Obama

I can't imagine any non-Royalist American founding father would ever cheer on the vast expansion of a paternalistic superstate. And make no mistake, that is Obama's stated cause.

There has never been an era of more material affluence in the history of the world than the one we live in now, and the people of the United States are vastly more wealthy, individually and in the aggregate, than their mid-twentieth century predecessors. Obama is not seeking to hark back to any bygone era of prosperity -- to him, today's unipolar world dominated by America's military and popular culture is anathema, as is a world in which disparities in motivation, talent & work ethic can lead to disproprotionate economic rewards, and a world in which the growth and development of homo sapiens requires tradeoffs against his pristine, romanticized image of the environment.

Obama's disaster-mongering is pure salesmanship. There is no disaster he's trying to prevent -- economic, ecological, social, or military. But he's elated to take advantage of the opportunity to sell extreme measures in an irrational political environment.

His only 'plan' is to 1) create a massive entitlement class forever dependent on government 'largesse' and heavily incentivized to vote accordingly, 2) scale back America's military capabilities to an extent that any foreign 'adventurism' is never again possible, and 3) decelerate our energy use in order to slow down our economic growth.

This is not a secret plan. It flows from Obama's fundamental beliefs about regular people and their capacity to make their own choices, about global history, war and extra-national institutions, about environmentalism vs. economic prosperity, and about the immorality of success (yes, the irony of the hypocrisy is stunning).

He really believes that he and his friends know better for us. And when you own the money-printing press & don't care about the consequences, it is definitely treated as a bottomless bucket of resources to do with as they please.