"On Tuesday, January 28 at 9pm ET, President Obama will deliver his fifth State of the Union Address."
I put that in quotes because it comes from the White House's official web site and even though it may seem way too generic a statement for someone to cry plagiarism, I know the history of the last two Democratic administrations too well not to be cautious. After all the Clinton White House couldn't just change travel agencies. They had to try and smear the one they were changing from. And they couldn't just dismiss other employees whose services were no longer needed. They had to make a major cases of misconduct against them even if they had to invent supporting facts. And this current White House is not beyond acts of inexplicable pettiness either.
When the president very unwisely said, "you didn't build that" in front of TV cameras his White House claimed he was being quoted out of context. That he wasn't belittling the work and sacrifices of private citizens but was just saying government provided the infrastructure and security needed for private efforts to flourish. This was a petty and distorting response to a legitimate criticism, since even government and ultimately all the worthwhile things government can and does do is the product of private efforts.
i.e. Yes, private American citizen, you did build that, and any president who can read a thoroughly prepared speech that says you didn't is highly unlikely to be a good one. We the people of the United States of America did build our government for good or for bad. And when our government stops being our servant and starts to become our "source of leadership" a.k.a master, we should reign it back in.
What To Look For At The State Of The Union
The press, both left and right like to make stories out of events and thus like to emphasize the personal. The problem with this here is that we as a nation have a problem to address and President Obama's legacy isn't it. Look for the talking heads to waste time wondering if Obama can restore the trust of the American people and avoid becoming a lame duck.
But keep in mind what really matters is what the American people do, not what the president does. Whether Obama is big enough of a man to admit his mistakes tonight is nowhere near as important as whether Americans in general start to admit their mistakes. Here are a few listed in case anyone is wondering what they are.
(1) We have looked for leadership in the wrong places, mainly in politicians.
(2) We have allowed politicians to be used as scapegoats for mistakes the we ourselves caused to happen through our over-reliance on government.
(3) We blame corruption of the political system for its failures as though we are innocent victims who are forced to vote for the wrong people.*
(4) Many of us are already thinking if we can just elect the right person president in 2016 all will be well again.
(5) We think too quickly of government whenever we want a problem solved.
Those are just four of many but they all have one common theme. We expect too much of government with no historical precedent to justify our expectations and then refuse to accept responsibility for setting it up to fail.
That's what I'll be looking for tonight; Any hint or indication that we the American people are finally beginning to see that Obama as president is not a mistake because he fooled us, but because we fooled ourselves. My hope going forward is that we start to reject politicians who sell themselves as our leaders and start to gravitate more towards those who sell themselves as leaders of a well restricted government.
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* Mistake #3 should present a logical quandary to anyone who doesn't think it is a mistake. If our votes can be so manipulated as not to count, what would we realistically propose as a solution? No more democracy? Shifting the power to influence the vote away from wealthy people to some other group of people, a select group like the press or certain government agencies?
Certainly I'd hope few if any would see exchanging one type of elite influence for another as a real improvement. At least the supposed excessive influence of corporations is done by citizens who have selected themselves by providing the public with a wanted product or service. At least they are in turn subject to public influence. The alternatives are not.
My "solution" to excessive corporate influence on government is to make it more difficult or at the very least less potentially rewarding for corporations to petition government. There are two ways to achieve this. One is for judges to interpret the constitutional constraints on government more strictly so that it becomes more difficult for government to use general tax revenues in order to benefit a specific sub-group of people. Two for the influence of government in general to be minimized. e.g. If government regulations have minimal financial effect over an industry there will be little reason for the corporations involved to want to spend billions of dollars to influence those regulations.
Here's hoping the state of the union address will be old news come next Tuesday so I can feel free to write about something else.
I put that in quotes because it comes from the White House's official web site and even though it may seem way too generic a statement for someone to cry plagiarism, I know the history of the last two Democratic administrations too well not to be cautious. After all the Clinton White House couldn't just change travel agencies. They had to try and smear the one they were changing from. And they couldn't just dismiss other employees whose services were no longer needed. They had to make a major cases of misconduct against them even if they had to invent supporting facts. And this current White House is not beyond acts of inexplicable pettiness either.
When the president very unwisely said, "you didn't build that" in front of TV cameras his White House claimed he was being quoted out of context. That he wasn't belittling the work and sacrifices of private citizens but was just saying government provided the infrastructure and security needed for private efforts to flourish. This was a petty and distorting response to a legitimate criticism, since even government and ultimately all the worthwhile things government can and does do is the product of private efforts.
i.e. Yes, private American citizen, you did build that, and any president who can read a thoroughly prepared speech that says you didn't is highly unlikely to be a good one. We the people of the United States of America did build our government for good or for bad. And when our government stops being our servant and starts to become our "source of leadership" a.k.a master, we should reign it back in.
What To Look For At The State Of The Union
The press, both left and right like to make stories out of events and thus like to emphasize the personal. The problem with this here is that we as a nation have a problem to address and President Obama's legacy isn't it. Look for the talking heads to waste time wondering if Obama can restore the trust of the American people and avoid becoming a lame duck.
But keep in mind what really matters is what the American people do, not what the president does. Whether Obama is big enough of a man to admit his mistakes tonight is nowhere near as important as whether Americans in general start to admit their mistakes. Here are a few listed in case anyone is wondering what they are.
(1) We have looked for leadership in the wrong places, mainly in politicians.
(2) We have allowed politicians to be used as scapegoats for mistakes the we ourselves caused to happen through our over-reliance on government.
(3) We blame corruption of the political system for its failures as though we are innocent victims who are forced to vote for the wrong people.*
(4) Many of us are already thinking if we can just elect the right person president in 2016 all will be well again.
(5) We think too quickly of government whenever we want a problem solved.
Those are just four of many but they all have one common theme. We expect too much of government with no historical precedent to justify our expectations and then refuse to accept responsibility for setting it up to fail.
That's what I'll be looking for tonight; Any hint or indication that we the American people are finally beginning to see that Obama as president is not a mistake because he fooled us, but because we fooled ourselves. My hope going forward is that we start to reject politicians who sell themselves as our leaders and start to gravitate more towards those who sell themselves as leaders of a well restricted government.
<***>
* Mistake #3 should present a logical quandary to anyone who doesn't think it is a mistake. If our votes can be so manipulated as not to count, what would we realistically propose as a solution? No more democracy? Shifting the power to influence the vote away from wealthy people to some other group of people, a select group like the press or certain government agencies?
Certainly I'd hope few if any would see exchanging one type of elite influence for another as a real improvement. At least the supposed excessive influence of corporations is done by citizens who have selected themselves by providing the public with a wanted product or service. At least they are in turn subject to public influence. The alternatives are not.
My "solution" to excessive corporate influence on government is to make it more difficult or at the very least less potentially rewarding for corporations to petition government. There are two ways to achieve this. One is for judges to interpret the constitutional constraints on government more strictly so that it becomes more difficult for government to use general tax revenues in order to benefit a specific sub-group of people. Two for the influence of government in general to be minimized. e.g. If government regulations have minimal financial effect over an industry there will be little reason for the corporations involved to want to spend billions of dollars to influence those regulations.
Here's hoping the state of the union address will be old news come next Tuesday so I can feel free to write about something else.
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