JOSEPH C. PHILLIPS OP-ED:Mr. President You are Blocking the Sun
By HHR | January 29th, 2010 | Category: General, HHR Contributors, Opinion/Reviews | 12 comments
By Joseph C. Phillips
It is said that when Alexander the Great visited the philosopher Diogenes he asked the wise man if there was anything he could do for him. Diogenes is said to have replied, “Yes. Stand a little less between me and the sun.”
I thought of Diogenes as I read portions of the president’s speech from Cleveland, Ohio. The New York Times reports that the president used the word fight or some version of it more than 20 times.
Mr. Obama vowed to fight for jobs; he promised to fight for quality education; he promised to fight for health care; fight for transparency in government. He promised to fight! Fight! Fight! And never stop fighting. “So long as I have some breath in me,” he said, “so long as I have the privilege of serving as your President, I will not stop fighting for you.”
Such pronouncements of chivalry no doubt came as a surprise to the parents and children of the opportunity scholarship program.
Also known as the D.C. voucher program the OSP was started in 2003 as a program to provide children from low income families scholarships of up to $7500 to attend non-public K-12 schools within the district.
During the 2008-2009 school year, there were over 1,715 D.C. OSP students attending 49 non-public schools of their choice. The average annual income for these families is around $23,000.
The program was a bargain. The D.C. public schools spend $14,400 per pupil on average, among the most in the country. More importantly the program was successful. According to an evaluation conducted by the department of education, “After 3 years, there was a statistically significant positive impact on reading test scores…” as well as a “positive impact overall on parents’ reports of school satisfaction and safety.”
And yet when this program came under attack from the teachers union Obama – the people’s champion – was, along with his white horse, missing in action.
Which begs a few questions: Exactly who is the dragon preventing quality education? Job creation? Transparency in government? This just in: Dragon last seen on Pennsylvania Ave. The dragon is big government!
Is Obama preparing to battle the ever encroaching and expensive hand of paternalistic government? Hardly. Since taking office last year he has expanded government spending, tripled the deficit and added substantially to the national debt. He is ideologically predisposed to believe the solutions to all our social and economic problems lie in an expansion of the administrative state. He continues to believe that money taken from one part of the economy and injected into another part will somehow create jobs. Even after the drubbing Democrats took in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts he is determined to pass a healthcare reform bill that most Americans do not want.
If we penny stinkers must take what we do not want it is unclear for whom he is doing all this fighting.
It is unlikely that Obama will pass Cap and Trade so instead he will direct the EPA to enact regulations restricting the production of carbon dioxide and other green house gases by private industry. The additional costs to businesses will hinder their ability to create jobs. Don’t take my word for it.
In 2006 California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB-32 “a comprehensive program of regulatory and market mechanisms to achieve real, quantifiable, cost-effective reductions of greenhouse gases.” The bill has mostly succeeded in reducing the population of California as people and jobs have left the State in droves. Unemployment in California is far above the national average and the highest in the states history in more than 40 years.
Who is he fighting for when he brings terrorists to New York to be tried in civilian courts? Undeterred by America’s outcry, the Christmas day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutalleb, was interviewed by the FBI for less than an hour before he was given his Miranda rights and an attorney, whereupon he promptly stopped talking. I feel safer already.
With such a champion it is difficult to comprehend America’s apprehension or why some might smile pleasantly and ask, “Please Mr. President, can you move a bit to the side; you are blocking the sun.”
Joseph C. Phillips is the author of “He Talk Like a White Boy” available where ever books are sold. He is best known as one of the stars of The Cosby Show.
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Oh, I get it as people and jobs leave the state of California, the statistics on unemployment become acceptable. I wonder if Governor Schwarzenger has forms available for those who volunteer to relocate to other states and what incentives are provided to the companies to join the exodus as well.
Poor Conservatives still applying Reaganomics to the year 2010. Thinking that cutting taxes for wealthy will stimulate spending in this country in the age of multi-national corporations and off shore accounts. The y middle class was created and sustained mostly by the government. Cnservatives want the US to be Mexico, where you have the 13 richest families rule and everyone below the poverty line. There is no place in the world, where this conservatism is suceeding.
And to Mr. Phillips. This president did not create the DHS or DNI. It was your guy. He did not propose Medicare D. It was your guy. He did not declare two wars (one by choice) at once. It was YOUR guy. Self-described conservatives in the GOP want power. They only use terms like big government, spending, abortion, or healthcare to gain power. When they are in, the story changes.
I am a fan of your acting career and wish to see you in more roles. We need more black actors that go against the normal archtypes.
Poor Liberals still applying Kensyeian economics to the year 2010. Thinking that taking government money for tax payers and spreading the wealth around will stimulate growth.
Funny HHRs
Thats right, trickle down only works great when the wealthy are constrained to spend money in the US. They are not.
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Obamanomics – definition – One who “forces” by means of the Government others to pay through coercion rather than doing the arduous work of providing fact based incentives and intellectual persuasion.
HHR,
Can you point to one outrageously liberal thing Obama has done. He cant be a socialist and in the pockets of wall street at the same time. Oba manomics, as you have defined, could be used to describe plenty of progressive initiatives; civil rights, voting rights, social security, Medicare, GI Bill, and child labor laws. You know those initiatives tat help create and sustain the middle class. That middle class that I am sure your lineage has been a part of at some time.
Thank god conservatives did not win those fights back then.
First, I never said he was a Socialist. I do not believe that he is a Socialist. However, there is a debate in some circles right and left on whether he is a secret admirer of democratic socialism, which is ideologically different from a free-market capitalist system. Personally, I don’t think Obama knows what he is ideologically. I think this is why liberals and Conservatives are frustrated with him.
I think this is also why he has a record of not voting on tough votes preferring to sit them out. I think he is calculating but at the same time wants everyone to be his friend. I also believe a failure to espouse an ideological world view is why he speaks in broad terms and broad generalizations. This is why the words like “hope and change” are used so often. Its purely psychological babble wrapped in political jargon to inspire people, but devoid of actual substance.
However in one area economics and spending, he is clearly liberal in his worldview – He believes and has pursued a massive redistribution of wealth and power to the government. If jobs are created, they will be government jobs, which do not create wealth but only spend taxpayers’ money. Obama himself said he wanted to “spread the wealth around.” “Redistributive change” or “redistributive justice” is jargon for government seizure of wealth, followed by handouts to selected social causes.
Most people can see the difference between child labor laws and blacks being lynched and liberals deeming everything in there handbook an “unquestioned civil right”. There are causes that Democrats and Republicans have fought together on. However when Liberals or Conservatives go it alone and think they know what’s best for the people all types of problems arise. This is why Independents are becoming such a huge force in our politic. The liberal Republican and Pacifists Jeanette Rankin put it this way “You take people as far as they will go, not as far as you would like them to go”
The middle class that you speak so eloquently of are the millions of Independents who voted for “the agenda of the Republican guy in the truck in Massachusetts…not Obama’s agenda.
So who is really for the middle class?
Back then, there were no clear distinctions of what a Conservative was and what a Progressive was as we have today. The truth is that both Parties at various stages led the way for civil rights. The right for blacks and women to vote were pushed by Republicans many who were economically conservative yet socially more liberal. The Rockefellers helped foot the bill for many historically black colleges, Rockefeller’s religious wife who was also a Republican funded Spellman college. There are many examples of this. The person who argued against evolution being taught in schools was a Creationist Progressive Lawyer
OK HHR,
You’re not saying he is a socialist, youre just saying he wants to spread the wealth around. I see the difference.
Im starting to undertand how black people can call themselves conservatives. They believe conservatives did not exist until Reagan. Kidding. Conservatives were the ones pushing isolationism in WWII, they were the ones pushing against the many things (Ive already addressed) that allowed me to have access to many of the institutions meant for the powerful. In this country, conservatives want a government limited in its ability to affect people lives, except for things like prayer in schools, racial profiling, and unionizing. Just to name a few.
OK HHR,
You’re not saying he is a socialist, youre just saying he wants to spread the wealth around. I see the difference.
HHR Reply - Well, one simply “spreading the wealth around” while indicative of suspect behavior with regards ones ideological leanings, does not in itself make one a Socialist. Socialism is the removal of private property for the purposes of collective ownership -usually by a Union. At the heart of Socialism is a disdain for individual private property and free market Capitalism. Obama is a lot of things but he has in no way promoted this general philosophy.
Im starting to undertand how black people can call themselves conservatives. They believe conservatives did not exist until Reagan. Kidding.
HHR Reply – Sure, Right..Haa haa, haa ..???
Conservatives were the ones pushing isolationism in WWII, they were the ones pushing against the many things (Ive already addressed) that allowed me to have access to many of the institutions meant for the powerful.
HHR Reply - First you are referring to one school of though within Conservatism often referred to as PaleoConservatism. You are correct that many within this wing opposed entry into the Second World War for the same reasons many Leftist and Progressives did. They felt that it was “none of our business” and an unjustified war.There numbers were hardly the consensus for either Parties but vocal enough to lead a well organized opposition.
In this country, conservatives want a government limited in its ability to affect people lives, except for things like prayer in schools, racial profiling, and unionizing. Just to name a few.
HHR Reply - Conservatism seeks to “conserve” the ideals of the American Revolution, it adheres to classical liberalism thus it supports a limited but responsive government. The other issues you mentioned are issues within themselves. Each issue has its own unique history and has to be discussed in that context. There are many people on both sides who hold various views on these issues. Proof of this can be found in the fact that most African Americans support school prayer. Most also support racial profiling of Arabs on a plane.So simply labeling opposition to any and all controversial topics as conservative is pretty suspect.