PSA: My comment on SB article "How Obama is Bankrupting America"

Here's the article.

Here's my response:

A couple of points:

1. The stimulus, whether it’s working or not (and many pundits agree that it’s done good over the last year), and the need for it, is the result of deregulation that took place quietly under Pres. W. Bush’s administration.

2. Using the word “czar” to describe Pres. Obama’s advisors doesn’t make him sound more like a Russian; it makes your article sound more biased.

3. Just because Congress doesn’t want the coverage that they may or may not be voting for doesn’t mean it’s not still better than the NO health coverage that something like 20% of Americans rely on. (Incidentally, assisting with the health of anyone makes everyone healthier, as those who failed to vaccinate their children (leading to outbreaks of measles and the like) have learned the hard way. If everyone was healthy, there would be no one to catch swine flu from and all our health care costs would go down.)

4. Using phrasing like “questions have been raised” about global warming and saying that “someone hacked into the files” of a research institute makes it sound like your source is a chain-letter email. The scientific community is agreed on this, as they are on evolution – and take that as you will if you’re not a (theistic) evolutionist. But EVEN IF global warming were not linked to carbon emissions, CARBON EMISSIONS are linked to carbon emissions. In other words, Pres. Obama and environmentalists are trying to find ways to lower pollution levels around the world, which improves the planet for everyone and falls right in line with the command to steward the earth.

5. The war in Iraq is still happening, and it was never stopped when Pres. W. Bush was in office. Just because he hung a “Mission Accomplished” banner doesn’t mean that a single soldier was withdrawn from combat. At this point, though I may not agree with further prosecution of war, if we left Afghanistan and Iraq, they would be in worse international and domestic positions than they were before we declared war on them, and more global instability means more chance of trouble for everyone. We’ve made their problems our problems, and now fixing them is at least in part our responsibility. One would hope that some of the infrastructure and governmental issues in those countries would be on their way to resolution by June of next year. The billions spent on that are not more than was spent during the Pres. W. Bush administration, and they should go towards repairing our part of the mess.

6. The questions of national debt and personal debt are different. And yet, Americans DO spend more than they earn, and they ARE in a great deal of personal debt. Thanks to changed bankruptcy laws under Pres. W. Bush, most American will not be able to discharge their debt through declaring bankruptcy.

7. There’s no evidence that putting America into vast debt – a policy which began perforce thanks to policies that long predate Pres. Obama’s election and inauguration – would turn America communist. In fact, the best historical example of a people plunged into hideous debt who clamored for regime change is pre-Hitlerian Germany. In that case, you should be accusing Pres. Obama of being fascist, not socialist.

But he doesn’t sound or act like much like a fascist – and with Pres. W. Bush’s administration spying on the American people through illegal wire-tapping and checking up on what books they check out of the library, Pres. Obama doesn’t sound comparatively much like “Big Brother,” either – so maybe we should be looking out for a demagogue who promises to get us OUT of debt to “transform” our society into the nightmare you feel it’s becoming. Maybe we should be on the lookout for someone whose rhetoric sounds like Hitler’s.

8. You suggest that we “stand” together and do something, but it’s unclear what you’re recommending be done. Elect Republicans in the next election? (Even though it’s the deregulation of the “too big to fail” banks that Republicans supported that has left us in this mess? Even though in deregulating these banks, Republicans have had as much to do with the failure of small businesses as Democrats possibly could?) Or would you support a third party? Or are you simply suggesting we pray for the second coming before we have to worry about it?

I’m interested to hear how you’d solve these issues...really. I'd like to see positive suggestions for these problems wherever I see critique of them. Maybe we could all collectively come up with something creative enough to work that way.