A few days ago, my father and grandfather, both of whom are very conservative, had the following conversation:
Dad: I hope Obama is a good president.
Grandpa: Are you kidding? We don’t want him to be a good president! If he is, they’ll elect him for another four years!
Dad: But if he’s a good president, we won’t have to worry.
Grandpa: He’s a Democrat.
Dad: But he looks like he’s going to keep things towards the center.
Grandpa: Then he’s a flip-flopper.
Dad: That means he realizes his mistakes. Or that he’s trying to please everyone.
Grandpa: Bush never flip-flopped.
Dad: Bush was a bad president.
Grandpa: Oh yeah? Name one thing Bush did wrong!
At this point in the conversation, my dad gave up. My grandfather is incredibly stubborn and slightly senile. But I feel that this dialogue brings up several important points.
Why is it that people get so angry when someone changes their views or policies? It’s good to admit our mistakes, but we are ashamed to (and I include myself in that statement). Plato believed that we should thank people when they correct us, but instead we get defensive (once again, I am very guilty).
Another thought: if we’re stuck with Obama, we’d all better pray that he’s the best president we’ve ever had. Because I would hate to see things get worse. I mean, if McCain had been elected, I would have been upset. But would I have hoped he did well? To quote Sarah Palin, “You betcha!”
Unfortunately, my crazy grandfather’s ramblings are being echoed everywhere. People are hoping for Obama’s failure, so he won’t be reelected in 2012. It’s some of the most backwards thinking I’ve heard. But it’s out there, and it’ll run our country even further into the ground if we’re not careful.
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5 comments:
Haha, I liked your idea for posting this as a blog, I would of never thought to quote the politic talk at my dinner table, very clever!
I agree with you also, no matter how much I didn't want a certain person to be elected as president, I would still hope that they would succeed for the better of our country.
For the sake of our country I hope that Obama does a ludicrously good job, but think how the media works from the perspective of a hard-core republican for a minute. First and foremost in this mindset is the media’s bias toward the democrats. Key pointers to think like republican, Nancy Pelosi tries her best to, in the words of my father, repel the laws of supply and demand by investigating oil companies to accuse them of raising the cost of oil needlessly.
On a major side detour, the reason that gas prices sky rocked and the economy tanked, the republican version which in my opinion has a lot of truth to it, is that Greenspan leaned deregulated the housing market trusting that people working in banks would do their jobs and check to see if a loan was any good before buying and selling it. Seeing the opening the house, keep in mind that the democrats held a majority in the house, lead by Pelosi leaned on Fanny May and Freddy Mac to produce affordable housing. Under pressure the two giants accomplished this by putting people in houses that they couldn’t afford. Once this had all happened people started failing to pay their mortgages causing the rates go up so more people deferred on their mortgages. In an valiant, if misguided, attempt help the situation Bernanke slashed interest rates to make mortgages more affordable, I forget the exact figure but something like 5% in three months, and yes this is all a little over my head. The result was a bubble in commodities because the market was flooded with liquidity so people could get money cheap and produce goods cheap so investors buy commodities. The bubble burst and the economy went ever further into the recession that we were on our way into. The key players incase you don’t remember were Greenspan, Pelosi a symbol for the republican lead house, Fannie May and Freddy Mac’s head execs, and Bernanke. What do you call the end result of all these people’s hard work? Answer, the Bush McCain economy.
So back to gas. If you were to plot the price of gas v. the value of the euro you could see that they come out about equal for the past few years. If you then add the dollar to the equation it is easy to see that the reason the price of gas went up so much was because the value of the dollar went down, not because gas companies are trying to become filthy rich by exploiting Americans. Oil companies end up with so much money because they sell astounding volumes of a product that is in high demand at a small profit, by small I mean fractions of a cent per gallon. This did not matter six months ago when the C level execs of the major oil companies were staring down a microphone and being asked how much the made in a year. Pelosi was a hero on CNN for defeating corporate giants. Gas prices then went down once the U.S. economy managed to drag everyone else down with us. That, how the economy ended u the way it is, is what I learned from my Father at thanks giving.
This is a long way of saying that the reason your Grandpa hopes that Barrack fails is because to him he would have to go around stealing candy form babies to receive as much bad attention from the press as Bush did. Your grandpa’s Idea being, I think, that Obama will make a mess of it no matter what, but he might as well make a big enough mess that every one notices.
I think that with the Obama presidency, we're going to see an FDR-esque administration that uses pragmatism to find ways to fix the economy. If there is one thing we've learned, it is that history repeats. As history's problems repeats, so will it's solutions.
I do think that Obama will be a great president. During his presidency there are going to be many people trying to find the littlest mistake to show how bad of a president he is. However, the only way anyone can know if he is a good president is letting time take its place. The ending result meaning 2012 is when we can decide if he has done his job or not.
I think that the reason people get angry when someone else comes along and tries to change their opinions is because they are used to those opinions and probably want to stand and defend those views. Lets just hope Obama stays "good" so that we can elect him as president for the next four years.
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