating partisans everywhere, I think that the American electorate has the best choice to make -- not the easiest, but the best -- since at least 1992 (ex ante, Clinton and Gore looked like as good a Democratic ticket as we were ever likely to have). I will in all likelihood vote for John McCain, but I do not fear an Obama/Biden administration the way, for example, I was deeply troubled by both Al Gore ver. 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.
Moreover, from the perspective of history the stakes in this election do not seem to be particularly high. Yes, the world seems more troubled today than it appeared in 1988, 1992, 1996, or 2000, but it also appears safer for American geopolitical and economic interests than during most if not all of the elections between 1932 and 1984. So I repeat the question: Do the people who inflate the stakes actually believe what they write, or are they simply trying to agitate the rubes?
12 Comments:
By 
D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Sep 15, 12:09:00 PM:
I guess you're too young to remember the 90+ percent tax bracket (top bracket) in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s. Democrats and many Northeastern Republicans were quite liberal in those days.
And I guess you weren't paying attention when the prime interest rate in the U.S. reached 20 percent under Carter on April 2, 1980.
By Who Struck John, at
Mon Sep 15, 12:11:00 PM:
The Republicans have tended to run their presidential politics on a "whose turn is it now to run" basis. The pick of Palin as VP has short-circuited this; potentially the Republicans will skip over the fiftysomething group and go directly to Palin and Jindal after McCain's turn.
To the extent that this brings in fresh ideas on the Republican side, it is going to pose difficulties for the Democrats. I guess if you're on the left that is the "end of the world".
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Sep 15, 12:47:00 PM:
I'm fully prepared to believe that *they* believe their own alarmist rhetoric. 'Well surely they don't really think that,' is the same mistake that Chamberlain made in the 30s, and that we made regarding the Islamists in the 80s and 90s.
It doesn't matter if some of them grow up and learn better, because there's always a new batch of young liberals who are absolutely sure that the country's never been as bad is it is *right now* and they have a moral duty to do something!
By Anthony, at
Mon Sep 15, 01:14:00 PM:
Hmmm... Given Obama's Carteresque foreign-policy proclivities, the prospect of him as president actually fills me with more dread than Al in 2000.
By SR, at
Mon Sep 15, 01:18:00 PM:
Problems with an Obama/Biden admin.
National healthcare,which,no matter how bad it turns out to be,
will be very hard to undo. Taxes on capital and income that will be hard to lower. Entitlement spending that will be hard to reduce, Certainly not the end of the world, but nevertheless a step backward.
By 
, at
Mon Sep 15, 01:34:00 PM:
It was Obama who sniped at Bush for suggesting people "go shopping" after 9/11, yet his solution to the financial crisis and struggles of this generation of lower wage and new Americans is to "go shopping" with the taxpayer's money.
And I agree with DR, except that it would be "hard to undo", it'll be "impossible to undo". Just another entitlement that someone has to pay for.
When the benefit you get from your government exceeds what you're paying in, you're a net "taker". When too many are net takers, we are completely screwed.
People need to go look up the elders in their lives, and find out how prior generations lived, and get it that high on the hog isn't the way to (a) fund a retirement, or (b) build family wealth.
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Sep 15, 02:05:00 PM:
Socialized medicine, or some version thereof, has been the dream of every Democrat for at least two generations. So if that is the reason to object to Obama then every Democrat is objectionable.
By Arthur, at
Mon Sep 15, 02:26:00 PM:
"So if that is the reason to object to Obama then every Democrat is objectionable."
Heh, your point being? :P
Could you pretty please discuss why Gore/Kerry troubled you more than Obama?
By Donna B., at
Mon Sep 15, 02:27:00 PM:
What makes Obama's and Hillary's version of socialized medicine is the scope of it.
The Democrats succeeded with Medicare and Medicaid. They're just never satisfied.
My biggest problem with electing Obama is that he'd have Congress' support. An all-Democrat government scares me quite a bit.
By Steve M. Galbraith, at
Mon Sep 15, 04:42:00 PM:
I don't want to be alarmist or sound paranoid, but I am not the first to think of "global annhilation" as a possible outcome of another Republican win.
What would have he (she?) said if they were sounding alarmist?
(Yeah, easy answer: go read Sullivan)
Instead of "global annihilation" perhaps "universal annihilation"?
That's some moose hunting gun, I must say.
By Andrew Hofer, at
Mon Sep 15, 09:55:00 PM:
They don't believe what they are saying. They just think it's cool to think bad things about Republicans and are trying to outdo each other. It's the whiny progressive version of the dozens.
It's not about voting, it's IDENTITY!
By , at
Tue Sep 16, 02:32:00 AM:
Eh, these guys worrying about "global annihilation" are minor leaguers. The big boys (like Canada's Minister of Defense in the `60s) now worry about (ok, three years back) that Bush and CO will provoke an intergalactic war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hellyer
And remember, when the Messiah Al Gore explained to us that the human induced CO2 emission is changing the balance between the earth and the universe.
http://www.algore.org/node/60
And just to have a bit of a perspective of the size-relationship between the earth and the universe (ok, only some stars), check out this:
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/some-planetary-perspective/
Vilmos
