Obama Brings Back ‘Virtue of Selfishness’ — But in Different Context

Republicans keep finding stuff in Obama’s seemingly thin record. Sounds a little like Obama has more experience then the Republicans let on… Surprise.

Obama’s pulling the old “Who said that, I didn’t” routine. He says something controversial, like not paying higher taxes is selfish, when he gets slammed for it, he tweaks to make it sound better, but it’s actually the same thing.
He got caught on tape saying he would put the coal mines out of business, now he’s playing on hope that people have such short memories that we’ll believe what he says today, because he’s desperate to get elected, and forget what he said a year ago.
It’s pathetic actually, not just because people are falling for it, but because he knows he’s getting away with it.
The media downplays all of Obama’s flip-flops. Videos of Obama’s switch-a-roo game came be seen on the internet, if people will just do their homework on their candidate. It really saves you from being played a fool on Nov 4.

I used to support Sen. Obama, but Sen. Obama says on his stump speech that the McCain/Palin ticket will find ” my communistic tendencies because I used to share my toys, in kindergarten, and I would share my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, when I was in the second grade” (to girly giggles in the crowd). The communistic tendencies in his economic plan isn’t that Sen. Obama shares his things, it’s that Sen. Obama is sharing your things; he is sharing tax-payers things. He is not asking tax-payers to pay a little more, he is making tax-payers pay more, and if you disagree with the wisdom of that path, he calls you “unpatriotic” and “selfish.” Sen. Obama forgets, hard-earned tax-payer dollars belong to hard-working tax-payers, not the federal government, not Barack Obama, and not welfare recipients.

A Veteran
Don’t forget that McCain has like 10 times has much money as Obama does.

What? you mean you were intending on using your 401K for your own family? How selfish! Even though you earned that with your own hard work, personal sacrifice, and individual responsibility, that is no longer yours…what is yours, is ours, or rather….theirs (Obama, Pelosi, and Reid).
Fools! To think that you could keep what you work for…how dare you! And don’t you dare question it, or we will investigate and destroy you like JOe the Plumber.
Meanwhile, Obama bears no responsibility to take care of his poor aunt, grandmother, and brother, and whichever else relatives pops up undiscovered, as he expects the rest of us to do that.
YOU…have a choice on Tuesday dear Americans, YOU…have control. Please don’t make the wrong choice for America, this is our only chance.
The choice is clear, the writing is on the wall.
McCain/Palin 2008

“McCain gave approx 25% of his income to charity.”
Oh really, last years income for the McCain’s was over 5 million dollars, I think your off by about 1 million $450,000 dollars buddy.

I wish everyone would get off this issue of Obama’s poor homeless aunt. She is the half sister of Obama’s stepfather. They aren’t even related to each other.

Not only do her and McCain give more money to charity (27.2% for McCain and 2% for Palin), but apparently, Obama and Biden are a fair bit more stingy (5.7% for Obama and a whopping 0.3% for Biden). Now I’m not one to judge people by what they do or don’t give, but didn’t Joe Biden say it was patriotic to pay more taxes? Apparently he wants YOU to give away your money, but isn’t terribly interested in giving his own. In case you’re wondering, that was Biden’s BEST year for giving. In 1999 he gave $120, a full 0.05% of his income, to charity. I give more than that, and I’m not on a senator’s salary.
You need facts I guess JR so there they are.

What did Bush ask us to do after 9/11?
Go shopping. Well how did that work?
NOT WELL. We can do better and we will.
Having a President (Obama) who THINKS will take some getting used to… we’ve gotten used to Bush’s cowboy quick draw style.
I can feel the world rooting for Obama..
they want to like us again.

So what’s new ? Obama is like any other politician. Obama would be a statist enemy to Ayn Rand. For what that’s worth. He’ll say anything to get elected. With crude oil dropping back out of it’s bubble range into $30′s-$50′s a barrel, Biofuels, wind and solar become again uneconomical pipe dreams.

Obama has always been for clean coal. He even got in trouble for that position by environmentalists.

On top of Obama (D-ACORN) blowing up his chances in Coal country by bankrupting companies and forcing hundreds of thousand of workers out of jobs,…
Comes his recorded words that the price of electricity will “skyrocket” but that he can “sell it” to the American people.
It’s on tape, ObamACORNs, and coming to a robocall near you.
P.S. Electricity prices impact everybody not just coal producers.

thorfinn
I believe it was a joint return for all listed. I am not sure though.

“It’s that fundamental belief — I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper — that makes this country work.” – Barack Obama, July 27, 2004
Good thing he’s not his aunt’s keeper.
Or his half-brother’s.

I love the idea of people showing a bit more loyalty to family, community and country.
The idea of complaining about the extra 3% in tax on the amount of income over $250,000 just floors me. That works out to be $300 extra for each $10,000 over $250,000. I would love to be in such a position as would no doubt the 85% of Americans who aren’t.
And then the same people who complain about this will say some nonsense about not wanting their money to go for welfare payments. Take a look at what our government does with your tax money. With 36% of our government’s spending going for military expenses, it is more realistic to imagine that is where your tax dollars are going.
Where are these complainers’ patriotism?

Why does Obama distance himself from images of African Americans?
Why is it that out of 95 commercials on his web site there is only 1 which allows black people other then Him or Michelle to even talk?
Why is it that in 94 out of 95 that other than Obama’s family member there is no African American representation?

If my math is correct if 240,000 is 5.7 percent of income then he and michelle must have made more than 4 million last year. I guess he is one of the rich you are complaining about.

Lydia,
36% is mighty low. Military expenditures are well over 50% of all government spending when you count military related debt, nuclear arms, veterans services, foreign military aid, etc.

A Veteran
And voting for him in high numbers.
Obama 08

MM
Congress controls spending not the president.
Hilo
The polls are rapidly closing.

jhw539
Thats why only 5.7 percent to charity. I see. I thought good christians were supposed to tithe 10% which would be considered charity.

A Veteran
Republican Congress 6 of 8 years of out of control spending. Thanks

A Veteran: “Thats why only 5.7 percent to charity. I see. I thought good christians were supposed to tithe 10% which would be considered charity. ”
So he’s not a good Christian because he gives 10% of his take home (after taxes, including payroll taxes) to charity rather than 10% of his gross income?
With the economy a mess, our Army overextended in Iraq, Bin Laden roasting smores at a lodge in Pakistan, and Kim Il Jung a zombie with nuclear weapons, the fact that you are calling him a bad Christian for not donating enough to charity (and ignoring the time he’s donated) is pretty telling.

jhw539
I did not say he was a bad christian. I am just saying his percentage is kinda low for someone that pulled in 4 million.

A Veteran: “I believe Buffett stated he paid the same percentage of taxes last year that his secretary did making 60,000 for the year. Buffet made 46 million”
He paid less than half the percentage of his income in taxes as compared to his secretary, a fact he highly publicized in an effort to condemn the Republican’s welfare-for-the-rich loophole-riddled tax code. He lives in the same home he bought in 1968 for $31,500 and his children are inheriting little of his wealth (enough to do what they want, but not enough to do nothing as he puts it).
In 2006 Warren Buffet gave over 30 BILLION DOLLARS to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest charitable donation in history. And you want to condemn him as not paying his share to society? I’m speechless.

A Vetrean: You said:
“Thats why only 5.7 percent to charity. I see. I thought good christians were supposed to tithe 10% which would be considered charity.”
Then you said:
“I did not say he was a bad christian.”
Yes. Yes you did. If your grasp of English is this poor or your basic integrity this low, there just isn’t any point ‘debating’ you. I may as well try debating what ‘is’ is with Bill Clinton.

jhw539
I am not condeming him just stating facts as I know them trying to put it all in context. I heard he is the richest man worth 57 Billion surpassing Bill Gates. Bill gates money doesn’t come to me. I wouldn’t want it as I don’t need it. And no I am not rich. Household income hovering at 50,000 a year. I just have everything paid for and comfortable. With some patience and responsibility most americans could say the same. Instead they want to buy stuff they don’t need with money they don’t have.

Also, thanks for being honest about democrats having some faults too. Not many here do as the same as republicans. Everyone has faults.

Why doesn’t “The One” ever mention, pay tribute, or quote anything from Martin Luther King Jr?
I find that extremely ODD! But I have the answer…
MLK was a conservative leader who dreamed that someday people will be judged the content of their CHARACTER and not the color of their skin. His dream was deeply rooted in the American dream that the character of our Civic leaders would line up with the character that is outlined in a book he held very dear, the BIBLE. We need to Vote To CHANGE based on the Truth, The Word of our Lord not based on a political party that thinks he is the Messiah!

Yes Obama is clueless if he was a man for the people why is Illinois in such bad shape, why has he only voted Present the majority of the time in the Senate, sounds like he needs a goverment class learn the topic.
He will not use union employees, in Chicago for his event tuesday night union workers are very angry how he has done this. If you are a union teacher or laborer do not vote for him.
Time for someone with direction, this is what the country needs someone to cut the pork out of goverment, Palin will go at that like there is no tomorrow. This is what we need in these financially difficult times for the whole world.
Republicans it has been proved on 60 minutes and by Greenspan that they did not play a part in the financial crisis. Even Clinton agreed this was not caused by the republicans.
Countries will never like the US, we have it all – nothing we could say or do will make them happy, but McCain knows foreign policy and what rules there are to work within. He is planning on ending the war, Obama wants to start more fights.
Do some reasearch you will find out all these things are true.

Obama is not a man of CHARACTER and does not belong in the White House. He would probably ‘choke’ on MLK’s words….I take that back…he’s too smooth to stumble upon words unless his teleprompter doesn’t work..
Obama is a politician that doesn’t even respect the life of a little baby so how is he supposed to respect your life and mine. Human life must be protected from conception to natural death. He believes in a different kind of government; a socialistic one that is far different than the one our founding fathers established.
We can PROTECT the values of Life, Faith & Family for which this great nation was built upon by voting for McCain/Palin on Tuesday.

Posted by: Pro Life
‘We can PROTECT the values of Life, Faith & Family for which this great nation was built upon by voting for McCain/Palin on Tuesday.’
too bad you ‘pro-lifers’ were so quick to support Bush’s war in Iraq… guess the death penalty doesn’t count either…. neither do all the dead Iraqi civilians…..
but hey, that’s OK… your ‘family values’ are best for America…..

Posted by: “Melanie Patterson”
‘The Word of our Lord not based on a political party that thinks he is the Messiah!’
so…. you’ve obviously never heard of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and the rest….. you know, the ‘good christians’ who preach politics from the pulpit..
Glad you also defined ‘your lord’…. not mine.
JEEEEEEZE…. save us from the religious types……. and………….
you need to really review the history of race in America……

Obama is going to lecture ME on being selfish?
He has never served anything other than himself in his entire life and he wants to lecture us as if he were our father?
When that immature little boy works 80+ hours a week, 365 days a year to build a business that provides jobs in his community, we can sit down and talk. Until then, he’s just another poseur. I’ve done more for this country and my community than he has and he has NO right to call me selfish for not wanting to be a permanent part of Obama’s new “slave class” of “citizens” who provide the jobs, drive the economy and are told to shut up and cough up the dough.

Obama is not qualified to be president and he wants to raise taxes on people who work so that he can give money to people who don’t.
He also wants to raise the FICA/social security tax on people making more than $102,000 right away. That hits doubly hard on people who are self-employed. Don’t elect this job destroying Robin Hood wannabe.

The more government takes and decides who and how much to give, because of their greed there will be nothing to give those that need. And sadly those that currently give on their own will have nothing to give either. History proves this time and again.
The fact that Obama is raising many other rates on earners including dividends, capital gains, corporate, etc, has been proven to slow the economy and cause the middle-class to make less and lose jobs. The tax cut he is giving is not enough to offset the negative slowing effect of the higher taxes on earners. This slowing effect is even more pronounced if instituted during a recession. History proves this time and again.

This article pretty thoroughly changes what Sen. Obama said. “So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted…. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as an ideological matter, as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it”
So he is “going to take coal off the table” instead of allowing it if it can be done cleanly.
And bankrupt anyone who burns coal no matter how cleanly.
And when this is reflected in our electric bills, “We (they) have to sacrifice”.
Doesn’t sound like anything I have ever heard accurately described as supportive of coal, clean tech or otherwise.

remind me again – just when did living at the expense of someone else become so selfless ;)

“It will come from each of us doing our part in our own lives, in our own communities. It will come from each of us looking after ourselves and our families but also looking after each other. You know I – it’s been awhile now – we’ve made a virtue out of selfishness, there’s no virtue in that. We made a virtue of irresponsibility and we need to usher in a new spirit of service and sacrifice and responsibly.”
Fine, but let ME decide who I want to help and look after. I find it funny he talks about giving and sacrifice, but he has kept all the money he can. Just look at his campaign contributions. They are miniscule in relationship to his AGI. Maybe he needs to use his charisma and star power to talk to the minority communities he wants us to support. Tell them that they need to stop having children out of wedlock; that they need to stop glorifying a culture of gangsta and guns; that they need to stay in school and it’s not selling out to speak proper English; that they need to go to work, even if at McDonald’s (it has to pay more than welfare). Maybe he needs to tell those who have vilified Bill Cosby for his comments that Bill was right. Frankly, if I am going to have to start paying for other people once Obama goes forth with his liberal social agenda, then I think I should be able to have some say in the choices those people make. Call me selfish, I don’t care. I have worked hard to get where I am today and continue to work hard. I am absolutely livid that this man may be elected president and this country has fallen for his bull. He is a bait & switch salesman. Think carefully undecideds, because the REAL Obama is the one who comes our during speeches in California – when he is in the company of those who hold his true beliefs.

In his own way, Obama understands that there is a conflict between selfishness and sacrifice. He just misidentifies which one is good and which one is wrong.
There’s nothing wrong with pursuing one’s rational self-interest in economics, romance, and life. That’s our essence as human beings. This sort of selfishness does *not* include screwing others, robbing, rape, etc. — those acts are immoral because they aren’t rationally selfish.
It’s a long-standing mistake to lump together in a package-deal both “selfishness” and abhorrent behaviours such as those. The truly selfish man neither wants to trample on others or be trampled himself — he merely wishes to be left free to produce and trade values with others, and seek his own happiness.
In contrast, Obama’s calls for “service” and “sacrifice” are just disguised calls for submission to state, i.e., slavery — something I find profoundly ironic coming from someone who aspires to be the first African-American president of the US.
The sort of selfishness advocated by Ayn Rand is compatible with (and the only solid foundation) for the various virtues that most Americans correctly respect and seek to embody, such as integrity, honesty, productiveness, etc.
For more on this, I highly recommend the book by Dr. Tara Smith (professor of philosophy at Univ. Texas – Austin), published by Cambridge University Press:
“Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist”

Where’s there’s someone calling for sacrifices, there’s someone collecting them.

12:09 -It’s just rhetoric from a bygone age which is apparently being rendered literal. Sharing and cooperation are foundations that should be established in childhood, they’re not behaviors comparable to slave/master relations. A mentality adhering to the me-first “virtues of selfishness” was a driving historical force behind slavery, and it was also the major impetus for the deregulation which spawned our current economic crisis. Paradigms are shifting, I hope.

11-3-08 – VOS & Obama 159 words:
“You moral cannibal, I know that you’ve always known what it was that you wanted. But your game is up, because now we know it, too.”
Yep, Obama’s altruism/collectivism is showing again. It’s clear why Obama was reluctant to disassociate himself form GDAmericaWright. Surely a mentor like that will back up Obama 100% to lynch us all. Obama claims virtue consists of destroying oneself. If Obama wants to practice that, go ahead, but I resent his telling us what to do with our lives. I resent his telling us to serve others. It would be laughable were it not pathetic that the first African-American to run for US President, the man who says he wants to bring us together, seeks to enslave us. But Americans, I paraphrase Ayn Rand: “Run from anyone who tells you to sacrifice your life to others. He’s looking to be the beneficiary.

The funny thing is, *both* candidates are quite blatant about sacrifice and service and selflessness. They *both* approach these things from the perspective of altruism, not egoism, and in this they reflect the trend of the wider culture.
Rand would blast both of these guys as little monsters eager to further spread the ethics of human sacrifice — both voluntary and not.
Rand stands virtually alone in rightly denouncing human sacrifice in its every form and degree — whether it is sacrifice of self to others (meek altruists), others to self (thuggish predators), indirectly (through government programs) or any other variant. (Note that this puts the lie to spinning Rand’s virtue of selfishness as having anything whatever to do with being an opportunistic thug or otherwise unjustly exploiting people.)
If you would like a quick introduction to Rand’s rational, scientific ethics, I encourage you to check out Craig Biddle’s excellent little book, _Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It_.

Obama talks out of both sides of his mouth. He speaks of the injustices of slavery but demands “service”, and calls for government to force people to serve others. Forced servitude is slavery.
Looking after oneself is indeed responsible and moral. It is also selfish. Looking after oneself and sacrificing oneself are opposites, and are incompatible — yet Obama calls for both in the same breath. If it is responsible and moral to earn your own living and further your life, then it is irresponsible and immoral to sacrifice your sustenance or your self. If it is right for each individual to look after himself, as Obama indicates, then it is wrong to force anyone to serve others or provide for others.
Each individual has a right to his own life, his liberty, and the pursuit of his own happiness. One’s responsibility to others is not to serve them, but only to respect their same rights. Obama rejects this principle of individual rights, on which America was founded — Obama is anti-American. If you want to understand what Ayn Rand meant by “The Virtue of Selfishness”, don’t trust Obama to tell you, read her book by that name, or read her novel “Atlas Shrugged”.