As far as speeches go Hillary’s speech was just so so. It won’t be remembered for soaring rhetoric or profound policy proposals. What Hillary’s speech will be remembered for is her accomplishing the necessity to clearly articulate support for Obama’s candidacy for President. On the surface the Democrats will go into the election cycle united, though beneath the surface I believe that there is a great amount of ill will between the Clintons and the Obamas.

Beyond the necessary niceties in her speech Hillary focused on people she met who told her that they needed the government to help take care of them, even citing a soldier who encouraged her to “take care of my buddies.” Clearly Hillary believes that the government is the parental figure in the country and that it is responsible to take care of the people, its children. It is responsible to take care of people without health insurance. It is responsible to take care of women in America who are being disadvantaged. It is responsible to take care of children. Hillary’s America is one where government is the Nanny and we the people are to be obedient to our caretaker.

From here Hillary offered up boilerplate Democrat positions ranging from anti-corporate rhetoric to pro global warming to her fervid desire for universal health care. More than once Hillary stated the Democratic mantra that “government must be about ‘we the people’ not we the favored few.”

Hillary spent only a little time attacking John McCain focusing more on attacking failed Bush policies while insisting that McCain would continue with the failed policies that find our reputation internationally damaged and our economy not fundamentally sound.

In the end this is a speech that was calculated to deliver Hillary from being blamed in any way for an eventual Obama defeat.

“Over the last 60 years, trillions of dollars have been transferred from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries in the name of promoting development. Through much of that period, many aid recipients actually lost ground economically….Over the years, even the US agency for International Development, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and other aid agencies have been forced to admit that the vast bulk of their munificent transfers generated no economic growth and encouraged no market reforms. The conclusion of outside analysts, led by the pioneering British economist P. T. Bauer, have been more damning. Bauer’s studies showed that, by pouring vast sums of money into many of the world’s worst governments, foreign aid has subsidized both socialism and repression.”

Doug Bandow
The Burmese Tragedy — Foreign Hindrance — Not Aid
August Issue Of Chronicles

International aid is just more wasted taxpayers money that has no basis in the Constitution. Like wealth transfer that happens within the States, wealth transfer that occurs internationally only serves to eliminate the middle class while impoverishing the poor while emboldening the wicked.

Wealth transfer is only about cronyism and the destruction of free peoples, governments and markets. When these United States sends money internationally it is with the intent of enslaving the average man and woman in those countries while propping up socialistic governments.

This is another classic example of how compassion gets turned inside out and upside down. Supposedly it is the compassionate thing to support wealth transfer and hard hearted to oppose wealth redistribution. Here we see why the opposite is true. It is hard hearted cruelty to support international trade because such aid steals the opportunity of freedom from those who long for freedom in those countries. People who vote for people who desire to use the government to achieve wealth redistribution are cold hearted bastards, and their refusal to learn the reality of the way things really are indicate that they are also mush headed morons.

Recently, in an interview with CEO Rick “Saddle sore” Warren, B. Hussein Obama responded to a question asking, ‘when life begins,’ by saying,

“whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity … is above my pay grade.”

First notice that Obama is a typical American in as much as he has compartmentalized truth. The idea that one can answer the question to life from either a Theological lens or a scientific lens indicates that he believes, in a Thomistic fashion, that there are two paths to truth.

Second, consider that Obama has had no problem coming to conclusions on other “above my pay grade” issues. For example, Obama has concluded that the polar ice caps are going to melt from the carbon footprint left by men. As such he has determined that we must save the planet. So, coming to conclusions that are “above his pay grade” on ecology in order to save the planet are perfectly acceptable but coming to conclusions on embryology above his pay grade in order to save babies are not.

Third, consider that this is all smoke. Obama has answered the question on when life begins and he has done so with precise specificity. For B. Hussein Obama life begins with a parent’s choice. When Obama, as a Illinois state senator, voted against what would later be known as the “Born-Alive Infants’ Protection Act” he declared to God and man his answer to when life begins.

Indeed, Obama in his vote that determined that life begins when a parent determines life begins voted to redefine the current legal definition of the beginning of life from “life begins when a child is living outside the womb to life begins outside the womb unless the parent went into delivery wanting the child dead. If the parent went into delivery wanting the child dead then it is impossible, by definition, for life to officially begin.

Obama, with his opposition to legislation that would have provided protection to babies who were targeted for abortion but who were born alive, was trying to expand the rights of abortion from the right to have an attempted abortion to the right to have an successful abortion — even if the aborting has to happen post live delivery.

Fourth, if such a decision really is above his pay grade then prudence would require to give the benefit of doubt to what he doesn’t know to not be life. A man who was truly humble about his lack of knowledge on such a life and death subject would be careful to err on the side of caution. Obama is lying on this issue to protect his Presidential aspirations.

Obama wants to be President and telling the truth is the only thing that is above his pay grade.

The Democratic Convention on its first night was dedicated to an inspiring speech from Chappaquiddick Ted Kennedy and a speech from Michelle Obama intended to round off her rough edges.

Teddy’s speech was as simple as you would have expected from somebody who has terminal brain cancer. His appearance is a great advertisement for the ability of drugs to keep a man on his feet. The importance of Kennedy’s speech was not in what he said but merely in his presence. Kennedy is the bridge to the Liberal Democratic past and he served his purpose tonight by reminding Democrats of their glory days in the staged political drama that was orchestrated this evening.

Michelle Obama’s speech however was a bit more strategic for the Democrats generally and for the Obama’s particularly. Michelle, in this election cycle to date, has come across like a bitter and angry harridan. Tonight, was the attempt to give Michelle Obama a personality tummy tuck. Instead of comments about the meanness of America we heard about Michelle profess her love for America. Instead of Michelle’s hard shell we got to see Michelle the doting wife and loving Mommy. Indeed, were we to believe the picture presented tonight by Michelle we would conclude that she’s probably just like Jackie Kennedy was back when Jack was President.

Michelle also spent a great deal of time communicating how much she is like middle America.
Remember middle America? They are the people who cling to their guns and religion when they feel threatened according to her husband. Anyway … Michelle repeatedly communicated that she is just like all those White Blue collar people who Barack couldn’t convince to vote for him in the Democratic primary.

Naturally, the whole evening was staged and produced like some Broadway play. Further, it was characterized by the kind of syrupy sentimentalism that Americans have come to love in place of rational thought. The speeches were given to stir emotions while avoiding the intellect. In this way the speeches were a good deal like the kind of preaching one can find in most Churches in America on any given Sunday at the worship hour. As such the sentiment was not only in content but also in delivery. Several times during Michelle’s speech there were clear indications that she was trying to cough up some tears.

The closest to substance in the speeches tonight was when Michelle Obama, speaking in reference to her husband, said,

That’s why he’s running– to end the war in Iraq responsibly, to build an economy that lifts every family, to make health care available for every American, and to make sure every child in this nation gets a world class education all the way from preschool to college. That’s what Barack Obama will do as President of the United States of America.

Americans should realize the amount of taxation it will take to “make health care available for every American” while at the same time funding a world class education from 3 years of age to 22 years of age. Naturally, if the State attempts to insure these realities we can be confident that America’s health care will become substandard and our education will become worse then it already is. (Yes, I know it is hard to believe that anybody could make our Colleges more imbecilic but never underestimate the ability of the State.) In these statement Michelle revealed once again the Marxist nature of the Obama vision.

The first evening of the DNC was all sentiment and no substance. This is fitting since America is increasingly becoming a nation that likewise is all sentiment and no substance.