We are simply fantastic at convincing ourselves of that which we need to believe. Much of this we do in order to remain part of the subset with whom we identify with.
I hardly knew GWB; GWB was not a friend of mine. Obama is the same as GWB... and that is not necessarily a bad thing... just an observation. I had met GWB several times back when his father was running for President. I raised money for his father. He was as polite and cordial as one could possibly be, in fact I would describe him as warm and likable. I never had the privilege of meeting BHO, but by all accounts the man is personal and affable.
GWB lost my support at the Iraq war. People, that is "regular Joe's" like me, that supported the Iraq War are every bit the same misinformed group-thinkers as those that support abortion. In both instances, the proponents censure the truth of what is going on so that their "supporters" will maintain their support for an act or acts the truth of which they never, ever see.
Take a trip to the U.S. military hospitals in Europe. See the ten's of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians missing limbs, burned to a crisp... the paraplegic and quadriplegic American soldiers, those with traumatic brain injury, the horribly disfigured... this is the Truth of War. But the "supporters" will never see this truth, yet will continue to support the cause of this brutal truth...
Pro-Choice? Really? Why is it that the group-thinkers supporting this choice censure the results of abortion? For the same reason war supporters censure their "product". The truth of it is unsupportable.
How did the supporters of war, murder and killing get that way? How does a supporter of gun control here in the U.S. come to support dropping one-ton bombs on targets in Baghdad and hellfire missiles from unmanned drones on "suspected militants"?
The Media.
We lie to ourselves, and then to assuage our guilt we pay for the propaganda to make us feel better about those lies. 86 MILLION Americans are extorting resources from the other 215 million or so Americans. In order to justify this criminal theft and interference with our Rights as Americans the Left and the Media have engaged in the Mother of All Advertising Campaigns to convince the American people that the problem is that the rich are not taxed enough!! Yep. The problem is Steven Jobs, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Steven Spielberg, et al... if those guys weren't so rich the rest of us wouldn't be so poor!! And more than half of American voters bought it, hook, line, and sinker. Never mind that for most of the post war period the Government confiscated over 50% of rich peoples assets at their death, or forced that out of reach of all for the purposes of increasing the capital base (monetary inflation), and taxed them nearly 50% of their income while living, and 6% in sales taxes if they spent anything...
The U.S. is in a world of hurt. Blaming this hurt on those that worked hard and had enormous good luck is absurd. This is not to say that Death Taxes are not a worthwhile vehicle for preventing the Baron of Microsoft or the Duke of Apple from colonizing America.... but that is a different issues, is it not? America's problem is that we have simply increased the percentage of the dependent population while also increasing the consumption of the dependent population.
Nearly 1/3 of the population receives assistance from the government - a nice way of saying extorting money form the tax payers and the international bond market - yet cable T.V., cell phones, and high speed internet access is nearly universal. This was not the case a generation ago... ergo the percentage receiving largess increases as does the AMOUNT of the largess.
“As every student of American history knows, this country’s core founding principles included nonpunitive taxation, constitutionally guaranteed protections against persecution of the minority and an inexorable right of self-determination." hedge fund manager Dan Loeb last week.
Got that? Non-punitive taxation!! A political minority, that is those with less than 50% of the vote, were to be protected from persecution from the majority!! "An inexorable right to self-determination"!!!
Let me ask you something... have you seen any of that around lately?
We are so close to breaking down... an outcome I am confident that those doing the breaking are wholeheartedly pushing for - with an eye to what comes next. The next breakdown in the markets will likely be the last for this construct. Do those ushering this in really understand all of the consequences of their actions?
Somehow, I think not.