It is 2009, and the same party controls the legislative and executive branches of government. This happens relevantly frequently, but there are a couple of issues that make this particular situation rather undesirable:
- The executive branch is held by a half-hearted socialist.
- The legislative majority holds a filibuster proof majority.
The situation reminds me of a very Thomas Jefferson quote:
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
UPDATE (2009-07-07):
Apparently, there is some magical article people point to, to say that Obama is not a socialist. I am not exactly sure how a socialist even got published in a newspaper, but in the opinion piece he says that Obama is not a socialist. Considering that the individual is a socialist they are not really a credible source on any given matter.
I approved a couple of the comments with a link to the article, and a received a bunch of emails on the matter. Seriously, are people searching for “obama is a socialist” and then going to sites and giving people shit about it?
However, to a certain extend I can see how you could try to make the argument since he is not attempt to enact full fledged socialists policies. If he was, he would never have been elected. Instead, we are getting shit on with half-hearted socialism that is currently mainstream.
I don’t think it is necessarily wrong to call Obama a socialist, since I think that’s the direction he is headed. It would be impossible for him to make the transition as quickly as he would like, because there is still a stigma associated with socialism to some extent (justifiably so). It seems to me, if the socialists really wants Obama to remain popular, and slowly convert to socialist policies I would deny his affiliation.
UPDATE (2009-07-08):
My assessment that Obama is a socialist is speculative. I agree that his current actions are neither pro-socialism nor pro-capalist. They are a shitty hybrid of both that not at all productive use of resources.
I do not believe that stating that since he ran as a democrat rather than a socialist means he is not a socialist. It means he made a pragmatic decision in order to be electable. Unfortunately, in the United States we have a wretched two party system, whereby other parties must submarine themselves in order to have a shot at getting elected.
My point about socialists not being credible is because anyone that believe that socialism is a workable system are on the same level as people that believe they were abducted by aliens.
Since Matt Renfer has been commenting on this post, I’ll share the link to a post he wrote about the subject on his blog: For the Record: President Obama is Not a Socialist. I do not agree with his assessment, but I encourage everyone to take a look at it.
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