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.

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 . . .
Same article with a different perspective:

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/262826.php

Popular posts from this blog

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here:  chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society  [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”   The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point:  Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo:  Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1.       Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...