Can we provide for ourselves? No we can’t. We need the government to give us healthcare, jobs, retirement and anything else we may need in our lives.

Can we be proud of our country? No we can’t. We need to apologize to the world for our country.

Can we move beyond racial tensions? No we can’t. Anyone who expresses disagreement with any policy is to be branded a racist.

Can we drill for oil? No we can’t. We will destroy the planet. We are incapable of finding ways to do it cleanly, so we must continue to import it from nations who don’t like us. (But don’t worry, since we have embraced their view of our nation as an evil place, they will start liking us now).

Can we expand nuclear power? No we can’t. Look how many people die every year from nuclear power plants problems. (Wait, no nuclear power plant failure outside of a single event in the USSR, has killed anyone???)

Can we care for our neighbor? Why should we? That is the government’s job. In fact we should tax the money that people use to care for their neighbors. After all, that is the government’s job, not the citizen’s.

Can we have reasonable limits on abortions—for example requiring doctors to care for children born alive after a botched abortion? No we can’t. Any limit no matter how small is too much.

Can we avoid raising taxes on the middle class? No we can’t.   The government needs their money to protect them from themselves. They won’t buy health insurance they can’t afford, so they need to be forced to buy the insurance. Some of them have really good health care plans, and that isn’t fair to people whose plans aren’t as good.

Can we let people pick what they want covered by insurance and what they don’t want covered. No we can’t. The government knows what the citizen needs better than the citizen.

Can we let people pick the insurer they want even if that insurer is out of state? No we can’t. That insurer might not offer coverage of something that the citizen doesn’t want or need coverage for.

Can we punish the rich who do wrong, while leaving those who don’t alone? No we can’t. ALL the rich, every last one of them, are greedy, evil, exploiters who need to be punished. They do not create jobs, give to charity or provide capital for growing business. They, each and every one of them, are a scourge on our society. If you work hard, make wise decisions and manage to become one of them, you will become evil as well.

Can we protect countries that like us and want our aid? No we can’t. It might make the countries that don’t like us not like us.

Can we stand in solidarity with people who are oppressed by their government and offer them our moral support if nothing else? No we can’t. We want their brutal leaders to like us.

Can we support a country which seeks to prevent the destruction of its constitution? No we can’t. Instead we must apply pressure on the government to reinstall a wannabe dictator who wishes to shred the constitution with an illegal and fraudulent election.

Can we support a Nobel Peace Prize winner whose country has been conquered and oppressed? No we can’t? We need to make that oppressive country like us, and not do anything that might make them uncomfortable.

Can we drive the car we want to? No we can’t? The government needs to tell us which cars to use. The best are the small ones that crumple up like tin cans if you hit a pothole too hard. Some of you may die, but that is a risk I’m willing to take.

Can we read and debate legislation that will cause massive deficits, or major overhauls to our economy and health care? No we can’t. We must trust that the powers that be know what they are doing even though they don’t even really know what is in the legislation.

Can we speak up when we feel that we are being deceived and lied to with almost every word? No we can’t. It would be uncivil to tell someone he is lying while he is telling you that you are lying.

Can we win in Iraq? No we can’t! Oh wait…

Can we win in Afghanistan? No we can’t. We need to pull out and let them handle their own affairs. I am sure that terrorists who are fighting us while we are there will stop fighting us once we leave. I mean, they weren’t fighting us before we showed up. Besides who cares about the people in that country who will be oppressed by the Taliban once we leave. Acid splashed in the face, beatings and public executions aren’t really that bad.

Can we stop Iran and North Korea from getting nuclear weapons and the systems to deliver them? No we can’t. Besides why should we? They are ruled by nice, kind-hearted governments who really care for their people and international harmony.

Can we let the private sector create jobs? No we can’t. After all that isn’t how we became the strongest military and economic force in the world. We got that way after 200+ years of intense government direction of all aspects of the economy.

Can we lower taxes to encourage economic growth? No we can’t. When has that ever worked?

Can we let banks make lending decisions based on the ability of the borrower to repay?  No we can’t. The banks might not make those risky loans. What harm could come from a large volume of loans that cannot be repaid?

Can we buy the TV that we want? Can we use the light bulbs we want? No we can’t. The world is melting.

President Obama loves to say that he is willing to listen to opposition ideas, but then follows such statements with some variation of the idea that he won’t listen to the ideas that created the mess in which we now find ourselves. If you want to help clean up the mess you made, grab a mop. Don’t tell me how to use it. I don’t want those who created the mess telling me how to clean it up. Opposing ideas are dismissed without even the most cursory glance at their merits.

I would like to know which policies exactly are to blame. Even if every single thing that was done by President Bush was wrong can we at least have a list of those policies so we can distinguish between them and opposition ideas which were never implemented. 

It may come as a surprise to the general population, but Republicans didn’t get to do everything they would have liked to during the Bush Presidency. Many of their policies were never tried. The Democrats had control of the House and Senate for two years, and shared control of the Senate for an additional year. Throughout the entire Bush Presidency, the Democrats in the Senate had enough members to mount filibusters to stop any legislation they wanted to stop.

So, before the President dismisses an idea as one that was tried and which failed, can we at least determine whether or not it was actually tried?

That is only the first step though. If the policy the president wishes to dismiss was tried, it does not follow that it was responsible the current mess. A great football team with a great game plan can still lose thanks to a couple of turnovers. Flawed execution of a great plan causes a loss. Should the plan be scrapped, or should the effort be to improve execution.

Even if a plan was actually followed, and it was executed to perfection, it still may not be the cause of a failure. Perhaps outside factors caused the problem. Let me return to football. If a team scores 50 points and loses, the problem probably isn’t the offense. Perhaps the defense needs a bit of work. An offense can score a touchdown on every possession and still lose, if the defense and special teams perform poorly enough.

What specific ideas are the proven failures? Was it tax cuts? I’ve never heard the president explain how tax cuts caused the recession. If he thinks they did cause the recession he should have raised taxes as one of his first priorities.   Instead, the significant tax increases seem to be on hold until the economy is on a better footing.

Was it deficit spending? The president surely can’t think that was the problem given the fact that he thinks that deficit spending is the cure.

Was it a flawed health care system? Other nations with the sort of healthcare he advances suffered from the world wide downturn as well. And how exactly are the housing bubble, and related securities problems connected to health care? I am still waiting for the in depth analysis that shows health care is a root cause of the economic troubles of the past year.

It would be nice if the President would present arguments against specific ideas and proposals. He should explain how “bad” ideas were actual causes of the problems. He should be sure that those ideas were actually implemented and implemented well. He should describe how those ideas truly caused the problem showing that they weren’t just great ideas surrounded by unrelated flawed policies that doomed them to failure. Even once he has established all of this, he should listen to the counterpoints made by the other side. Perhaps they have an explanation he has missed. He should, but he won’t. He isn’t interested in truth, or prudent, reasoned analysis. He is simply interested in pushing his own ideas, and ignoring others.

Joe Wilson was right. The president does lie. He has no intention of listening to what the opposition says. He wants them to agree without question. He has no interest in understanding and examining their ideas.