Topic: Election 2008
President Obama Now that the first African-American in history has been elected President, it's time to take a moment and reflect on what it means.by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Put aside the partisan politics for a moment. The election of Barrack Obama as the first African-American president in the country's history is truly historic. It would have been much better if he wasn't a candidate of big government, but the significance is still tremendous.
There was a time 50 years ago when this event was unthinkable. During my lifetime, I have seen a country change its attitude toward race. Many would say that the change happened because of strong government action: forced bussing in the 1950s, President Kennedy's use of the National Guard to protect demonstrators in Alabama against a racist police commissioner, the CIvil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a long series of Affirmative Action pieces of legislation, etc., etc.
I would disagree. I think that the legislation, which was painfully justified by the unjust legal system that was prevalent at the time, actually made change happen more slowly than it could have happened, that so much of the virulent race hatred that persists today could have been avoided by simply insisting that the rights of people, regardless of race, be defended and protected at all times, not just for black people but for all people. What was needed was to throw out the bad laws rather than replace them with more bad laws that leaned in the opposite direction.
Genuine human rights were replaced by quotas and political agendas. Racial tolerance became a matter of law rather than a matter of social evolution. And genuine rights were sacrificed any time that some governmental power thought it was "necessary." How much different the past 50 years would have been if simple, basic rights for all mankind had been defended and protected during that time! How much sooner race would have become an afterthought rather than the main thought that it still is today! Instead, those rights have been trampeled upon more and more by our government, and race continues to be a major problem even to this day. Our racial problems are a direct fallout from our big government problems.
Obama might be a candidate of big government, a Democratic version of a wolf in sheep's clothing, but his election is highly significant nevertheless. It signals that America, despite all the barriers to change it has placed in its own path via government force, has managed to evolve in a small way toward some small degree of racial blindness anyway, enough so that an African-American could be elected President. In our own, stumbling way, we have managed to get this far in race relations despite every barrier that has been placed in our path by our own government. This is so typical of the resiliency of Americans. Despite all odds, despite the overwhelming governmental obstacles we place in our own way, we still manage to beat the odds and find a way to grow and evolve.
It's maddening to try to describe the gestalt of this generational transition in terms of government in a way that tells the whole story, and not just the popular story. How does one easily draw the line, for example, from The Federal Reserve System to racial divides? The two topics seem completely unrelated in the minds of most people. Yet, to those who can truly see the Fed for what it is, the Fed clearly played its role in perpetuating the racial divide by slowly empoverishing everyone from the lowest levels of society on up..
How about foreign interventionist policy? It's hard for most to see that such foreign policy plays directly into the hands of racial tension, but for those who truly understand the hazards of foreign intervention, the connections are very clear.
High taxes? Who can deny that racial issues have directly contributed to high taxes and an expensive cost of living for all? This connection is much more clear for most Americans than the other two, but for those of us who can see clearly, once again the connection is just as real. Yet, how many people who back the Democrats are now claiming that a more progressive tax policy will somehow work to eliminate such issues? Even in our knowledge we Americans display ignorance.
Big government? Even the Democrats in their hour of victory are claiming that no one wants big government. Yet who can claim that big government has not been a major product of the racial path we have been walking?
One of the great evils that will come out of the 2008 election is that because the horrible abuses of power by the Republicans have been tied in the popular mindset to "free enterprise," free enterprise now has a sullied name in this country. The Republicans never really supported free enterprise any more than the Democrats did, but the fact that the Republicans called their approach "free enterprise" has done more damage to true free enterprise than anything the Democrats have ever done. Meanwhile, the Democrats have gleefully agreed with the Republican analysis of what "free enterprise" really is and means. This is how the Democrats stake their claim to the idea that it was "free enterprise" which caused the sub-prime mortgage mess, "free enterprise" which led to our invasion of Iraq, "free enterprise" which has created our flailing economy. The lie is abominable, and it is all the Republicans' fault. 100% of it is directly attributable to their "incrementalist" approach to freedom. The price of Republican distortion of the concept of free enterprise has been devastating.
What does an Obama presidency face economically? In the short run, it's going to be pretty rocky. There are still some shocks that have not yet been felt by the economy which are lying in wait on the road ahead, but as the economy continues to reinflate, we will enter what seems to be a new, exciting age of growth and prosperity, and Obama will get the credit for it. Once again (just as with other past inflations), it will be a false prosperity built on the massive expansion of the money supply that the Fed is already hell-bent on following and completing. Once again, it may take years for the new bubble to form and burst again, but form and burst again it will do. The difference is that the next bubble will likely be worse than the past couple of bubbles. If the bubble bursts while Obama is still President, then his golden age will turn shockingly into another economic nightmare.
One thing we can count on is that the boom/bust cycle won't calm down; to the contrary, it will grow more dramatic. If Obama and the Democrats get their way regarding health care reform, as seems likely, then the 2018 deadline for Social Security and Medicare to implode the government's ability to cope will be moved closer. The magic date could easily be reached within a two-term Obama presidency. If that happens, then it is likely that all hell will break loose financially.
But no matter what happens economically, no matter how much economics ends up shaping history's view of the Obama presidency, there is one thing he will never lose. He will always be America's first African-American President.
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The views expressed in this
article are those of Walt Thiessen only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Walt Thiessen is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
You make some good points in your article, and some very important points that the entire nation will more or less overlook. Continuing to throw money at a financial problem rooted in debt will not fix it in the long run. You can't have true capitalism without capital. Unfortunately, as you said, it is the market getting all the blame, even though it hasn't been a true free market in a long time.
I think the bubble will burst again in Obama's time(assuming he gets re-elected), and he will get the blame. The power will shift back to Republicans, and yet again, nothing will really be solved. I like to think that at some point more and more people will realize this trend and look to alternative answers, but..we shall see.
Thanks for the article. That is the first time I have heard of the government involvement actually extending racism, but it makes sense when I think about it.
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