Listened to Obama's so-called "press conference" earlier this evening. You know, where the prez calls on obsequious reporters who are afraid of being put on the D-List, and then they ask him things like "What have you found enchanting about the job so far?"
Gee, that was a tough one. And from the New York Times, that bastion of hard-hitting, no-holds-barred journalism. Or panderer to the left, whichever seems most appropriate.
Actually, the conference was pretty boring. Softball questions and canned answers. Only one thing kinda ticked me off. One reporter asked Obama something about having a "rubber stamp" congress, now that Arlen Specter has turned coat and run into the loving arms of the majority.
Obama said, and I wrote it down: "I'll have a rubber stamp and that's the way it should be."
No, actually, that's not the way we do things in America. Most democracies in Europe and elsewhere, including England, have a Parliamentary system. Under that system, the political parties have all the power. For example, in England, a member of parliament (MP) in the House of Commons doesn't have to live in the district he or she represents. The parties assign a member to "stand" for election and represent that district.
The Prime Minister (PM.. just the opposite of MP, get it?) is noted to be "First among peers." He or she is a member of the majority party and is elected by fellow party members. Kinda like if Nancy Pelosi was president.
Excuse the pause, I had chest pains....
Anyway, a lot of variations of the parliamentary system exist. Like in England, they still have the House of Lords, populated by actual nobility. They don't do much, though. I doubt there are any instances in living memory when Lords has opposed anything that came out of the House of Commons. And England also has the Queen, of course. Not sure exactly what she does anymore, except pay for British embassies around the world and make good will tours.
Other countries with parliamentary systems have presidents or chancellors or other executive officers of some kind who are elected independently of the legislatures. Not sure what-all they do, though. I'd be reluctant to assume they have the same kind of power the US president has.
As far as I know, the US government is unique in its three separate branches and in the fact that the executive, legislative, and judicial branches acually each have power enough within themselves to oppose and invalidate the actions and decisions made by the other branches.
Anyway, I wrote a term paper about the organization of the British government when I was in school. It occurred to me even then that the parliamentary system is just too "democratic." In that system, the Prime Minister is always the head of the majority party. There's really no effective means to oppose the PM or the majority.
What sets the USA apart is that at heart, the US is NOT a democracy. It's a republic. It's based on the concept of individual rights, NOT the will of the majority.
Obama doesn't seem to understand this. Maybe in all his fancy Ivy League education, he never read the Constitution, or perhaps he listened too closely to radical left professors and cohorts who convinced him that the Founding Fathers were just out of their minds or something when they talked about individual rights.
So, anyway, that kind of ticked me off. He's starting to tick me off in general. He doesn't seem to understand that many people do not like his policies and will oppose them in any way they can. He seems to glory in the idea that he's some sort of emperor.
Go ahead, push that concept to the limit, Mr. Prez. See what happens.
Since butthead Specter discovered that his bread is buttered on the Democrat side, and with blockhead Nancy Pelosi and senate counterpart Harry Reid, who simply looks confused all the time, running congress, Obama will be able to ram through just about anything he wants. Give him enough rope....
And something really funny... When Obama said, "I want to disabuse people of the notion that we enjoy meddling in the private sector."
That really cracked me up. No, they don't want to meddle in the private sector, they want to do away with the private sector all together and replace it with their half-baked marxist vision of utopia.
And today congress agreed to "reconciliation" for Obama's budget for health care and so forth -- with not one Republican vote. If I were president, I'd say that's a rather bad omen of the kind of cooperation Obama can expect from a sizable portion of the population.
So, anyway, if you need any kind of health care, get it done now or you'll probably die waiting for it under the coming-soon socialist rationing system.
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