[kjo]

Recently I met with four liberal friends and we talked about Obama. Their level of self deception is staggering.

They see The One as being completely reelectable...because the GOP are “so far of the mainstream” voters will have no where else to go.

When I pointed out his disasterous record...they saw only temporary setbacks caused by the Tea Party.

This reminds me lot of the mood shortly before Reagan cleaned Carter’s clock in 1980.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

We’re about 15 miles from Rte. 11 near Winchester, VA. I think this article captures perfectly the disillusion of 2008 Obama supporters around here, although I don’t try to start-up conversations on the subject because just under the surface I’m wondering “what were you thinking?????” And that’s not a good way to start a conversation.

[flowerplough]

“I used to be a Democrat,” said a quiet older gentleman who declined to give his name, sitting with his wife outside Wilson’s home. “I come from a long line of Democrats. I have to say I couldn’t be more disappointed in this president’s job so far.”

Rural Americans, Dem or Repub, and increasingly becoming anti-Obama, Pennsylvanian, bitter clingers, hayna?

[Thom Pain]

So why do we expect gazillions of idiots people, who couldn't see that the emperor had no clothes in 2008, to come to that realization now? 2008 was based 0% on facts and the record, so what will make 2012 different? The fact that approx 38% still support him makes me crazy. That's one in three. As you move about your daily life, every third person you see is an idiot. That's comforting.

[loveliberty2]

The hamlets, once-thriving towns, and rural communities along Route 11 are not that different from many other communities along long and short roads in America. The gentleman who spoke of his affiliation with the Democrat Party was not that different from my father, or from many other citizens who never imagined that one day their Party would take a sharp turn left and leave forever the ideas they and their fathers thought it held deeply.

To paraphrase an old automobile commercial, that left turn meant even so-called 'blue dog' Democrats are "'not your father's' 'blue dog' democrats." Many of the seniors who grew up with their fathers' idea of Democratic philosophy believed themselves to be something entirely different than the Party which dominates today. They did not subscribe to European "socialist" ideology.

Many, even now, may not have paid close attention to the manner in which their father's Party has been "transformed" into what is euphemistically called a "progressive" philosophy, when, in fact, it fits another description entirely.

Winston Churchill, in 1908, in a speech entitled, "Liberalism and Socialism," laid out, with amazing clarity, the distinctions between the two and the dangers to liberty of the latter.

To so-called Independents and remaining "blue dogs" a reading of this speech might shock some into reality in understanding what is happening to individual liberty and the liberty of this Republic.

Another source for such analytical definitions of the two philosophies can be found in the Liberty Fund Library is "A Plea for Liberty: An Argument Against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation," edited by Thomas Mackay (1849 - 1912), Chapter 1, excerpted final paragraphs from Edward Stanley Robertson's essay:

I.44
"I have put the question, how Socialism would treat the residuum of the working class and of all classes—the class, not specially vicious, nor even necessarily idle, but below the average in power of will and in steadiness of purpose. I have intimated that such persons, if they belong to the upper or middle classes, are kept straight by the fear of falling out of class, and in the working class by positive fear of want. But since Socialism purposes to eliminate the fear of want, and since under Socialism the hierarchy of classes will either not exist at all or be wholly transformed, there remains for such persons no motive at all except physical coercion. Are we to imprison or flog all the 'ne'er-do-wells'?
I.46
"Freedom is the most valuable of all human possessions, next after life itself. It is more valuable, in a manner, than even health. No human agency can secure health; but good laws, justly administered, can and do secure freedom. Freedom, indeed, is almost the only thing that law can secure. Law cannot secure equality, nor can it secure prosperity. In the direction of equality, all that law can do is to secure fair play, which is equality of rights but is not equality of conditions. In the direction of prosperity, all that law can do is to keep the road open. That is the Quintessence of Individualism, and it may fairly challenge comparison with that Quintessence of Socialism we have been discussing. Socialism, disguise it how we may, is the negation of Freedom. That it is so, and that it is also a scheme not capable of producing even material comfort in exchange for the abnegations of Freedom, I think the foregoing considerations amply prove." EDWARD STANLEY ROBERTSON

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Kaslin, and thanks neverdem for the ping.

"I used to be a Democrat," said a quiet older gentleman who declined to give his name, sitting with his wife outside Wilson's home. "I come from a long line of Democrats. I have to say I couldn't be more disappointed in this president's job so far."