Democratic National Convention


Torturous though I expected it to be I did watch VP Joe Biden and President Obama’s speeches at the Democratic National Convention last night.  That’s what conservatives do.  They listen to both sides and sift out what’s true and what’s false.  Liberals tend to only listen to what will feed their already perceived conclusions.

As I might have expected, President Obama's speech was laced with sound bites, talking points that we hear over and over again and a lot of disingenuous remarks.  There was also mockery of his opponent that didn't befit the office of the presidency.  But that's typical of how liberals compete with their conservative rivals.  The three main tools of the liberals are to call their adversary stupid, move off the issue they're discussing by forcing the debate into an issue about racism or simply mock them.  It's easier to do that then to have a sensible rejoinder to explain why they disagree with them.  

Obama said that when  Romney was giving his speech at the Republican Convention he said he was going to fix the economy but didn't say how he was going to do it.   Well, for anyone who had the opportunity to listen to Romney’s talk at a rally in Orange City, Iowa today they would have heard a reiteration of what he’s been saying all along about how he will restore the economy and he was telling about the successes his company, Bain Capital, had with helping companies grow.  He gave a litany of companies that became immensely successful as a result of the help they got from Bain Capital.  One was Staples.  He told of how he was with the little start-up company, talking to the owner, when they opened their first shop.  He said that Staples today has over 2000 stores world-wide and he mentioned the number in the thousands of the people the company is employing.  He cited other companies and talked of how long he has been working in the private sector and he knows how business works and how to help businesses be successful.  In this election the electorate will choose between the man with the charismatic personality that made all the false promises in 2008, is still making them, and is still undergoing on-the-job training and a man who spent his entire working life in business, knows how it works, and has a record of successful accomplishments.  
  
There was a lot of whooping and hollering and rah-rah among Obama's supporters as they were gullibly swallowing everything Obama was saying.  I wonder how long it will be before a lot of those cheers are turned to jeers if Obama is reelected. He failed to keep his promises he made in 2008.  What makes them think he'll keep them this time?

President Clinton said on Wednesday night that even he would have had trouble turning around the economy in the state that it was in when Obama took office.  Well I’ve got news for the people who were too young to have remembered what the state of the economy was in when Reagan was seated in January 1981 and how long it took for Reagan to correct it.  The economy was in worse shape than in January 2009.  The good part of what was happening after Carter had control for awhile was that you could get CDs with interest rates paying as much as 17%.  But that was only an indication of how bad inflation was.  Hardest hit during the economic downturn, as it usually is, was the construction industry.  I was losing a lot time at work in the Carter years as were my fellow Local 3 IBEW electrical workers. 

After Reagan's policies took effect, that freed capital investment, New York City started going through one of the biggest building booms in the history of the city and it lasted through the 80s.  If Obama had been the Democratic candidate in the 80s there would have been profuse use of class warfare charges over what Reagan was advocating during his campaign. I also had the good fortune to belong to a Union  led by the greatest labor leader in the history of the labor movement – Harry Van Arsdale Junior.  The United Auto Workers should have been so lucky.  As a construction electrician with Local 3 of the IBEW I was sometimes working six days a week ten hours a day and bringing home paychecks of $2000 a week.  In the late 70s I was losing a lot of time at work and our credit cards were being maxed out as my two boys were starting college.  One was already there and the other was not far behind.   Harry Van Arsdale not only knew how to negotiate good benefits for the members but he also knew how to help  the contractors flourish.  You don't destroy the businessman and say you're for the workers.  It takes the worker that provides the labor and the businesspeople with the capital to bring about prosperity.  He encouraged the use of the most up-to-date tools, equipment and building materials that brought about greater productivity.  It not only helped the contractor to prosper but also enabled the union to negotiate better wages and shorter work days for the members while still maintaining productivity and maintaining the same weekly wages.  He was adamant about making sure Communists did not infiltrate the union.  The book written by Gene Ruffini entitled Harry Van Arsdale Jr. quotes Van Arsdale as saying that he saw the way the Communists destroyed the garment industry with their animus toward businesspeople and he wanted no part of them. I worked for a little contractor when I was going through my apprenticeship called the Forest Electric Company.  I spent my last eight years with them before I retired.  By that time they were one of the biggest contractors in the city.  If the UAW had a leader like Harry they would not have the Government on their backs today, forcing the company to manufacture cars people don't want.  The cost of the Chevy Volt to the consumer is $46,000 - $20,000 more than the cost of a Toyota Camry.  Eric Bolling of the TV program "The Five" had the Volt for a two week test run.  He twice fully charged the battery and twice ran out of battery power 25 miles later in the Lincoln Tunnel on his way to work and had to switch over to gas power.  One thing that Joe Biden didn't mention as he was sounding the rah-rah for saving GM is that the taxpayers are on the hook for twenty five billion dollars that they might just as well kiss good-bye.     

A lot was being said by Biden and Obama about how compassionate they are of the people who are struggling and that Romney is not.  Well this might come as some disillusionment for Obama's blind followers but Romney gave four million dollars to charity in 2011 - 19% of his income.  Joe Biden gave $300 - .0013% of his income.  Obama gave 1%.  Romney also gave the entire inheritance he received from his father to charity.  A famous statement of Margaret Thatcher's was, "Socialists don't care how much they spend of other peoples' money."  They play the game pretty close to the vest with their own.               

President Obama said he would be more aggressively developing our natural resources in oil and natural gas.  What took him so long to know how necessary that is - or is he only saying that till he's reelected?  He also said he would be moving the money that's being used to fund the war in the Middle East into programs that would spur economic growth.  The fact is that there is no money that is laying idle to fund the war effort.  We're paying for that with money we borrow from China.  Stuart Varney on Fox News reported a few days ago that we are currently paying ten billion dollars a week in interest to our creditors on our national debt - mostly to China, of course. 

It's a sad commentary when Antonio Villaraigosa, the Convention Chairman, had to ask three times if God should be recognized in the party platform.  He finally made a tongue-in-cheek decision that he had a two thirds plurality in favor of it.  I wasn't so sure.  I have a number of statements by our Founding Fathers showing their Godly devotion.  One of them is a statement by George Washington:  "The blessings and protection of heaven are at all times necessary, but especially so in times of public distress and and danger."  Reagan said, "When we are no longer a nation under God we'll be a nation gone under."  The traditional values under which our country was founded are seriously being challenged by the Democratic Party. 

God Bless America - I hope.