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The NYT Endorsement of Obama: Taking Pleasure in Unrighteousness

by Oct 31, 2012Articles, Economic Freedom, Foreign Policy, Health Freedom0 comments

Share: More () The New York Times has unsurprisingly endorsed Barack Obama. What might come as a bit more of a surprise is that they do so “enthusiastically”. How can anyone be enthusiastic about four more years of Obama? Needless to say, the Times just ignores his numerous violations of…

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The New York Times has unsurprisingly endorsed Barack Obama. What might come as a bit more of a surprise is that they do so “enthusiastically”. How can anyone be enthusiastic about four more years of Obama? Needless to say, the Times just ignores his numerous violations of his oath of office. His unconstitutional war against Libya, his drone policy and secret kill list, and the NDAA, for example, don’t receive any mention in the article. The Times editors, like so many Americans, are content to just bury their heads up their asses and adopt an attitude of willful ignorance of his impeachable offenses. Why? Because he’s a Democrat and not a Republican. Our government’s crimes are acceptable, in the views of people on the “left”, so long as they are committed by a Democrat (just as they are okay, in the views of those on the “right”, so long as they are committed by a Republican). So the editors just ignore the mountain of reasons why voting to reelect Obama is an act of insanity and try to point to the good things he has supposedly done. But even if we adopt this standard of willful ignorance and look only at the things the Times lists, the case for reelecting him still reveals a mindset of criminal insanity.

Economy

President Obama has shown a firm commitment to using government to help foster growth. He has formed sensible budget policies that are not dedicated to protecting the powerful, and has worked to save the social safety net to protect the powerless….

Electing Mr. Romney would eliminate any hope of deficit reduction that included increased revenues. In the poisonous atmosphere of this campaign, it may be easy to overlook Mr. Obama’s many important achievements, including carrying out the economic stimulus, saving the auto industry….

Mr. Obama prevented another Great Depression … thanks in large part to interventions Mr. Obama championed, like the $840 billion stimulus bill. Republicans say it failed, but it created and preserved 2.5 million jobs and prevented unemployment from reaching 12 percent….

Stimulus should come first, and deficit reduction as the economy strengthens. Mr. Obama has not been as aggressive as we would have liked in addressing the housing crisis, but he has increased efforts in refinancing and loan modifications.

Commitment to economic growth? Sensible budget policies? Prevented another Great Depression? Unadulterated nonsense. Let’s see, Obama has run over trillion dollar deficits every year in office and added more to the national debt that pretty much every single other president we’ve ever had combined. He responded to the financial crisis precipitated by the housing bubble by doing more of the same that caused it in the first place, such as keeping Bush’s Fed Chairman appointee Ben Bernanke on to keep inflating and continuing the Bush policy of bailing out the banks. (What was that about being dedicated to not protecting the powerful and acting to protect the powerless?) And we should vote for Obama because he will increase taxes on Americans? Brilliant. This is the same New York Times that has effectively advocated that the U.S. do what Greece has been doing. Increased government spending. Higher taxes. Even bigger government is necessary to save us from the problems caused by big government. Insane. And touting the Obama “stimulus” plan? Really? Even though unemployment was higher after the “stimulus” than they said it would be without it? Insane. And “saving” the auto industry? By confiscating wealth from Americans and dishing it out to companies like Delphi, which fired all its workers and moved its operations to China, and by managing GM’s bankruptcy in an inequitable way that favored the United Auto Workers union while screwing other unions and pensioners? And not doing enough to reinflate the housing bubble? Insane. The Times is “enthusiastically” endorsing a president who has outright enmity for free market capitalism and who has steered the ship of state straight on its course towards economic ruin. When the bond bubble bursts, it will make the 2008 financial crisis look mild in comparison. This is insane.

Health Care

Mr. Obama has achieved the most sweeping health care reforms since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. The reform law takes a big step toward universal health coverage, a final piece in the social contract.

First of all, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s (ACA, a.k.a. “Obamacare”) individual mandate is unconstitutional, a dangerous totalitarian usurpation of power. So there’s that. But even if we set that completely aside, Obamacare is just bad law. It’s patently idiotic reform. The law are creates the very problem the individual mandate is intended to solve. It tries to solve problems created by government interference in the market for health care with even more government interference. It will kill jobs, create all kinds of perverse incentives, and doesn’t even pretend to do anything to actually reduce health care costs, while protecting the interests of Big Pharma and the insurance industry. As I’ve previously written:

Then there is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA, a.k.a. “Obamacare”), which many on the “left” support because they believe it will, as the name implies, do something to make health care more affordable, especially for the underprivileged. They believe this simply as a matter of faith. But this is false. The ACA in fact does nothing to reduce health care costs and, apart from the name, doesn’t pretend to. Rather, it seeks to try to manage costs by shifting the burden from one group of people to another, such as to health care providers (such as via the aforementioned reductions in Medicare spending, which will likely lead to fewer doctors accepting Medicare patients), and in ways that will likely only exacerbate the underlying problems. With the artificial increase in demand that will result, while the supply of doctors remains the same, the predictable result will be that it pushes costs even higher, either in terms of money or time spent in the waiting room, or both.

On its face, costs are so high in the first place because government has done its best to eliminate a free market for health care, such that prices for health care services don’t even exist and the market incentive to provide the best possible care at the lowest cost is eliminated and replaced with countless perverse incentives, so the idea that even more government interference and attempts to centrally manage a complex system is the solution easily falls within Einstein’s definition of insanity.

Apart from just being bad law, the Act’s individual mandate is also patently unconstitutional. The Constitution nowhere enumerates to government the authority to lay a direct unapportioned tax on individuals for nonconsumption. In fact, it expressly forbids the laying of such a tax. The usurpation of this authoritarian power, which the American people meekly accept and even joyfully embrace in the naïve belief that government will use it only for good, is a dangerous precedent. The potential for abuse is limited only by the imaginations of corporate lobbyists and corrupt politicians who now claim for themselves the power to be able to force Americans to participate in the market by purchasing some good or service against their will or to pay a penalty tax for their refusal to do so.

The reasons why bureaucrats decided it was “necessary” to include the mandate to purchase health insurance is instructive. One of the centerpieces of the ACA is its reform that would force insurance companies to accept people even with preexisting conditions. One of the reasons people are unable to get insurance is because they are ensured through an employer, but then they lose or change their job, and when that happens, under the current system, they typically lose their insurance as well. And if, in the meantime, they have developed some health condition requiring costly care, they are unable now to get on a new policy. Instead of making reforms to allow people to have more control over their own insurance and how their own money is spent, such that they might obtain a portable policy, the bureaucrats decided to just force insurers to accept people with preexisting conditions, which defeats the whole purpose of insurance. (If that isn’t plainly obvious enough, imagine if the government, in the name of helping poor homeowners, passed a law forcing fire insurance companies to insure people after their house has burned down.)

There are two predictable immediate consequences: one, insurers will have to increase premiums to cover the additional costs that would be incurred; and, two, people would have an incentive tonot buy insurance unless and until they get sick. Thus a bill that ostensibly set out to make insurance more affordable and to have more people be insured included reform that would produce the exact opposite results. But instead of recognizing that this was just bad policy and scrapping it, they came up with another “solution” to solve the very problem that they, with their own bureaucratic bungling, created in the first place: the individual mandate, among the practical effects of which include forcing young people who have lower incomes to subsidize the costs of care for older people with higher incomes and forcing healthy people who eat right and exercise to subsidize the costs of unhealthy people whose lifestyle choices result in their higher health care expenses.

Foreign Policy

Mr. Obama and his administration have been resolute in attacking Al Qaeda’s leadership, including the killing of Osama bin Laden. He has ended the war in Iraq. Mr. Romney, however, has said he would have insisted on leaving thousands of American soldiers there….

Mr. Obama negotiated a much tougher regime of multilateral economic sanctions on Iran…. Mr. Obama deserves credit for his handling of the Arab Spring. The killing goes on in Syria, but the administration is working to identify and support moderate insurgent forces there. At the last debate, Mr. Romney talked about funneling arms through Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are funneling arms to jihadist groups.

Mr. Obama gathered international backing for airstrikes during the Libyan uprising, and kept American military forces in a background role. It was smart policy.

In the broadest terms, he introduced a measure of military restraint after the Bush years and helped repair America’s badly damaged reputation in many countries from the low levels to which it had sunk by 2008.

Arguing to reelect Obama on the basis of praising his foreign policy is insane. Murdering Osama bin Laden in an extrajudicial assassination was not bringing him to justice, by definition. Obama didn’t end the war in Iraq, Bush did. The status of forces agreement under which all combat troops were withdrawn at the end of 2011 was signed under the Bush administration. And notice that criticism of Romney, that Romney would have kept troops there longer? Yeah, well, the Times perfectly well knows but just hypocritically declines to inform readers that Obama tried but failed to get a new agreement that would allow U.S. forces to remain. Praising Obama for collectively punishing the civilian population of Iran by “crippling” their economy is sociopathic. And in what way does Obama deserve credit for how he handled the Arab Spring? For supporting the Mubarak dictatorship, in accordance with 30 years of U.S. backing for his regime, right up until it became clear that he would be removed from office? When the U.S.-backed military establishment cracked down on peaceful protesters in Egypt, their tear gas canisters were marked “Made in the U.S.A.” For backing the monarchy in Bahrain, where the Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based, against peaceful protesters? The Times not only thinks you are stupid, but actively tries to keep you that way. How about Syria? Notice again the criticism of Romney. Well, the Times perfectly well knows but hypocritically declines to inform readers that funneling arms through Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with most of the arms ending up in the hands of jihadists, is precisely the policy the Obama administration has been carrying out. And how was it a “smart policy” to similarly intervene in Libya to prolong the conflict and escalate the violence on the ground by waging a war for regime change in violation of the U.S. Constitution and international law? And what does it mean to say Obama introduced “military restraint”? Well, he escalated the war in Afghanistan, escalated and expanded drone strikes that murder innocent civilians in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere, launched an illegal war in Libya by allying with rebels whose ranks included al Qaeda associates, and backs armed rebels and terrorists in Syria. So that’s called “military restraint”, and it’s also called being “resolute” in fighting terrorism. This is insanity.

Conclusion

Voting “enthusiastically” to continue the nation down the path towards economic ruin, to call for even bigger government to solve the very problems created by big government, to continue losing your liberty, and to perpetuate the country’s criminal foreign policies that serve only to escalate the threat of terrorism is not merely ignorant, but willfully so; not merely immoral, but downright sociopathic; not merely foolish, but criminally insane.

Wake up, America.

“The coming of the lawless one is based on Satan’s working, with all kinds of false miracles, signs, and wonders, and with every unrighteous deception among those who are perishing. They perish because they did not accept the love of the truth in order to be saved. For this reason God sends them a strong delusion so that they will believe what is false, so that all will be condemned  — those who did not believe the truth but enjoyed unrighteousness.” – 2 Thessalonians 2: 9-12

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