Daniel Hannan for President!

Don · Mar 25, 2009

Yes, I know he's MEP for South East England, but this lecture of Gordon Brown is one for the history books. (YouTube alert)

Prime Minister, I see you've already mastered the essential craft of the European politician, namely the ability to say one thing in this chamber, and a very different thing to your home electorate.

Perhaps you would have more moral authority in this house if your actions matched your words.

The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around 20,000 pounds. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child.

Prime Minister, you can not carry on forever, squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit. You cannot spend your way out of recession, or borrow your way out of debt.

You sound like a Brezhnev era apparatchik giving the party line.

You are the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued government.

If only someone would stand up to our emperor and tell him he's naked too.

MattW · Mar 25, 2009

Don said:
If only someone would stand up to our emperor and tell him he's naked too.

Any mistakes he makes in his first 100 days are considered learning opportunities. Let's give him a to settle in...

Don · Mar 25, 2009

If I hire a bartender, and the first thing he does is start sampling the bottles, I don't see any reason to assume he'll improve over time.

Williebee · Mar 25, 2009

Don said:
If I hire a bartender, and the first thing he does is start sampling the bottles, I don't see any reason to assume he'll improve over time.

You really think that's a legitimate comparison?

Don · Mar 25, 2009

Absolutely. The worst problem we face is a failing debt-based economy. Almost the first thing he did was borrow and spend trillions of dollars. To quote Daniel Hannah (and we're back to the OP) "you can't borrow your way out of debt."

ETA: I'll give him credit for Michelle's victory garden, though. Now that's an appropriate response to a destroyed economy.

StephanieFox · Mar 25, 2009

Don, it's not. It's just not.

Don · Mar 25, 2009

StephanieFox said:
Don, it's not. It's just not.

That's hardly a well-marshalled argument.

Bartholomew · Mar 25, 2009

You guys aren't bitching in the right place. You need to bitch to the people who run things.

Bird of Prey · Mar 26, 2009

Don said:
Absolutely. The worst problem we face is a failing debt-based economy. Almost the first thing he did was borrow and spend trillions of dollars. To quote Daniel Hannah (and we're back to the OP) "you can't borrow your way out of debt."

ETA: I'll give him credit for Michelle's victory garden, though. Now that's an appropriate response to a destroyed economy.

Heh. Bush started it and you know it. In fact Bush was worse because he was supposed to be a conservative. Lol!! Instead he was a fascist wannabe. Obama's fiscal policy is just following suit, because I think he thinks it's too late to do anything else but follow suit.

dclary · Mar 26, 2009

And yet he spent 2 years telling the American public that the OTHER guy was the one who would be doing that.

James81 · Mar 26, 2009

Don said:
If only someone would stand up to our emperor and tell him he's naked too.

How do you stand up to money?

Don · Mar 26, 2009

Bird of Prey said:
Heh. Bush started it and you know it. In fact Bush was worse because he was supposed to be a conservative. Lol!! Instead he was a fascist wannabe. Obama's fiscal policy is just following suit, because I think he thinks it's too late to do anything else but follow suit.

Nice redirection. Have you ever heard me say one nice word about Bush? I didn't see him as a wannabe at all, and think he belongs in prison. At least I like Obama's victory garden.

Obama was elected on a change mantra. The only change was slamming his foot down on the accelerator. I think people actually expected him to change direction first, since there's a Thelma and Louise sized cliff straight ahead.

James81 · Mar 26, 2009

Don said:
Obama was elected on a change mantra. The only change was slamming his foot down on the accelerator. I think people actually expected him to change direction first, since there's a Thelma and Louise sized cliff straight ahead.

Let's look at this on a personal level for a moment.

Have you ever tried to change something about yourself? Think about the hardest thing you've ever had to do and ask yourself why it was so hard.

Did the change happen overnight?

I don't know about you, but for the past two years I've been trying to change a lot of things about myself. And here I am, two years later, still creeping along. I feel like I've still got so much to do and that I haven't changed much, but when I look back, I can see how much I have grown.

Change is gradual. I know that's something that we Americans don't like to hear. We live in the age of microwaves and emails. We want instant satisfaction, and that just isn't going to happen. To do it right, it's going to take a MASSIVE amount of time.

Don · Mar 26, 2009

That's what comes from talking a good game, but not suiting your actions to your words. He talks a good game, but his proposals have been for more big spending, bigger, more intrusive government, more troops overseas in Afghanistan than have returned from Iraq. Remember his campaign pledge to start bringing troops home on day one?

To continue the drunk bartender analogy, drunks can say they don't drink anymore. Doesn't make them sober. Not drinking makes them sober.

People who make excuses for drunks are called enablers.

James81 · Mar 26, 2009

Don said:
That's what comes from talking a good game, but not suiting your actions to your words. He talks a good game, but his proposals have been for more big spending, bigger, more intrusive government, more troops overseas in Afghanistan than have returned from Iraq. Remember his campaign pledge to start bringing troops home on day one?

He has ALWAYS said that he is going to increase the war in Afghanistan.

His campaign pledge was to end the war in Iraq within a reasonable amount of time and to increase activity in Afghanistan to find Bin Laden. So far, he's done exactly that.

People criticize him for his spending. But look at what he's trying to spend money ON. (here come the good ole "pork barrel" arguements I'm sure

)

The things that have the potential to fix our encomy are things that are going to cost money.

Imagine the alternative...a complete and total slashing of spending money across the board. Good lord, that would wreck our economy beyond unmanageable. It would make the Great Depression look like the Great Boom.

Don said:
To continue the drunk bartender analogy, drunks can say they don't drink anymore. Doesn't make them sober. Not drinking makes them sober.

People who make excuses for drunks are called enablers.

I have no idea what you are trying to say with that analogy, so I'll just disregard it as pure rubbish.

robeiae · Mar 26, 2009

James81 said:
Imagine the alternative...a complete and total slashing of spending money across the board. Good lord, that would wreck our economy beyond unmanageable. It would make the Great Depression look like the Great Boom.

No it wouldn't. What makes you think it would?

The Government is NOT the economy. Well, it never was before Obama, anyway.

James81 · Mar 26, 2009

robeiae said:
Well, it never was before Obama, anyway.

Is that a joke?

dclary · Mar 26, 2009

Sadly, no.

James81 · Mar 26, 2009

dclary said:
Sadly, no.

I was trying to give the benefit of the doubt.

It's extremely laughable to say that until Obama, the government hasn't tried to be the "economy."

The government has been "the economy" since FDR.

Bird of Prey · Mar 26, 2009

Don said:
Nice redirection. Have you ever heard me say one nice word about Bush? I didn't see him as a wannabe at all, and think he belongs in prison. At least I like Obama's victory garden.

Obama was elected on a change mantra. The only change was slamming his foot down on the accelerator. I think people actually expected him to change direction first, since there's a Thelma and Louise sized cliff straight ahead.

Yeah O.K. I get it, Don.

blacbird · Mar 27, 2009

Don said:
If only someone would stand up to our emperor and tell him he's naked too.

Many of us tried for six or seven years to tell the preceding Emperor this, only to get a lot of crap from you about it.

caw

Don · Mar 27, 2009

blacbird said:
Many of us tried for six or seven years to tell the preceding Emperor this, only to get a lot of crap from you about it.
caw

You've obviously got me confused with someone else. Bush (and Cheney, for starters) belong in prison. I'm guessing I've already said more positive things about the current regime than I did about the past one.

Daniel Hannan for President!

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