Monday, January 19, 2009

The Cult of Obama

I wrote in a previous post, and still believe, that Barack Obama is a good person and will be a major improvement over the disaster that was George W. Bush. His election is also great for race relations and surely means even more to many African Americans than I, as a white man born decades after Jim Crow ended, can fully understand. I still disagree with our President Elect on a lot of issues, especially his Keynesian stimulus garbage, but his tax and spend is better than Bush’s borrow and spend. What concerns me is this cult of personality that has sprouted up around Obama.

It’s almost like Barack Obama has been knighted as the Messiah of America. Conservative talk radio is often hyperbolic, but I think they got the mainstream media’s (other than the neoconservative Fox News) kids glove approach to Obama right. However, what’s more disconcerting than this media fawning is the millions of people who seem to just seem to fall heads over heels for him.

I’ve had a couple of friends on facebook constantly post pro Obama related material in their profile and there are currently 1,156,677 confirmed guests to Obama’s inauguration on facebook despite the fact that you can’t attend his inauguration via facebook. For the real thing over two million people are expected to attend the actual inauguration. I unfortunately missed the parties after he was elected, but I heard they were out of control.

Now, this isn’t necessarily bad, I mean it’s good that people are getting involved in politics. But there seems to be a feeling that his election will save us all from financial ruin, terrorism, war, greedy corporations, racism, sexism, crime, foreclosure, layoffs, bird flu and athletes foot. I mean look at all these Hollywood stars falling all over themselves for Obama in music videos like this one, this one, this one, and of course Obama girl.

What’s stranger and more disheartening are the youth choirs singing about how great Obama is. I don’t mean to compare Obama to Hitler, but I’m sorry the hero worship is just too reminiscent. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

It’s not a surprise that some conservative writers have picked up on this but even liberal economist Paul Krugman picked up on it during the primaries. Unbridled executive power is extraordinarily dangerous as we’ve seen in the fascist and communist states of the 20th century and we need to be very careful about how much power we allow our presidents to have. Bush, like many before him, increased executive power significantly which liberals have rightfully criticized. Now, however they’re jumping all over themselves for a president who will almost certainly expand the federal government.

We have to pull ourselves back from in this cult of the presidency in general and the cult of Obama in particular. The intent of the founders and the explicit language in our Constitution was meant to limit the power of the president. Hell, the original Articles of Confederation didn’t even have a president! Now there were problems then (think slavery), but a powerful executive is simply the antithesis of liberty and while it’s great Bush is gone, it’s time for Obama fanatics (and Obama himself) to relax.

Or we can just laugh at them.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Blogger Deleted My Post!

Wow, Bogger.com can really suck sometimes. So I write out this long post and all. Take a lot of time to do so. I linked some sites that I got information from and all. Then I highlight it to copy and paste it in a Word file. I do this simply because Blogger's editing tools are subpar at best. Well what happens... it deletes the whole thing and there's no undo or anything. Yeah, all I did was highlight it! Well, I don't feel like rewriting so if I have any readers out there, just know that Blogger.com just screwed you out of my weekly insight.

Screw you Blogger.

Monday, January 5, 2009

New Year's Resolutions

Making New Year’s Resolutions and then proceeding to break said New Year’s Resolutions seems to be an annual event for Americans and many others around the world. One survey of over 100,000 people in 16 countries found that 98.7% made one or more resolutions and only a shameful yet darkly humorous 3.1% actually kept them.

Aside by making fodder for bad stand-up comics, this embarrassing statistic begs the question; why do people still do this. A common definition for insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Well this one almost answers itself. No one is completely happy with himself, and so we want naturally want to improve. The New Year symbolizes a new beginning (although really it really represents nothing more than passing go with out the $200 of course), therefore it’s a chance to start anew more literally. To fix those problems we all know that we have.

Well unfortunately, people rarely change and never change easily. Alcoholics don’t just stop drinking, fat people don’t just lose weight, hippies don’t just start making something of themselves, it takes a lot of hard work and dedication. A simple resolution will provide nothing more than a week or two of motivation.

Any serious attempt to improve requires time, goals and dedication. The best way I’ve found to do this is to create a plan. Compliment that plan with a schedule and goals and then meticulously keep track of your progress. For example, I looked to get back into shape so I created a work out plan. Then I created a schedule with goals for bench press, weight and run time. And so for I’ve had great results.

Now obviously this is no guarantee, but a plan and a schedule can help focus your effort unlike some vague resolution. In addition to the plan, involving a friend or at least telling people what you’re trying to do helps keep yourself accountable. You can really start this at any time, so the New Year might as well be it. But given the statistics, I wouldn’t call your goal a resolution.

Happiness and Success

At the end of every year I go through my stuff and my computer in a vain attempt to organize and clean it all up. This last year was no exception. While doing said tedious work I came across an interesting thing I wrote a couple years ago. I don't remember writing it or why I even wrote it but I liked it. While it had no title, it might as well have been titled "Happiness and Success." So here it is in its unadulterated form, a bit cheesy, yes, but also kind of deep. Well at least I think so.


The activities that will lead to success in the long term must be identified, accepted and executed in the short term for long term success to be possible.

Thus the short term activities that will lead to success in the long term are a means to an end (success/happiness).

However, if short term activities are only to gain long term ends (success/happiness), it could be implied that the short term (present) is devoid of those desired ends (success/happiness).

If the present is devoid of both happiness and success, then the next question is when do you reach the long term? When do you feel the fruits of success or happiness or both?

In addition, should success and happiness even be put together? They are not innately linked. Does success bring happiness, or does happiness bring success?

Regardless of which brings which, happiness is the greater achievement. Because your success is a purely personal representation of achievement (not social) it matters little to you if it isn't accompanied by happiness.

So happiness must be applied to the short term activities that will lead to success in the long term if achievement is even still desired.

If achievement is desired it is no longer and ends (happiness is) so is it a means?

Achievement at its highest level is an actualizing of personal ability. Happiness should (but not necessarily) make one want to achieve their best. Thus achievement is a means to no end.

The short term activities to bring long term success should be the short term activities that bring true happiness.

The short term activities that bring true happiness are the ends.

Happiness is an end in itself.