Skip to main content

Obama: "We can't . . . eat as much as we want. . . "

I want to be sure I don't take this quotation out of context (and I am not happy that I cannot find a single net reference that does not have an elipsis). This is Senator Obama campaigning in Oregon as reported by GoogleNews:

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.


I am hoping that this quotation is just a verbally maladroit attempt to say that the US cannot exist in a vacuum, as if the ecological consequences of its actions will be automatically tolerated by the rest of the world.

I hope that's so, because what it sounds like is that Senator Obama is advocating some pretty serious government intervention into the lives of American citizens. Especially that part, "we can't . . . eat as much as we want. . . ."

What's up there? Enforced vegetarianism because wheat has a smaller carbon footprint than beef?

I wouldn't worry so much were it not for that Michelle Obama quote about pies:

“The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.”


I tried, in the spirit of non-partisan charity, to write that one off as a poorly phrased suggestion that US government budgetary priorities would have to change in an Obama administration, not that we would need to begin large-scale, involuntary transfers of wealth.

"We can't . . . eat as much as we want. . . ."

This stuff eventually starts to add up.
Labels:

Comments

Drew80 said…
That's a great closing line, I must say.

I am very, very frightened by this guy.

If the American news media were doing its job, and not entirely captivated by him, he would long ago have been eliminated as a serious contender for the Democrat nomination.

And yet . . .
May 19, 2008 at 12:32 PM
a most peculiar nature said…
Same article with a different perspective:

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/262826.php
May 19, 2008 at 3:27 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Comment Rescue (?) and child-related gun violence in Delaware

In my post about the idiotic over-reaction to a New Jersey 10-year-old posing with his new squirrel rifle , Dana Garrett left me this response: One waits, apparently in vain, for you to post the annual rates of children who either shoot themselves or someone else with a gun. But then you Libertarians are notoriously ambivalent to and silent about data and facts and would rather talk abstract principles and fear monger (like the government will confiscate your guns). It doesn't require any degree of subtlety to see why you are data and fact adverse. The facts indicate we have a crisis with gun violence and accidents in the USA, and Libertarians offer nothing credible to address it. Lives, even the lives of children, get sacrificed to the fetishism of liberty. That's intellectual cowardice. OK, Dana, let's talk facts. According to the Children's Defense Fund , which is itself only querying the CDCP data base, fewer than 10 children/teens were killed per year in Delaw
18 comments
Read more

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?
Post a Comment
Read more

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici
Post a Comment
Read more